A photographer’s success hinges on access. This is an underlying thread in the tapestry woven in this week’s show. Our discussion covers multiple facets and cultural attributes of Indian society, as seen through the eyes of a photographer with a knack for being in the right place at the right time. In this month’s episode of the series, Picturing World Cultures, we speak with Indian photographer Pablo Bartholomew about his long career as a documentarian and photojournalist. From his early...

Most people’s perception of prison life revolves around sensationalized news stories and Hollywood movies depicting drab, inhospitable environments far outside our reach. In today’s show, we’re challenging that view in a chat with two educators who use photography as a framework for teaching visual literacy and the art of storytelling to incarcerated men. Cameras, computers, and sometimes even books, are prohibited from classrooms inside lock up, which forced our guests to come up with...

Documenting a culture can be a daunting process, especially when it involves a history of conquest and colonialism. Synthesizing such a complex and traumatic past in a contemporary narrative is a formidable task, requiring extensive researchh and dedicated planning. This is the back story to today’s podcast. Above photograph © Juan Brenner For the seventh chapter in our monthly series, Picturing World Cultures, we speak with Guatemalan photographer Juan Brenner about his recent projects...

Julia Blaukopf is not afraid to think big, particularly when it comes to her photographs. She’s also not afraid of blurring the lines between fine art and commercial enterprise. Equal parts photographer, designer, visual artist, and entrepreneur, Julia is the founder of Fotografica—an arts-products venture with the goal of re-envisioning options for photography and photo-based products. Top shot © Julia Blaukopf In this week’s podcast, Julia leads us along her inspiring path—from her...

How much do you know about New York City’s 1982 Loft Law, which established a process for artists to obtain legal occupancy of the raw industrial spaces they inhabited, while also providing rent stabilization and protection from future eviction? Or the pigeon fanciers who were once a fixture across the rooftops of Brooklyn and remain valued as neighborhood sentinels? If these poetic vestiges from Gotham’s storied past have you dreaming about the good old days, then you won’t want to miss...

The dictionary defines culture as “the way of life for an entire society.” But sometimes larger forces create rifts within the whole, inevitably leading to a confrontation between factions. A prime example of this cultural struggle is playing out today within the cities and villages of Ukraine, the focus of today’s episode. Above photograph © Maxim Dondyuk In this sixth installment of our monthly series, Picturing World Cultures, we speak with Ukrainian photographer and visual artist...

For anyone familiar with the photo industry, the mammoth lawsuit between The Andy Warhol Foundation and renowned music photographer Lynn Goldsmith should be no secret. This complex battle over the rights to her 1981 portrait of the artist formerly known as Prince lasted seven years and went all the way to the Supreme Court.   But do you know the circumstances behind her original portrait session with the famously reserved musician, and were you aware of all the misinformation about this...

 Professional tree planting is back breaking piecework—a combination of high intensity sport and industrial labor that requires both technical finesse and remarkable physical and mental endurance. Using techniques more often associated with high-performance athletes, experienced planters (commonly known as high-ballers) leap up and down through uneven and debris-strewn terrain, armed only with a shovel and 30-kg bags of seedlings on their backs. In recent years, tree planting has become a...

Cozy up to a ringside seat for a behind-the-scenes tour of the wildest shows in sports entertainment, during our insightful chat about the still photos produced for World Wrestling Entertainment, (otherwise known as WWE). In 2023 alone, the WWE photo team traveled the globe, covering close to 170 live events, and producing 2.6 million stills to serve the organization’s various platforms. You might—incorrectly—assume that WWE’s still images are generated from video screengrabs. Well, this...

Where will you be on April 8, 2024? If you don’t already know, you’d better figure it out fast, particularly if you’ve got an interest in observing—and ideally photographing—the awe-inspiring phenomenon of a total solar eclipse.   To get you up to speed on essential eclipse details, tune in to our chat with science writer Rebecca Boyle and Gabriel Biderman from B&H’s Road Marketing team. Boyle shares tidbits about Earth’s silvery sister gleaned from research for her book Our Moon, while...

There are many different ways to look at culture, and today we take a geographic approach, to distinguish people who live in rural mountain and hilly settings from those of the wider plains and urban areas.   Our focus is the country of Romania, where we’ll explore the rustic landscape of small farms, hand tilled fields, and local communities that still identify with the working methods and traditions of the past. Along the way, we’ll follow the cyclical work of farmers and shepherds, gain...

How much can you edit a photo before it stops becoming true? That’s the question CNET tech reporter Stephen Shankland recently asked in the opening lines of his story, How Close is that Photo to the Truth: What to Know in the Age of AI.   The article, which examines digital photography and advanced smartphone image processing in the era of AI, reaches beyond the polarizing visual minefield of generative AI by delving into aspects of this technologythat’s been quietly pre-baked into most...

