PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf - Photography Podcast

Photographers Jarod Lew and Reagan Louie join PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss how they explore cultural identity, personal loss, and trauma through photography. Lew and Louie are Asian American photographers from different generations, and their work reflects how the exploration of cultural identity in contemporary photography has evolved over the decades. While Louie takes a documentary photography approach, Lew works through more conceptual constructs. Their conversation with Wolf highlights the visual differences between their practices while revealing striking resonances in how they discuss their approach. https://www.jarodlew.com https://www.reaganlouie.com Jarod Lew is an artist who draws on photography to explore intergenerational encounters with diasporic loss, displacement, and postmemory. Through this exploration, his work contends with the performativity of race and its instability as a locus of meaning. His project, Please Take Off Your Shoes was shortlisted for the Aperture Portfolio Prize in 2021, and was exhibited in a group exhibition at SFMOMA titled Kinship: Photography and Connection in 2023. His other project, In Between You and Your Shadow, examines his relationship with his mother, who was the fiancé of Vincent Chin--the subject of a hate-crime that brought national attention to matters of Asian American civil rights. In 2025, Lew will mount his first museum exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art titled- Strange You Never Knew. His works are held in public and private collections including the Cantor Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, Kadist, San Francisco, Harvard Art Museum, University of Michigan Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lew’s work has been written about in Aperture, Artforum, Elephant Magazine, and Aesthetica Magazine. Lew graduated with an MFA in photography at the Yale School of Art. Reagan Louie’s photography and installations explore global transformation and cultural identity. He is currently at work on several projects that focus on the relationship between home and homeland; including a book about his family’s immigration from China to America. And a Virtual Reality experience about his ancestral home, Wing Wor. His work is exhibited at institutions: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art NY, Philadelphia Art Museum, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Gwangju Biennale. Louie’s photographs are in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art NY, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oakland Museum, Cantor Art Museum. Louie’s photographs are widely published. His books have received critical acclaim. The New York Times Book Review named his first book on China, “Toward a Truer Life”, the photography book of the year. He is the recipient of numerous awards - The Guggenheim fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Lange-Taylor Prize, and Fulbright Fellowship.

Photography Historian and Curator Audrey Sands joins PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss her book, Lisette Model: The Jazz Pictures (Eakins Press Foundation). Drawing on years of research, Sands presents Lisette Model's rarely seen archive of photographs of 1950s jazz legends, including Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Percy Heath, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. Sands and Wolf discuss the rise of fine art photography as a collectible medium in the latter half of the 20th century, the role of museums and institutions in shaping the narrative of photographic history, and the role of the historian in editing and interpreting an artist's work posthumously. https://harvardartmuseums.org/about/press-media/audrey-sands-appointed-associate-curator-of-photography-at-the-harvard-art-museums https://www.instagram.com/audreyleesands/ Audrey Sands is a historian of photography and curator who specializes in twentieth-century American photography.. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in the History of Art from Yale University, an M.St. in the History of Art and Visual Culture from the University of Oxford, and a B.A. in Art History from Barnard College. Since February 2025, Sands has served as the Richard L. Menschel Associate Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums, where she oversees a collection of approximately 75,000 photographs and time-based media ranging from the early 19th century to the present. Her appointment followed a postdoctoral fellowship as Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2022–25), during which she contributed to the exhibitions Gordon Parks: Camera Portraits from the Corcoran Collection (2024–25) and the multi-venue Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 (2025–26). Prior to the NGA, from 2019 to 2022, Sands held the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography position at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP), University of Arizona—a joint appointment with Phoenix Art Museum—where her exhibitions included Freedom Must Be Lived: Marion Palfi's America, 1940–1978 (2021–22) and Farewell Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs, 1961–1989 (2022). Earlier curatorial positions include the Department of Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Sands has been the lead scholar on the work of photographer Lisette Model for over a decade, beginning with her Yale dissertation, “Lisette Model and the Inward Turn of Photographic Modernism.” Her most recent publication, Lisette Model: The Jazz Pictures (Eakins Press Foundation, 2025), realized a suppressed collaboration between Model and Langston Hughes that had been shelved during the McCarthy era, publishing for the first time nearly 200 of Model's approximately 1,500 jazz negatives alongside Hughes's original essay and new scholarship by Sands. Her ongoing research on flash photography—supported by a 2021 Curatorial Research Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts—is developing toward a publication and exhibition titled The Shape of Light: History, Ethics, and Aesthetics of Flash Photography.

