Magic Hour

Jordan Weitzman sits down with photographer Allen Frame at his home and talk about everything from his early days in Boston with Nan Goldin and David Armstrong, to where his sense of space in his photographs comes from. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I remember the first time I met Patrice Aphrodite Helmar. It was around this time in 2017, and a friend asked if I wanted to go and check out the Backyard Biennial that she was putting on at her place in Ridgewood. A self-initiated curatorial effort, she showcased the work of emerging and established photographers alike. There was food and drinks, a slideshow going, and prints untraditionally arra...

Matt Grubb is sitting in his car in the parking lot outside his favourite movie theatre in Queens, sipping a Diet Coke. As we're coordinating a time to meet for this interview, he tells me that he’s about to go see the new Avengers movie for the third time. It had just come out two weeks ago….I’m amazed and laughing to myself just thinking how much i love that compulsion. I think that same kind of...

In 2010, with a feeling that the traditional publishing industry was not going to last, Bruno Ceschel founded Self Publish Be Happy, an initiative to support and promote the work of emerging photographers. Originally, it functioned as a platform for artists making DIY Books and Zines, but eventually would become more expansive, getting involved in educational activities, the curation of exhibition...

I went to go visit Paul Mpagi Sepuya on a cool day this past winter at his studio in the Boyle Heights area of LA. In one room, test prints, book mockups His desk and a big printer filled the space. In the other, a Russian plywood bench, a big mirror on the wall, a velvet curtain hanging and a camera on a tripod. He suggested we do the interview in that room, the set where many of his photos have...

It seems to me like the more dramatic the subject matter a photographer takes on, the more difficult their job becomes. When what is in front of the camera has so much visual appeal already, how do you make pictures that are more interesting than the event? Jeff Burton’s pictures are such a great example of how brilliantly someone has dealt with that problem. His work, much of which was made on ga...

Jo Ann Callis’ photographs have such an uncanny strangeness to them. They often feel like they could be stills out of a David Lynch film, but she was making them long before Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive came to be. She was born in Cincinnati and pursued her interest in art at Ohio State University, though her eduction was interrupted by marriage, moving our to LA and having kids. These challen...

There is so much soul in Mark McKnight's dark, complex, psychological photographs, whether he's photographing the bodies of men he’s attracted to, still lives or landscapes, all which have a distinct relationship to one another. Just last week, Mark was awarded the very prestigious Aperture Portfolio Prize . I encourage you to go and read Brendan Embser’s write-up on Aperture’s site because he rea...

I first heard of Marcelo Yanez through a mutual friend, Bryson Rand, when he took out this tabloid format publication called Newspaper to show me. In Bryson’s usual humility, he didn’t even mention the photo of his that graced the cover, but Instead, wanted to show me other work inside that he was excited about, and especially about who put this all together. At 19 years old, Marcelo Yanez took on...

I got to Susan Meiselas’ Mott street studio a few minutes early and one of her assistants let me in to set up my gear. As I was waiting for her to arrive, I was leafing through a worn out first edition of Carnival Strippers, thinking to myself nervously, in that bout of anxiety before an interview - what are we going to even talk about that she’s gonna find interesting? The door clicked open she f...

In the past two years, Mary Frey put out two new books - Reading Raymond Carver and Real Life Dramas . The first is made up of black and white work and the other, all color. Both bodies of work are in and around 35 years old and these were Frey’s first major publications of them. It wasn’t exactly as if she was unknown until now though. In fact, almost the inverse. She’s been a cult hero in photog...

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think I first came across Jack Woody’s name after buying a Duane Michals called Album years ago. I remember thinking that it was so elegant, so beautifully printed and layed out, that I was curious who was behind it. I remember mentioning that book the first time I met Duane, and he told me that there was this hotel in San Francisco who bought the book and cut out and framed the prints they were...

Last month, I went to visit Farah Al Qasimi at her home and studio in Williamsburg. After talking with her, I thought about her space and how both her studio and her living area represented different parts of her in a way. Both very smart, both refined, but in different ways - the living space had an elegance and a lightness to it, while the studio had a sense of humour and playfulness. I took it...

In 1972, more than a decade after I had taken up photography in earnest, I returned to Hyde Park to visit with Hugh Edwards. By then Edwards had retired from his position as Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago and was teaching a night course in the history of photography at the School of the Art Institute. Because Hugh Edwards did not like to be photographed, t...

Danny Lyon is a living legend in photography. Born in 1942 to a Russian-Jewish mother and German-Jewish father, he grew up in Kew Gardens, Queens and went on to study history and philosophy at the University of Chicago. Beginning in the early 1960’s while in his early twenties, he was drawn to the civil rights movement in the south which he immersed himself in and documented. He became lifelong fr...

A friend recently told me that John Edmonds pictures of african American men in Do-Rags were the first photo's that had the power to completely change his perception. It reminded me of something which Dorothea Lange said, which was, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” One can speak of Edmonds depictions of queer black masculinity in terms of their content...

It was a true honour to meet with Rosalind Fox Solomon, just a few days shy of her 88th birthday. It’s often noted how she came to photography later than most when she was close to 40, but i couldn’t help think more about how long she’s kept it up for. How long she’s stuck with it. In her 80’s, she has has continued to make photographs, and strong ones at that.  When we met, she served black...

For the past little while, Atlanta based artist Erin Jane Nelson has been travelling to barrier islands, monuments and sites relating to climate change to make photographs. Her pictures, though, serve as her starting points to what become elements in her mixed media work. Its most recent incarnation is in both ceramic and tapestry, which is being shown at the Whitney this month in a group sho...

In this episode, Jordan Weitzman sits down with Gus Powell at his studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Powell is the author of two monographs, The Company of Strangers (J&L Books) and The Lonely Ones (J&L Books), and is currently at work on his third, Family Car Trouble . His work has been exhibited internationally at The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of the City of New York, The Museu...

Jordan Weitzman goes behind the scenes with Siobhán Bohnacker, senior photo editor at the New Yorker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"How do you make a good portrait of someone?" Jordan Weitzman asks Elle Perez. "You love them." Listen to their conversation to hear about their work as a photographer and educator. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ian Lewandowski gets together with Jordan Weitzman in Montreal to talk about his work steeped portraiture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Celebrated author, critic and photographer talks to Jordan Weitzman about his work as a critic, writing On Photogrpahy for the New York Times, and his new book of photos and Text, Blind Spot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan Weitzman visits Mark Steinmetz at his home in Athens, Georgia to talk about his work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.