Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton

Michael Chovan-Dalton
  • 5.0 (42)
  • Visual Arts
  • Updated Biweekly

Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton is a podcast about photographers and the related arts.

  1. Mark Woods, photographer and cinematographer, speaks about his love of the stand-alone image at the 2026 Chico Review.

    2d ago

    Mark Woods, photographer and cinematographer, speaks about his love of the stand-alone image at the 2026 Chico Review.

    2026 Chico Attendees Series Mark Woods, photographer and cinematographer, speaks about his love of the stand-alone image. Mark Woods is a fine art black & white still photographer and commercial cinematographer raised in a California family deeply rooted in photography and film. His father operated a portrait studio in Hollywood, while his grandfather famously purchased and released the film Reefer Madness. Growing up surrounded by cameras, film, and darkrooms would later shape Woods’ lifelong visual career. Woods discovered his passion for image-making while attending the University of California, Berkeley in 1968, where he studied Photo Ethnographic Anthropology. During his years at Berkeley, he became known for creating powerful street photography and formal documentary imagery. By the time he graduated in 1971, Woods had become the university’s preferred photographer for student activities, jazz festivals, and campus publications, often credited as Francis Woods. After returning to Hollywood, Woods worked extensively in both still photography and motion picture production. He opened a still photography studio at Columbia Studios, producing advertising imagery before transitioning fully into cinematography. Over the course of a 30-year career, he shot and directed more than 1,000 commercials and 25 feature films, earning multiple industry awards for his work. In addition to his commercial career, Woods taught advanced cinematography at several respected institutions, including California State University Northridge (CSUN), the American Film Institute (AFI), National University, and ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. In 2004, Woods returned to his roots in analog black & white photography, building a traditional darkroom and focusing more deeply on fine art still imagery. His photographic series include Berkeley 1968–1973, W/O & Later (Hollywood Behind The Scenes ’73–’79), Pasadena’s Arroyo landscapes, early Chinese structures at the Huntington Gardens, floral portraits, and other still life works. Working primarily with large format photography and traditional analog processes, Woods combines documentary realism with a strong pictorialist influence. His landscapes are created using natural light, while his still lifes are carefully illuminated using strobes, tungsten lighting, or available light depending on the subject and mood. Today, Mark Woods continues to explore timeless photographic methods while preserving moments of history, atmosphere, and human experience through both still photography and cinematography. https://www.markwoods.com https://stills-that-move.myshopify.com This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry. https://chicoreview.com https://www.charcoalworkshops.com

    19 min
  2. Photographer Michelle Arcila joins Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton to discuss photographing family and history.

    May 30

    Photographer Michelle Arcila joins Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton to discuss photographing family and history.

    Photographer Michelle Arcila joined me at the JKC Gallery to discuss the process of making incredibly personal work that involves family and trauma and who that work might be for. We also talk about photographing your family, especially your children, and how to find the balance between exploring a painful narrative in the work while protecting those you are photographing from your past experiences. https://www.michellearcila.net https://www.instagram.com/michelle.arcila/ Michelle Arcila is a Costa Rican/American photographer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2002 with a BFA in photography. Her work primarily focuses on family lore, motherhood, bicultural identity, and ancestral trauma. Her photographs have been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally; they also appear in a number of private collections. In 2012, after the birth of her first daughter, she took a hiatus from commercial work. During that time she was able to really start exploring how the work she was creating related to not only her experience of growing up in the United States as a first generation American; which came with the feeling of not feeling from here and not feeling from there (“No soy de aquí, no soy de allá.”) and how that sentiment played into her role as a mother and perhaps how all of this combined has affected her mental health struggles. She is the recipient of the Photowork 2025 Fellowship and was shortlisted for the PHMuseum 2025 Women’s Grant. She currently divides her time between the Hudson Valley and Brooklyn, NY, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at: https://charcoalbookclub.com

    1 hr
  3. Susan Weiss speaks about Hello Susan and Black Tulip at the 2026 Chico Review

    May 24

    Susan Weiss speaks about Hello Susan and Black Tulip at the 2026 Chico Review

    Susan Weiss speaks about Hello Susan and Black Tulip at the 2026 Chico Review https://www.susanweissart.com/portfolio-3 https://www.instagram.com/susanweissart/ Susan Weiss works in the visual arts in many mediums, including photography, film, painting and drawing. Her work explores the issues of personal identity and the psycho-social landscape. She also teaches drawing and student artist portfolio preparation both live and in zoom consultation. Susan's projects include the ongoing series Humanity in the Modern World, documenting humanitarian work in other countries, most recently the immigration story at the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border with a Washington D.C, based NGO. Her short documentary films explore the experiences of womanhood,  have played on the festival circuit and won many awards. THE ORCHARD, seasonal photographs of a Vermont apple orchard, tell the story of hope and faith during the years of the pandemic. Susan photographs with both digital and film cameras depending on the project, including Mamiya 7II, Leica M9P and Leica M10, Polaroid SX70 and 680,  Iphone 17 Pro Max, and plastic toy cameras. “Exploring and photographing the human condition is the major theme in my work. I attempt to connect with people and photograph their lives to document what makes them unique as individuals. The stories are personal but they become my stories as I photograph and interpret through the lens of my camera, and their lives become my art. It is this attraction to lives that are unique and with a sense of vulnerability that drives my work.” This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at: https://charcoalbookclub.com