Photographer, director, and producer Mitch Epstein joins PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss his storied career in photography, environmental activism, and artistic influences. From early inspiration by Garry Winogrand to guidance from John Szarkowski, Epstein reflects on how he evolved into a research-driven, project-based photographer focused on environmental issues. He also discusses his work in film as a production designer and co-producer on Mississippi Masala (1991) and Salaam Bombay! (1988), and shares insights on privilege, longevity, and sustaining a life in photography. https://www.mitchepstein.net Mitch Epstein has photographed the landscape and culture of America for half a century. A graduate of Cooper Union, he became a pioneer of 1970s fine-art color photography. Epstein has been inducted into the National Academy of Design (2020) and was awarded the Prix Pictet (2011), Berlin Prize (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2002). His work has been shown and collected by museums worldwide, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery in Washington DC, The Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern in London, Museum of Modern Art in Paris, Los Angeles’s Getty Museum and LACMA, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Recent exhibitions include “American Nature” (photographs and multi-media installations) at the Gallerie d’Italia museum in Torino, Italy (2024-25); “In India,” (photographs and films) at Les Rencontres d'Arles in the Abbey of Montmajour, Arles, France (2022); and “Property Rights” at The Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (2020-21). Epstein's seventeen books, mostly published by Steidl Verlag, include Recreation (2022, 2005), Property Rights (2021), New York Arbor (2013), American Power (2009), and Family Business (2004), winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. Epstein’s mixed media work includes films, moving image with sound installations, and performance. In 2013, The Walker Art Center commissioned and premiered a theatrical rendition of his American Power series. Directed by Annie B. Parsons and Paul Lazar, the performance combined original live music by Erik Friedlander and live storytelling by Epstein; and included video, projected photographs, and archival material. In documentary film, Epstein was director of Dad and Retail (2003) and director of photography for India Cabaret (1988). He was production designer and co-producer for the feature films Mississippi Masala (1991) and Salaam Bombay! (1988). Epstein’s most recent exhibition, American Nature, assembles three self-contained yet integrated photographic series (Old Growth, Property Rights, American Power); a multi-channel video-sound installation with tonal music by Mike Tamburo and Samer Ghadry filmed performing in the forest (Forest Waves), and a looped projection with music by David Lang, performed by Maya Beiser (Darius Kinsey: Clear Cut). Together these five pieces investigate notions of wilderness and human society; and their both collaborative and troubled co-existence. Epstein lives in New York City and Massachusetts.

Photographer and artist Ed Templeton joins PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to reflect on his evolution from professional skateboarder to photographer and painter, and how early influences like Nan Goldin and Larry Clark shaped his approach to documenting his own life. Templeton discusses his photobook Wires Crossed (Aperture), an intimate look at skate culture from an insider’s perspective, and his collaborative process with editor Lesley A. Martin. The conversation looks into Templeton's hybrid analog and digital workflow and concludes with the development of Contemporary Suburbium (Nazraeli Press), an accordion style book, made in collaboration with his wife, photographer Deanna Templeton, highlighting his ongoing engagement with the photobook and everyday subject matter. https://ed-templeton.com Ed Templeton (b.1972) is an American painter and photographer whose work reflects human behavior with emphasis on youth subcultures, religious affectation, and suburban conventions using a cinéma vérité approach embracing chance encounters. Templeton is a respected cult figure in the subculture of skateboarding, a two-time world-champion, and Skateboarding Hall of Fame inductee. He is best known for his photographic books and multimedia exhibitions. His work has been exhibited in museums worldwide including MOCA, Los Angeles, ICP, NYC, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Kunsthalle, Vienna, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, SMAK Museum Belgium, Orange County Museum of Art, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht.

