Photography has long been used as a tool to explore and analyze history, but in the hands of an artist, that same tool is not asked to be exacting or accurate to the historical record. If anything, artists challenge this idea of photography as fact. And for this reason, it is such a pleasure to welcome artist and photographer Barbara Mensch to the B&H Photography Podcast. Mensch has created a book of history by using photographs she took as an artist.
Having lived in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge for many years, she photographed the bridge in varied light and perspective, but not until she ventured onto the bridge itself did she become interested in using her photographic story as the anchor for a researched and nuanced study of the three principle creators of the Brooklyn Bridge. The book, In the Shadow of Genius: The Brooklyn Bridge and Its Creators, is the successful result of her work, and we talk with Mensch about re-evaluating older work, the endurance needed to complete a long project, the ability of photography to tell stories, and about square format and Hasselblad.
In the second half of the program, we take up Mensch’s current book project, which also re-addresses earlier work, in this case from her wonderful series on the workers of the South Street Seaport or, as it was then called, the “waterfront.” Here we discuss the intrapersonal skills needed to photograph in authentic, yet potentially dangerous situations, the creative and youthful zeal that fuels such projects, and even about Bergger photography paper. Join us for this engaging conversation.
Guest: Barbara Mensch
Photograph © Barbara Mensch
My Client Was Democracy – Photographing City Halls, with Arthur Drooker
Connection and Purpose – The Photography of Cheriss May
Light Hunters – Art About the Street with Clarissa Bonet and Nina Welch Kling
NFTs and Photography
Beautiful Exemptions - The Work of Mona Kuhn
Discussing the L-Mount Alliance with Sigma, Leica, and Panasonic
Photography at the Border, with Greg Constantine and Monica Lozano
A Well-Conceived Design: Hands-On with the Leica Q2 and Q2 Monochrom
Speaking in Dialect: How-to Books and the History of Popular Photography, with Kim Beil
Photomicrography of Gems, with Nathan Renfro
Todd Webb in Africa—Rediscovered Color Photographs
Waltz with Fate—Photographer Misan Harriman
New Gear Roundup, Spring 2021
Norman Reedus—Art Is as Art Does (Encore Presentation)
Silent Collaboration—Gulnara Samoilova and “Women Street Photographers”
Food Photography and Still Life, with Emma Ressel
What Life Is Like – Documentary Photography, with Stella Johnson
The Secret Ingredient in Wedding Photography, with Kesha Lambert
The Ninja—Concert Photography, with Christie Goodwin
Mirrorless System Advantages for Bird Photography
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Immaterial: 5,000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time
The Art Angle
The Beginner Photography Podcast
A Tale of Two Cities
Gulliver’s Travels
A brush with...
The Week in Art