Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton

Photographer, printer, filmmaker, and author, Neil Selkirk, joins Michael Chovan-Dalton to discuss his new book, Why Photographs (a book without photographs - Warbler Press). Why Photographs is a collection of essays, excerpts, introductions, and quotes by Selkirk, Berenice Abbott, Julian Barnes, Dorothea Lange, Sigfried Kracauer, Paul Graham, and so many more. It’s a book that is historical, philosophical, and humorous but most importantly, it reminds you of why you fell in love with photography and why we still look for meaning in the image. Neil Selkirk is also the only person authorized to print for the Diane Arbus estate and we discuss that as well.https://www.neilselkirk.comhttps://warblerpress.com/why-photographs/Neil Selkirk is a British-born photographer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Interview, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Vogue and the premier issues of Wired, Paper, Colors, Spy, and other publications. He is the only person authorized to make posthumous prints of the photographs of Diane Arbus. Selkirk’s books include See No Evil, Lobbyists, and Certain Women, as well the ongoing photographic projects, Security Matters, and Out of Darkness. Selkirk lives and works in New York City and the Hudson Valley.This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:https://charcoalbookclub.com

2026 Chico Attendees SeriesPhotographer Lisa Jayne Cramer joins Michael Chovan-Dalton from the 2026 Chico Review to talk about some very personal work involving relationship, grief, and reconciliation. This work has recently been recognized through the inaugural Ephemere Photobook Grant in 2026 and is scheduled to be published by Ephemere Tokyo in October 2026.https://www.lisajaynecramer.comhttps://www.instagram.com/lisajaynecramer/Lisa Jayne Cramer is an Australian photographer based in Melbourne/Naarm. For as long as she can remember, she has felt most at peace holding a camera. Drawn to analogue photography and performative self-portraiture, she found a way to express how she experiences and understands the world.Cramer’s photographic practice is a deeply personal enquiry into love, longing, grief and beauty. Drawing upon qualities of abstract expressionism, she explores the constant presence of absence through collage, performative imagery and metaphor. Flowers, particularly roses and lilies, recur throughout her work as symbols of fertility, decay, femininity and resilience, becoming vessels for both beauty and sorrow.Her photographs have been exhibited throughout Australia and internationally, including in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, the United States and Japan. Her work is held in private collections across Australia, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and Mexico. She has been published in FotoNostrum Magazine (Barcelona, 2024) and Eyes on the World (Kamira Institute, Paris, 2025).Cramer is a proud alumna of the 2025 Long Term Program: The Photobook at Penumbra Foundation, New York, through which she developed her first photobook, FLOWER under ether. The artist-produced edition was completed in December 2025 and is held in the permanent collection of State Library Victoria.In 2026, FLOWER under ether was awarded the inaugural Ephemere Photobook Grant. A new Japan-produced edition is currently being developed in collaboration with Ephemere Tokyo, with publication planned for October 2026. Cramer was also selected to participate in Chico Review in Montana, USA, in 2026.This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book ClubBegin Building your dream photobook library today athttps://charcoalbookclub.comThe 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.comhttps://www.charcoalworkshops.com

No Invite: Ten Years of Capturing Fashion Week by Any Means NecessaryA Retrospective by Dan BassiniRecorded live at the JKC Gallery.No Invite is a series focused on capturing Fashion Week by any means necessary. With a lifelong interest in fashion, and no connection to the industry, Bassini set out to shoot the beauty and chaos the only way he knew how. Sneaking into parties, subverting security, and hitting the streets. Shot entirely on 35mm compact cameras, No Invite is a unique look into the fashion world, even when your name isn’t on the guest list.https://www.danbassini.com/no-invitehttps://www.instagram.com/danbassiniDan Bassini is a photographer based in Jersey City, NJ specializing in digital and analog photography.He is an alum of Mercer County Community College.He has released thirteen books within the “No Invite” series, as well as four non-portraiture books: Highway Hypnosis, Cruel Summer, I STILL FEEL IT, and most recently When I Kill God I Will Find The Spigot From Which He Meters Out Grace And Smash It Permanently Open.His work has been featured in many solo and group shows in the New York City area.Dan Bassini’s work builds builds upon the legacy of the photographer, Bill Cunningham, the former fashion street photographer for the New York Times, but Bassini’s work comes from a different perspective, not from the invited insider as Cunningham was, but from the not-invited outsider. There’s a sense of chance meeting and serendipitous encounters to his work because his approach to accessing these places and encountering the invited guests is also filled with chance and serendipity.Recently, Bassini’s work has been featured in Vogue Türkiye and on CNN.This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:https://charcoalbookclub.com