Ocean Vuong, poet, essayist, novelist, educator, and photographer, joins PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf for an in-depth conversation about his solo photography exhibition Sõng and the accompanying photobook, presented at CPW. In this episode, Vuong reflects on storytelling across mediums, creative practice, and the discipline behind writing and photography. Drawing from his life experience, he speaks candidly about process, vulnerability, and the courage required to share work publicly. This episode offers grounded insight for artists who question their creative voice or the value of presenting their work. https://www.oceanvuong.com/ https://cpw.org/exhibition/song/ Writer, professor, and photographer Ocean Vuong is the author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, winner of the American Book Award, The Mark Twain Award, and The New England Book Award. The novel debuted for six weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and has since sold more than a million copies in 41 languages. A nominee for the National Book Award and a recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, he is also the author of the poetry collections, Time is a Mother, a finalist for the Griffin prize, and Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award. Selected by Time magazine as one of its 100 Rising Cultural Influencers, Vuong's writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Granta, Harpers, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, The Village Voice, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Hartford, Connecticut in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he was educated at nearby Manchester Community College before transferring to Pace University to study International Marketing. Without completing his first term, he dropped out and enrolled at Brooklyn College, where he graduated with a BA in Nineteenth Century American Literature. He subsequently received his MFA in Poetry from NYU. He currently splits his time between Western Massachusetts and New York City, where he serves as a Professor in Modern Poetry and Poetics in the MFA Program at NYU.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha is joined by photographer, publisher, editor, and educator Nelson Chan. Together, they trace the winding path that led Nelson to his dream job as a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Along the way, Nelson reflects on the “guardian angels” who helped him stay the course, the openness that allowed unexpected opportunities to shape his trajectory, and the community of friends and collaborators who eventually inspired the founding of TIS Books. Sasha and Nelson also talk about the value of building connections, putting yourself out there, and treating your career as a marathon rather than a sprint. https://www.nelsonchanphotography.com/ https://www.tisbooks.pub/ Nelson Chan was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Taiwan and has spent most of his life between the States and Hong Kong. Having grown up between two continents, this immigrant experience influences the majority of his work. Nelson received his BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Hartford Art School, respectively. He has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY; Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; and 798 Space, Beijing, China. His books are collected in the institutional libraries of The MET, The Guggenheim, SEMOMA, The Whitney Museum, The Harry Ransom Center, and MoMA, among others. Along with his own photographic work, book publishing and education are extensions of, what Nelson refers to as, an industrious studio practice. He is co-founder of TIS books, an independent art book publisher and was production manager at the Aperture Foundation from 2016-19. In 2025, Nelson was awarded tenure at California College of the Arts but ultimately left the Bay Area to teach at the Rhode Island School of Design as an associate professor of photography.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, April Watson, Senior Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, joins Sasha to discuss her upcoming exhibition, American Prospects and Landscape Photography, 1839 to Today. The two dive into an insider’s conversation about how acquisitions—whether through donations or direct purchases—shape curatorial decisions. April speaks about the importance of honoring donor gifts through thoughtful exhibitions, and about working closely with museum education staff to shape exhibition language to engage audiences who may not have an art-historical background. She then turns the tables, inviting Sasha to share her perspective on the current state of the photographic art market and how it has evolved or devolved over time. https://nelson-atkins.org/art/exhibitions/american-prospects-and-landscape-photography-1839-to-today/ https://www.instagram.com/nama_photographs/ April M. Watson is Senior Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. During her eighteen-year tenure at the museum, Watson has curated over 20 exhibitions that span the history of photography. These include: American Prospects and Landscape Photography, 1839 to the Present (forthcoming 2026); Strange and Familiar Places (2025); Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City (2023, with the High Museum of Art); Jim Dow: Signs (2022); Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali: The Image of a Champion, 1966/1970 (2020, with the Gordon Parks Foundation); Eugene Richards: The Run-On of Time (2018, with the George Eastman Museum); Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from Le Gray to Monet (2013); and Heartland: The Photographs of Terry Evans (2012). Prior to the Nelson-Atkins, Watson held curatorial research positions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson. She holds an MA in Art History from the University of New Mexico and a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Kansas. She is currently at work on a major exhibition for 2027 that explores the relationship between early photography the antislavery movement. The exhibition will also feature major contemporary works inspired by this history.