Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton

Here's an introduction and a short clip from PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, a new show that I am producing for Sasha about some of the more existential questions that artists think about but don't always talk about. Subscribe to it on your favorite podcast service or listen to it at photowork.podbean.com.

"You really have to understand the times we live in and…the things that you push against are the things that make you who you are." Martin Bough is a photographer, a teacher, and a Jazz musician. He has been photographing since 1962 but that is not where this story begins. Martin is 92 years old and he was already an accomplished saxophone player and a highly skilled printing press operator before...

"I can't take that (art) with me when I am gone, but I can certainly pass the message and leave behind how important art is as a tool to get better from trauma in life and just move forward." Tamara Torres is an Afro-Latina feminist artist and community activist based in Trenton, NJ. Tamara and I were going to record last year when her work was in the JKC Gallery, but she had to jet off to two mor...

"I can tell you stories upon stories about endless amounts of people who have come through from Roy DeCarava, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Frank, Larry Clark…all the icons of the fine art photo community…everybody…Helen Levitt and Mary Ellen Mark. Just amazing artists…my father's been in it from the beginning." Ross Kasovitz grew up around some of the most well known photographers and artists for all of...

"My grandmother's family were all incarcerated at Minidoka, one of the WWII Japanese-American camps, and I just felt like there were few communities that stood up for them at that time and with the privilege that I have now, with being fourth generation American, I certainly can speak out on those issues that were pivotal to my own family." Emily Hanako Momohara was part of a panel talk at this ye...

"There is suddenly, in some ways, a whole new branch, a whole new subject for photography…How will notions of isolation, loneliness, communication…be addressed photographically and are those photographic subjects? " Roula Seikaly and I recorded at the SPE Conference in Houston just before everything began to be cancelled and public places were shut down. I called Roula to start the show because of...

"I say that as a person who shifted from being an artist/activist to someone who has really taken the activism part of my practice and my life and put it front and center." John Freyer is an artist, activist, and Professor of Cross Disciplinary Media at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts. We met up at the Society of Photographic Education conference in Houston shortly after his pa...

Matthew Leifheit | Ocean Meets the Bay "I think people are increasingly asked to choose many paths at once, so my professional practice class has been retitled, How to Become a Self-Cleaning Oven. " Matt Leifheit is a photographer, magazine editor, book editor, and publisher. He is the founder of Matte Editions which produces Matte Magazine and a growing number photo books, including Slow Morpheus...

"When I would come up from Virginia I would go there and I would take pictures and I would be like, okay if I take a picture then he'll live until next time." Paolo Morales and I met to record at SVA during his short break from teaching at Hollins University in Roanoke Virginia. We talk about what it has been like for a New York City kid to relocate to Virginia to keep working and talk about his m...

"I saw the sun coming over the east, over the landscape and the farmlands and I saw this hot air balloon that was coming up, this bright red…extremely saturated red hot air balloon…and behind it was sun lighting it up from behind…I looked over at my dad and he just kept driving… " John Sanderson is a large format film photographer based in New York City. He is probably best known for his portrait-...

"Photography has been a really healing practice for me and a spiritual practice in terms of just going out and making work." Andrew Cenci is a photographer based in Louisville Kentucky. He was visiting New York last year to see the Winogrand show. Andrew works full time in marketing but he has immersed himself in and has become part of the photo community of Louisville. He is mostly self-taught an...

"I think we are going to need these pictures in 10 years because everybody's talking about what happened in Egypt, but no one is talking to us about what happened to us after we were kicked out of our own country." Amr Alfiky is an Egyptian award-winning documentary photographer and filmmaker based in New York City. He was studying medicine when the Egyptian revolution began. Working as a medic du...

"That's the pleasure of photography, it's really just kind of daydreaming with these borders around the world and what's in and what's out." Mark Steinmetz was in town to talk about his new book Carnival, published by Stanley/Barker. In-between a talk at The Bronx Documentary Center, another one at The Penumbra Foundation, and a book signing at Dashwood Books, Mark sat down with Anna Roma and I in...

"I do think it's really important to help people out with as much information sharing as possible, especially when you get to a certain point in your career and you have information to share." Sasha Wolf is a curator, editor, art dealer, and most recently, the creator and editor of PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice. Sasha is also one of the most generous people in the photo wo...

"I looked at these images and I thought, what's this about? I had very faint memories about it and so in order to sort of fill in the gaps, I wrote to people and asked them what they remembered about evacuating Beirut…I thought how am I going to make sense of this, what am I going to do with this text…" Madeline Djerejian is a fascinating artist whose work brings together photography, literature,...

"I had to mature to a place where I was interested in the stories…It's not just about pretty photographs…I think you need to come to a point where you have a genuine interest in what you are photographing and the stories you are trying to tell and that takes time." Matthew Abbott is a documentary photographer based in Australia. He covers social and political issues around the world but, most rece...

"I think it's wonderland, It's a positive little bit melancholy land located nowhere. It's not political or psychological, it's more about some far, far away world in which you don't have the keys to open it easily." Ajuan Song and Kuzma Vostrikov stopped by SVA to talk about their series "Absolutely Augmented Reality." It is a continually evolving series of portraits and multimedia work that expl...

Liz Zito | Mueller Report Fan Fiction "I felt the way to share it with adding the redactions in, it gives you at least a beat to laugh and to kind of take a break and also think about the absurdity…of the political world that we are living in." Liz Zito is a multimedia artist and the Coordinator of Curriculum & Special Projects at the School of Visual Arts MFA Photo, Video, and Related Media....

Friend and former co-host Kai McBride calls in from New Mexico to talk about the big changes in his life and to help celebrate the 100th episode of the show. Kai was the manager of the photo facilities and taught photography at Columbia University. His move is related to the passing of his father and we talk about the adjustments he is making with work, planning his future, developing a new commun...

"My work is very much about physical places and landscapes but it's' maybe more about communities and social markers that you can see in landscapes. So I was like, what's something social or community related that you could put in one of those capsules?" Ann Lepore is a multimedia artist in the in the most expansive definition of that term. She has made everything from lithographs to holograms, 3D...

"Rodeo is sort of this universal expression of rural culture and everybody owns it…Native Americans own it, Mexicans own it, Black folks own it, White people own it…these are American Cowboys." Ivan McClellan grew up with adversity both from outside his family and inside his family. He speaks openly about the trauma and the healing in his life, and the choices he made that took him from acting, to...

"I wasn't really a big fan of government when I was working as a freelancer, I was very skeptical, but when I stepped in I saw the incredible amount of work…and it was insane, and it was overwhelming…these people are doing so much work and sacrificing everything." Edwin Torres is the Deputy Digital Director for Governor Murphy's Office in New Jersey. Before that he was a staff photographer for New...

"Our job is to keep making work that speaks both to the conflicts as they unfold and also what they are going to mean…our job is to hold our political and military leaders accountable for the decisions they make and the people they affect." Victor Blue is a documentary photographer interested in the aftermath of conflict. He believes it is not enough to just cover the conflict, but that we also ne...

MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media, in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio, presents the final program in the Scheimpflug Lecture Series of the spring 2019 semester entitled The Culture of Community: A Latinx Photo Symposium. This episode is from a recording of the Latinx Photo Symposium event. The Real Photo Show was part of the early planning for the show. The show was organized by Liz...

"I think that the early interest in infrastructure came from riding the subway to high school everyday and standing in the front car with my friends and watching the tunnel." Stanley Greenberg stopped by to talk about his new book CODEX NEW YORK - TYPOLOGIES OF THE CITY. It's a fascinating view of New York City organized by infrastructure, topography, carved out spaces, and architectural history....