Interviews

If you have an hour to spare, here's a fantastic interview you should listen to. It's a Talks at Google event featuring renowned photographer Rick Smolan, who has shot for TIME, LIFE, and National Geographic. He's also one of the bestselling coffee table photo book photographers of all time.

Geoffrey Berliner is the Executive Director of the Penumbra Foundation, a non-profit photo arts organization in New York City. He has also been an avid collector of historical camera lenses for 15 years. Pop Photo recently paid a visit to the basement where Berliner stores his massive collection of rare glass. In the video above, Berliner briefly talks about his passion and offers us a glimpse into his unique stash.

Here's a short video in which National Geographic documentary photographer Wayne Lawrence talks about his recent project of documenting the city of Detroit.

A couple of months ago, we shared an interview with the photographer known as Weegee that was released in the 1958 vinyl record titled "Famous Photographers Tell How." On that same record is an interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson in which the legendary photojournalist shares his thoughts on what photography is, the way he approaches it, and various opinions on theory and technique.

Jill Greenberg is a commercial and fine art photographer who is famous worldwide for her daring and original portraits of people and animals. Her new series Paintings is currently being exhibited at the Clampart Gallery in New York City. I had a chance to ask Jill about her photographic beginnings and where her journey in photography is going.

Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen spent seven years journeying through the former Soviet Union and documenting the lives of the people there. Along the way, he met scrap metal scavengers who search the landscape for fallen rockets in order to sell the materials. One of his photos of these people became one of Bendiksen's most famous works.

Nick Marsh has been a forensic photographer for over two decades over the UK, and he offers his forensic imaging consulting services to the London MET police. He has even written a book about the subject, titled "Forensic Photography: A Practitioner's Guide."

Photographer and filmmaker Matt Mangham has launched "Analog: Stories of Film Photography," a series of short videos that explore the current state of film photography. "Ever since getting into film photography, I've been so passionate about learning from others using film in one way or another," he writes. "It's a dying medium and yet in a lot of ways a thriving one." …

The two "Final Four" basketball games of the 2015 men's NCAA basketball tournament were held yesterday. One of the photographers sitting on the sideline was 82-year-old Rich Clarkson, a man who has been photographing the tournament for 60 straight years. The video above is a 5-minute segment CBS recently aired that looks into Clarkson's life and work as he "hangs up his camera" after this year's tournament.

Here's an interview by Advancing Your Photography's Marc Silber, who sat down for a short conversation with photographer David Hobby of Strobist back in 2011. In the 4-minute video above, Hobby offers some thoughts about photographic lighting and talks about some of his most memorable experiences in lighting portrait subjects.

Photographer Robert Caplin of The Photo Brigade recently visited the White House and sat down with Pete Souza, President Obama's official White House photographer. The 50-minute interview, which can be viewed above, is a fascinating look into the life, work, and mind of the man who serves as the public's eye into the White House.

Retouching gets a bad rap these days due to the way it can distort truth and cause unrealistic expectations of human beauty, but retoucher Becci Manson is working to change that. The 12-minute profile above offers a look at how Manson works and how she is trying to make a difference, both in the retouching industry and outside the creative world.

50 years ago, civil rights photographer Matt Herron documented the Selma to Montgomery marches that highlighted racial injustices in the American South and helped to pass the Voting Rights Act that year. He ended up capturing one of the iconic photographs of the marches that remains recognizable to this day.

As New York City prepares to digitize and publish thousands of historical crime scene photos captured by photo unit police officers, here's a look at the subject from the photojournalist's point of view.

Here's a short 10-minute profile by The Learning Connexion on photographer Peter Black, a man who has been documenting the streets of New Zealand for the past 40 years. He's known for the simple way in which he documents commonplace scenes. "I'm trying to document New Zealand," he says.

PBS series Art in the 21st Century recently released this 6-minute look at the work of photographer Trevor Paglen, a guy who points his camera through astronomy telescopes at secret military sites to photography things that are off limits to the public. As we shared back in 2012, Paglen calls his imagery "Limit Telephotography."