    11 min
  4. Jordan Monloire speaks about Sweet Tarts and her reasons for coming to the Chico Review

    May 19

    Jordan Monloire speaks about Sweet Tarts and her reasons for coming to the Chico Review

    2026 Chico Attendees Series Jordan Monloire speaks about Sweet Tarts and her reasons for coming to the Chico Review Jordan Monloire is a photographer + book maker living in the pnw, usa. Presently doing time in the dark room and shooting only a fraction of sites worth seeing. She predominantly focuses on gonzo style black and white, post-documentative portraiture. The core of her practice is her "fruits basket"—the act of capturing the realities of her experience and maintaining the ability to collect and share. You’ll find most of her work in silver gelatin fibre prints, with periodic appearances inlaid in installations and handmade zines When I was 19 a man stopped me on a city bus in Seattle, he wound up gifting me my first analog camera. This exchange is what introduced me to making pictures. I currently live in Seattle Washington, working on my forthcoming book titled Sweet Tarts. https://jordanmonloire.com https://www.instagram.com/alphag3rl The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry. https://chicoreview.com https://www.charcoalworkshops.com _____ This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com

    15 min
  5. Photographer, educator, and writer Odette Elix England speaks about her book, Isn't X Beautiful (The Ice Plant) and The Long Shadow: Unwrapped ~ Marion Post Wolcott’s Labor and Love (Libraryman)

    May 5

    Photographer, educator, and writer Odette Elix England speaks about her book, Isn't X Beautiful (The Ice Plant) and The Long Shadow: Unwrapped ~ Marion Post Wolcott’s Labor and Love (Libraryman)

    Photographer, educator, and writer Odette Elix England speaks about her latest book, Isn't X Beautiful (The Ice Plant) as well as, The Long Shadow: Unwrapped ~ Marion Post Wolcott’s Labor and Love (Libraryman), and to be developed, to be continued (Tall Poppy Press). https://www.odetteengland.com https://theiceplant.cc/product/isnt-x-beautiful/ This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at: https://charcoalbookclub.com Odette Elix England is a photographer, writer, avid reader, and educator. A 2022 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, her artistic and research work explores the rituals of loving and leaving. She has exhibited her work in over 120 museums and galleries worldwide and has received grants and awards from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and Anonymous Was a Woman, among others. She has been nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award (twice) and the Prix Pictet. She has published six award-winning books. Her first photo novella, Isn’t X Beautiful!, is available for preorder here. She is currently working on her second novella, Once I Was A Photograph, and an experimental re-telling of Susan Sontag’s On Photography. Elix England received her Ph.D. in 2018. She now teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University.

    1 hr
  6. Pia-Paulina Guilmoth joins Michael Chovan-Dalton to talk about two of her books, Flowers Drink the River (Stanley/Barker) and Fishworm (Void)

    Apr 25

    Pia-Paulina Guilmoth joins Michael Chovan-Dalton to talk about two of her books, Flowers Drink the River (Stanley/Barker) and Fishworm (Void)

    Pia-Paulina Guilmoth joins Michael Chovan-Dalton to talk about two of her books, Flowers Drink the River (Stanley/Barker) and Fishworm (Void), Pia's collaboration with Jesse Bull Saffire, and how different the approach to these bodies of work were and also how Fishworm was a return to what Pia loved about photography when she started out. https://pguilmoth.com https://www.instagram.com/p_guilmoth/ https://charcoalbookclub.com/products/fishworm This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at: https://charcoalbookclub.com Pia Paulina Guilmoth was born in 1993 and lives in rural Maine. She makes work thinking about gender, ritual, class, dysphoria, euphoria, beauty, and relationships to the land. Pia uses large-format photography, sculpture, and collaged found ephemera gathered while wandering around the backroads. Guilmoth has published five monographs. Her third book titled Flowers Drink the River, which was released in November 2024, received the Jurors' Special Mention from Paris Photo / Aperture 2025 PhotoBook Awards. Her work is in the permanent collection of SF MoMA. Guilmoth has won a Google/Aperture Creator Labs grant and a Peter Reed Foundation grant in photography. In 2022 she was a MacDowell Fellow in Visual Arts.