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, photographer Mike Brodie talks about his raw, intimate and powerful new book, Failing (Twin Palms). Growing up with a tough home life, Brodie found escape in the punk and BMX scenes before, at just 17, he began hopping freight trains and photographing the drifters and outcasts he met on the rails. Those images became A Period of Juvenile Prosperity (2013), a groundbreaking book that launched his career. After that early success, Brodie walked away from the art world to become a diesel mechanic. Now, age 40, with a son, he reunites with longtime collaborator Paul Schiek ( TBW Books) to publish Failing and reflects with Sasha on his journey, the challenges of early fame, and what it means to return to photography on his own terms. https://www.instagram.com/mikebrodie_thepolaroidkidd https://www.twinpalms.com/products/mike-brodie-failing Mike Brodie’s first monograph, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity touched down more than a decade ago, depicting his fellow rail-riders and drifters in a rebellious and wildfire pursuit of adventure and freedom. “Brodie leapt into the life of picture-making as if he was the first to do it,” Danny Lyon wrote about the book in Aperture. Next came Tones of Dirt and Bone, a collection of earlier SX-70 pictures Brodie made when photography first led him to hopping freights, when he was known as “The Polaroid Kidd.” And then Brodie seemed to disappear from the art world as suddenly and mysteriously as he’d first appeared. Maybe his vanishing was another myth. Maybe it was just a necessary retreat. “I was divorcing myself from all that,” he says. “I was growing up. I was pursuing this other life.” In Nashville he became a diesel mechanic. Fell in love. Moved across the country again. Got married. Bought land on the long dusty Winnemucca road Johnny Cash sang about. Started his own business. Built a house. Put down roots. And when that life exploded, the open road called again. Throughout almost all of it, his cameras were with him, and at last those pictures are coming to light.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, photographer Daniel Arnold joined Sasha for a candid conversation about the upsides and downsides of social media success. Daniel reflected on the joy and fulfillment he experienced during the height of his online popularity, while also acknowledging the need to move beyond curating a public persona. They also discussed his forthcoming book, You Are What You Do (Loose Joints). Though Daniel had a strong instinct to maintain control over his work, he came to appreciate how working with an editor—bringing in a more objective eye—could open the work up to new ideas and take it in directions he might not have pursued on his own. Special Request: As we approach our 100th episode, we're both thrilled to reach this milestone and deeply grateful to our extraordinary guests and YOU, our dedicated listeners. In the coming months, we'll be sharing reflections on how the podcast has evolved over the past five years and highlighting memorable past episodes. Most importantly, we want to hear from you! We'd love for you to share what the PhotoWork Podcast means to you: What has the PhotoWork podcast meant to you? How has it influenced your relationship with photography? Which episode resonated with you most? What's the most valuable lesson you've learned? Send your audio messages (1 minute max) or written thoughts to [email protected] with the subject line "Episode 100" Please include your first name and location in both audio and written messages! Selected submissions will be featured in our special 100th episode, and EVERYONE who participates will be entered to win exclusive PhotoWork appreciation gifts. https://danielarnold.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arnold_daniel/ https://loosejoints.biz/collections/forthcoming/products/you-are-what-you-do Daniel Arnold (b. 1980, USA) is a New York-based photographer whose candid, street-level images capture the unfiltered rhythms of urban life. His recent solo exhibitions include Dante’s Inverno at The Little House, Los Angeles, New York Life at New York Life Gallery, New York and Nothing at Larrie Gallery, New York. Arnold's photography appears regularly in publications including The New York Times, Vogue, and Interview, among others. In 2022, Elara Press published his first monograph entitled Pickpocket. A new collection of photos entitled You Are What You Do will be released in November of 2025 by Loose Joints.