Arne Svenson is a well-known fine art photographer who is currently represented by the Julie Saul Gallery in New York. For his last exhibition, Arne experienced quite a controversy recently when he was sued by one of his subjects for his series The Neighbors, after they learned that he photographed them without their knowledge with a telephoto lens from his apartment.

Alison Zavos of Feature Shoot recently had the opportunity to sit down with renowned portrait photographer Martin Schoeller to pick his brain. What resulted was this fantastic interview in which Schoeller shares his own journey in the photography industry and advice for aspiring photographers from the things he has learned and experienced.

Conflict photographer Lynsey Addario has gotten quite a bit of attention lately after publishing a memoir about her life and work. The book has since made it onto the New York Times bestseller list and will be made into a major film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jennifer Lawrence as Addario.

Italian video production team Moviechrome recently filmed this short interview with renowned American documentary photographer Elliott Erwitt at his studio overlooking Central Park in New York City.

Dana Keller has made a name for himself as a talented photo colorizer, using his Photoshop skills to offer an idea of what historical black-and-white photos might have looked like had the photographer been able to shoot in color. The video above is a 6-minute look at how Keller approaches the task of colorization.

Back in 2008, the team over at Advancing Your Photography were invited to an exclusive gallery tour of Annie Leibovitz's best photographs -- an event led by Leibovitz herself. Those in attendance were treated to the photographer sharing about her life and work, and the intersection of those two worlds.

70 years ago today, photographer Joe Rosenthal captured a photograph of six US soldiers raising a flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. That photo (shown above), became an instant iconic image -- these days we would say it "went viral" -- and was published in thousands of publications around the world.

Garry Winogrand was one of the most notable and prolific American street photographers of the 20th century. He is known for capturing a vast record of what American life was like during the decades following World War II; in addition to his published works, thousands of his undeveloped and unseen rolls of film were discovered when he passed away in 1984.

Siri Kaur is a conceptual fine art photographer who has been breaking some interesting ground and news with her fascinating series This Kind of Face. The unique series was recently exhibited at the Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles. I had a moment to talk to Siri about this work and other aspects of her career.

Lynsey Addario is a 41-year-old photojournalist who has taken her camera into virtually ever major theater of war in the 21st century. She has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo, Haiti, and Libya (she was one of the four NYTimes journalist kidnapped in Libya in 2011).

Erwin Olaf has been one of the top advertising and people photographers in the world for over twenty-five years. His current show Waiting: Selections from Erwin Olaf: Volume I & II is being exhibited at the Hasted Kraeutler Gallery in New York. While continuing to do innovative commercial work, he has increasingly become focused on his personal work. I had a recent opportunity to ask about his career and future artistic ambitions.

Martin Schoeller is a highly successful German portrait photographer who just finished a show called Portraits at the prestigious Hasted Kraeutler Art Gallery in New York City. I recently had the opportunity to gain some unique insights into his history and working process.

Here's a nice little 5-minute profile of a man named Armand Kohandani and his store, Denton Camera Exchange. It's the only camera retail outlet in Denton, Texas, a city of around 110,000 people and the 27th most populous city in Texas.

To mark the 60th anniversary of its M line of rangefinder cameras, Leica recently interviewed 10 well known photographers about their experience with the camera and their favorite photos captured with it.

Keegan Allen is an American actor who's best known for playing the character Toby Cavanaugh on the ABC Family TV show Pretty Little Liars. He's also a passionate photographer. Above is a 3-minute interview USA Today recently did with Allen about his interest and background. Allen "never goes anywhere without a Leica by his side," the paper says.

Here's a 4.5-minute profile of street photographer Travis Jensen, a man who documents life on the sidewalks of San Francisco. It's a look at how Jensen approaches his photography and people on the streets. (Warning: there's some strong language.)