How did a space-age invention become ubiquitous in today’s digital imaging landscape? Learn all about it here in our latest podcast, featuring pioneers of photography and digital imaging.   In 1993, noted physicist and engineer Eric Fossum led the invention of the CMOS active-pixel image sensor as part of his work for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Then, as part of JPL’s mandate to seek commercial and consumer applications for emerging technologies, he was active in the transfer...

While Joshua Irwandi was born and raised in Indonesia, the early pictures he made during his first visit to the region of Asmat, in the province of West Papua, were less than satisfying to him. Yet his fascination with the people and the place stuck, inspiring him to embark on the long-term project Not a Blank Canvas. In this third installment of our monthly series, Picturing World Cultures, we speak with Irwandi about his experiences documenting the people and landscape of Asmat, which...

Press photographers have faced tough workplace challenges for quite some time. Yet, according to recent headlines, their job is about to get even tougher, due to current plans by many law enforcement agencies—particularly the NYPD—to encrypt radio calls, making live transmissions of breaking news inaccessible to common citizens and members of the press.  Besides being a devastating blow to meddling old biddies and law enforcement buffs, this change has huge implications for photojournalists...

Kiana Hayeri was born in Iran, and this was where she launched her career as a photojournalist and visual storyteller. Yet after traveling to Afghanistan for a 2014 assignment, she decided to relocate, spending the next eight years covering both the frontlines of conflict and everyday lives of the Afghan people. In this second installment of our monthly series, Picturing World Cultures, we speak with Hayeri about her experiences living and working in a region mired in cultural upheaval,...

2023 has certainly come and gone in a flash, meaning it’s time once again for us to reflect on new photo offerings in our ninth annual Cameras of the Year episode, now renamed Photo Gear of the Year. We’ll be talking with B&H Camera and Lighting Senior Sales Trainer Kevin Rickert. Featured in our discussion are 25 new releases from Canon, FUJIFILM, Leica, Nikon, Panasonic, Ricoh Pentax, Polaroid, and Sony. In addition to insights about each camera on our list, we also examine...

It’s likely that everyone reading this has used, or at the very least heard of Adobe’s ubiquitous piece of software called Photoshop. But are you familiar with the very first—and perhaps the most eccentric—of the evangelists working behind that magic curtain?   Well, you’re about to meet him today, in our latest podcast featuring pioneers of photography and imaging. As Adobe employee number 38, graphic designer Russell Preston Brown was in the room when brothers Thomas and John...

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.” – Robert Frank Australian photographer Wayne Quilliam used to consider his camera as a tool, but today it’s become his “companion.” This is just one of the inspiring takeaways from our chat for the new monthly podcast series, “Picturing World Cultures.” Listen in as Quilliam describes his journey—from growing up on the island state of Tasmania knowing little about his indigenous roots, to gaining a fascination with culture while traveling...

Lee Miller may have been best known in life as a beautiful muse of the legendary Surrealist Man Ray yet, shortly after her passing, a lucky accident led her family to an attic treasure trove, which made her a photography legend in her own right. During this week’s podcast, we unpack the details of this extraordinary tale, and hear many other anecdotes from Miller’s adventurous life, in a chat with her son and biographer, Antony Penrose. From her swift ascent as a ’20s-era Vogue fashion...

This episode of the B&H Photography Podcast was originally released on November 10, 2017. We revisit it today in honor of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary, and the holiday of Thanksgiving.  With great thanks to Vikki Tobak and the Contact High Project, we welcome three photographers to our studio who are responsible for some of the most iconic images from the history of hip-hop. Janette Beckman, Eric Johnson, and Danny Hastings join us to tell the stories behind their photos of RUN-DMC, Wu...

1950s America proved fertile ground for photographers Robert Frank and Todd Webb, who both received Guggenheim Foundation grants to traverse the country in 1955 and record their respective visions. While Frank’s resulting book, The Americans, eventually made him a legend, Webb’s photographs remained unpublished, and were all but lost to history due to a 1970s-era business deal gone bad. The saga of Webb’s unaccounted-for archive and its eventual recovery is one of the juicier tidbits from...

B&H recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary, hosting a spectacular two-day celebration for the creator community, Bild Expo 2023, at New York’s Jacob Javits Center. The podcast’s past three episodes have featured in-depth interviews with a few of the esteemed speakers gracing Bild’s four presenter stages. If you haven’t already done so, please give them a listen, and then—hold on to your hats—in this episode we’re trying something different! To prepare for some fun during the show, we...