    37 min
  7. Cengiz Yar on the destruction of the Iraqi city of Mosul and his first book, This Alabaster Grave

    Apr 13

    Cengiz Yar on the destruction of the Iraqi city of Mosul and his first book, This Alabaster Grave

    This Alabaster Grave is Cengiz Yar’s first monograph exploring the overwhelming destruction and pain faced by the Iraqi city of Mosul, within the context of its history and unique, now largely ruined, architecture. The book questions the cost of the fight against ISIS and global war on terror as told through the lives and city that bore the brunt of its destructive force. The photographs were made between 2015 and 2023 and fluctuate between reportage and moments of contemplation. The book includes a foreword from Azmat Khan, an essay by Campbell MacDiarmid, and a pullout map. It is designed by Jason Koxvold of Gnomic Book and written in both English and Arabic. Near the end of the show Michael also asks Cengiz about his time in Minnesota during the height of the ICE protests. https://www.cengizyar.com This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at: https://charcoalbookclub.com Cengiz is a documentary photographer and editor based in El Paso, Texas. Cengiz has worked in visual journalism for over a decade, from reporting in the field to building groundbreaking online packages. He is currently a visuals editor at ProPublica, where he edits, photographs, and art-directs stories across the site. His primary focus is visual coverage of projects in the Midwest, Southwest, and Texas. Before joining ProPublica, he edited for publications like Rest of World, Roads & Kingdoms, and the Guardian. As a photographer his work has primarily focused on human migration and the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. He is the inaugural recipient of the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a Dart Center Ochberg Fellow in Journalism and Trauma. His photography clients include Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, WIRED, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Instagram, Google, UNHCR, and The New York Times among others. He is HEFAT, RISC, and FAA drone pilot certified. His first monograph, This Alabaster Grave, was published in 2025 by Ocotillo Press.

    55 min
  8. FRAME/SEQUENCE | On Motherhood - Keavy Handley-Byrne, Maurene Cooper, & Lily Colman

    Mar 29

    FRAME/SEQUENCE | On Motherhood - Keavy Handley-Byrne, Maurene Cooper, & Lily Colman

    In 2025 Lily Colman took on the initiative to start her own publishing non-profit, FRAME/SEQUENCE, through fiscal sponsorship with CultureWorks of Philadelphia. FRAME/SEQUENCE is a quarterly print periodical spotlighting underrepresented and emerging photographers, writers, artists, and communities across Philadelphia and Greater Pennsylvania — connecting art, story, and place in a uniquely intimate and enduring form. FRAME/SEQUENCE’s first edition, On Motherhood, captures motherhood’s diverse and powerful experiences through art and storytelling. This collection highlights the complex realities of nurturing, sacrifice, mourning, and celebration, offering a platform to voices often unheard. This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at: https://charcoalbookclub.com https://www.frame-sequence.com https://www.lilycolman.com https://hmcooper.com/home.html https://www.keavyhandleybyrne.com Keavy Handley-Byrne is a photographic artist, writer, and educator. Their work has been exhibited across the United States and included in numerous publications. Their photographic practice focuses on themes of queer identity, grief, and the intersections therein. They are based in New York City and work across the tri-state area. Helen Maurene Cooper, is an artist and educator living in Philadelphia, PA. She earned a MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from Bard College. Selected exhibitions include; Onomatopee(Eindhoven, Netherlands), Clare Morris Gallery ( Ireland), Soap Factory (Minneapolis), Space Mountain (Miami), and Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation (Chicago). Awards and Fellowships include; the Cultural Council of Eindhoven, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and University of Chicago. Her 2017 monograph, Paint & Polish: Visual Economy and Visual Culture from the West Side (Onomatopee, Eindhoven Netherlands). Paint & Polish was reviewed in Bust.com, New City, Nails Magazine and the Creators Vice Magazine. Artists' talks have been given at PS1, The Fashion Institute of Technology, Kansas City Art Institute, Elmhurst Art Museum, The Arts Incubator at University of Chicago and Oxbow School of Painting. In 2021, Cooper founded Vanity Tintype, a commercial tintype studio in Philadelphia, through which she has done cultural commissions from The African American Museum of Philadelphia and Monument lab. Lily Madeleine Colman is a film-based photographer and educator from Philadelphia, PA. She makes work about womanhood, inheritance, and specifically how certain items and feelings are passed down between generations of women. Lily was featured in the 2021 International Juried Exhibition at The Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, NJ, where she was awarded First Prize and a Solo Exhibition. Her solo exhibition, The Knots on the Underside of the Carpet, ran from April 22 - June 4, 2022, at the CCA. Lily graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with her MFA in 2020, as well as a Certificate in Collegiate Teaching in Art and Design. She has always loved photography, education, and photo books, and wanted to make them accessible to everyone. In 2025 Lily took on the initiative to start her own publishing non-profit, FRAME/SEQUENCE, through fiscal sponsorship with CultureWorks of Philadelphia. FRAME/SEQUENCE is a quarterly print periodical spotlighting underrepresented and emerging photographers, writers, artists, and communities across Philadelphia and Greater Pennsylvania — connecting art, story, and place in a uniquely intimate and enduring form. Lily also currently works as an adjunct photography professor at Mercer County Community College, Rowan University, and Rowan College at Burlington County. She has also taught at The College of New Jersey, and Union County Community College, all located in New Jersey.

    1h 25m
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5
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42 Ratings

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Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton is a podcast about photographers and the related arts.

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