Last month, we shared a popular video in which photojournalist Steve McCurry talked about the danger of focusing on your destination so much that you miss your journey. That clip was actually from a series of videos in which McCurry shares wisdom he has learned over the decades of traveling the world and hunting for photos that will be remembered.

Here's a nice dose of inspiration: above is a beautiful 16-minute mini-documentary that looks at the work of Sydney-based street photographer Markus Andersen. Titled "Belly of the Beast," the profile features Andersen talking about his thought process and love for film photography.

In late 2014, we reported that a gallery owner in Toronto named Stephen Bulger had purchased the entire collection of Vivian Maier negatives owned by Jeffrey Goldstein. The acquisition came at a time when legal challenges were threatening to derail the publication of Maier's now famous images.

Official White House photographer Pete Souza was recently interviewed by journalist Al Hunt for his "On the Story" program. In the 17-minute interview (shown above), Souza offers a glimpse into what his life is like on the front lines of world history.

Ryan Freeman has been creating a short film series called The Guild, which features interviews with some of the "creative minds of our time." The video above features photographer Jakob de Boer -- a guy who also tests prototypes for Leica and Adobe -- talking about his creative process and relationship to photography. "My advice to people is to walk softly but speak loudly with your art," he says.

Back in 2012, we wrote about a project called "Pixel Trade" by Australian photographer Shantanu Starick. The basic idea was simple but crazy: Starick wanted to travel through all seven continents on the globe without ever spending any currency. Instead, he would try to trade his services as a photographer to people willing to provide him with shelter, food, and transportation.

Check out this gorgeous short film in which NASA astronaut Don Pettit shares what it was like to photograph Earth from orbit in the International Space Station. During his time aboard the station, Pettit became one of the most prolific astronaut photographers in the history of space exploration -- one time he clogged up data transfers for three days with photos from a 30-minute shoot.

Here's a fascinating short video that offers a look into the workshop of Kenji Yamaguchi in the basement of National Geographic. He has worked there for 32 years after being sent by Nikon to train the original technician over 3 decades ago.

Editor's note: 500px cofounder Evgeny Tchebotarev recently made his second appearance on Reddit's IAmA community, asking members to ask him anything (his first one was five months ago). With Tchebotarev's permission, we're republishing the answers here along with some of his best personal shots.

The Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco recently shared this interview with photographer Nicholas Nixon about his well known project The Brown Sisters.

Marcus Lyon (b.1965) is a British artist. He studied Political Science at Leeds and Leadership at Harvard Business School. His began his career with Amnesty International, working on commissions concerning street children in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He has an international reputation as a conceptual landscape and portrait artist. His work is collected by many significant private and public institutions and exhibited globally by amongst others the Saatchi Gallery and the MAM Rio.

Adam Panczuk (1978) lives in Warsaw. In his work he travels to wherever he finds an interesting subject. He studied photography at the Multimedia Communication Department of Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan.

Ken Rosenthal received his MFA in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1993. His artwork is represented by Klompching Gallery, New York;  Etherton Gallery, Tucson; Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe; Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco. Rosenthal’s photographs are in many public and private collections internationally including The George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Art Institute of Chicago; National Portrait Gallery, London; …

Editor's Note: Part two of Rfotofolio's interview with San Francisco photographer Fred Lyon

Editor's note: In early February Rfotofolio had the pleasure of talking to photographer Fred Lyon. We are honored to share the first of two interviews with this photographic master.

Douglas Ljungkvist is a Brooklyn based fine art photographer originally from Sweden. His personal work explores vernacular beauty that is graphic, colorful, and quiet. Mood and atmosphere are important aspects to the work that often have subtexts of time, memory and identity. Formally, he is interested in the study of color, form, and space.

Frank Machalowski is an award-winning German photographer, who lives and work in Berlin. After studying economic studies in Berlin and applying himself to various trades he works today as a freelance photographer and artist.

How do you put a fresh spin on landmarks that have been photographed ad nauseam? Well, great composition and an understanding of light certainly helps, but if you're photographer Kaitlin Kelly, you also add infrared photography into the mix and take the photos to a whole new level.