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, renowned photographer Dana Lixenberg discusses the power of portraiture and how editorial autonomy enabled her to safeguard the portrayal of individuals featured in her work within marginalized communities. Lixenberg shares the origins of Imperial Courts, her seminal project documenting life in the Los Angeles housing project of the same name, and the deep relationship of trust she built over more than two decades of work there. The conversation also explores her iconic portraits of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, as well as her poignant book project, The Last Days of Shishmaref, which captures the lives of an Indigenous community on a disappearing Alaskan island. https://grimmgallery.com/artists/42-dana-lixenberg/ https://www.instagram.com/danalixenberg Dana Lixenberg is known for her stripped-down portraits that revel in the elemental characteristics of her subjects. She uses a large-format field camera – a cumbersome tool, which necessitates what the artist refers to as a ‘slow dance’ between her and her subjects. The resulting portraits contain an enormous amount of detail and texture, and are as revelatory as a personal encounter. The power of the work arises from its intimacy, compositional rigor and, importantly, the absence of social stereotyping. Lixenberg has been predominantly active in the United States, and her thorough understanding of the country and its society seeps through palpably in her work. Besides her extensive editorial practice, for which she photographed many cultural icons, she pursues long-term projects with a primary focus on marginalized communities. These projects include Jeffersonville, Indiana (2005), a collection of landscapes and portraits of a small town’s homeless population and The Last Days of Shishmaref (2008), which portrays an Inupiaq community on an eroding island off the coast of Alaska. Lixenberg’s most extensive body of work to date is Imperial Courts, 1993-2015 (2015), which she begun in the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King riots. Spanning 22 years, the project tracks the changing shape of an underserved community in Watts, Los Angeles. In contrast to the often one dimensional, sensationalized media coverage of this neighborhood, Lixenberg employs a more subdued and collaborative photographic approach. Like her other projects, Imperial Courts consists of a series of photographs and a publication. Exploring other media for the first time, Lixenberg also included audio recordings and created a three-channel video installation. The project was awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2017 and continues to be exhibited internationally.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha sits down with photographer Harlan Bozeman to discuss his artistic evolution—from the casual nature of street photography to the immersive, collaborative, and activist approach he brings to his ongoing documentary series, Out the E. They also explore his newer project, Failure to Appear, a more introspective and formally abstract investigation into memory and Black culture. Harlan is thoughtful, honest, and generous as he reflects on both the triumphs and challenges of his complex artistic practice. https://www.harlanbozeman.com/ https://www.instagram.com/harlanbozeman/ Harlan Bozeman is an artist based in Central Arkansas, whose work confronts the erasure of Black legacies and centers on how this exploration influences one’s personhood. He received his M.F.A at the University of Arkansas, his Bachelor’s in Journalism at DePaul University, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2023. Harlan is a 2024 Catch Light Global Fellow and is currently participating in the Magnum Foundation’s Counter Histories fellowship. Harlan Bozeman is Professor of Practice at Tulane University.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, join host Sasha Wolf and returning guest Christopher McCall as they reflect on the legacy of the renowned Pier 24 Photography space located on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. Together, they celebrate the space's 14-year history, during which it showcased the Pilara Foundation's collection, hosted 13 historic exhibitions, and organized numerous public programs. Chris discusses his future endeavors to explore global photography trends while engaging in a heartfelt conversation with Sasha about the enduring allure of photography and photo books in the United States. They also explore budding opportunities for photographers to create and share their own artistic spaces. This episode is filled with reflection, inspiration, and forward-looking insights. https://pier24.org || https://www.instagram.com/thechrismccall Christopher McCall was the Director of Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco, one of the largest exhibition spaces devoted to the medium. In 2002 McCall received an MFA in photography from California College of the Arts, studying under Jim Goldberg and Larry Sultan. After teaching for seven years, he joined Pier 24 Photography in 2009 as the founding director, assisting in the conceptualization of the organization’s mission and operating principles. After opening the doors of Pier 24 in 2010, McCall oversaw the presentation of thirteen exhibitions and spearheaded the creation of the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program, a collaboration with California College of the Arts.