2026 Chico Attendees SeriesPhotographer Stuart Thurlkill joins Michael Chovan-Dalton from the 2026 Chico Review to talk about his photographs of a famous river corridor in Montana. Thurlkill also has some great insight into how the photo review process can be most beneficial.Stuart Thurlkill’s work exists at the intersection of observation and intuition. An award-winning filmmaker and photographer, he does not merely capture a subject; he unearths the quiet dialogue between heart and head. His documentary roots provide a foundation of truth, yet his lens often seeks the shadows where nature, community and industry converge in unexpected ways. Whether freezing a fleeting moment in the wild or the stillness of a portrait, Thurlkill invites us to witness the world as it is felt, a lingering presence in a restless world.https://www.stuartthurlkill.comhttps://www.instagram.com/stuartthurlkill/This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book ClubBegin Building your dream photobook library today athttps://charcoalbookclub.comThe 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.comhttps://www.charcoalworkshops.com

JOHN BAER: THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY / A MEMOIR IN PHOTOGRAPHS 1945–1954Andrew Baer and Megan Moynihan join Michael Chovan-Dalton to celebrate the release of John Baer: The Extraordinary Ordinary / A Memoir in Photographs 1945-1954, A Paper Cinema Edition, published by the John Baer Archive. This is, true to its title, an extraordinary collection of the never before published life work of John Baer, Andrew Baer's father. It's also a conversation about how wonderful a collaboration can be between family and professionals such as famed designer Yolanda Cuomo and her team, Alexa Dilworth and Jonno Rattman, Steve Smith at RISD, and Eric Luden at Digital Silver Imaging, who all believe in the work. https://www.johnbaerarchive.comhttps://www.instagram.com/johnbaerarchive/https://www.instagram.com/yolandacuomodesign/JOHN BAER (1920-1994) In 1945, while serving in the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion, John Baer acquired a Leica camera from a captured German soldier. His first photographs were of his fellow soldiers, weary from war.Soon after the war John and his wife Louise moved to New York City, rented an apartment in the East Village, and connected with a community of artists and writers.In 1950 they journeyed to France and spent the next year living in Montpellier and traveling throughout Postwar Europe. John’s photographs capture a world struggling to understand itself following years of war and political realignment. In 1951 John and Louise returned to New York and their apartment in the East Village. John walked the streets, taking pictures that provide glimpses of ordinary people in the unguarded moments of their lives—at work, at rest, at play. He developed negatives and made prints in a make-shift darkroom in the bathroom of their fifth floor walk-up.Sometime in the mid-1950s, John stowed his photographic life away. After his death, in 1994, his son Andrew found boxes containing thousands of negatives and prints from between 1945 and 1954. For 27 years the boxes moved whenever Andrew did. Finally, in 2021, Andrew and his wife Megan Moynihan dove into the boxes to see what stories they held. Stories of Europe emerging from the darkness of war. Stories of New York City brimming with the optimism of the early 1950s. Stories of a generation and stories of John Baer, seen through the lens of his Leica.This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:https://charcoalbookclub.com

2026 Chico Attendees SeriesPhotographer, educator, and editor, Andrea Birnbaum joins Michael Chovan-Dalton from the 2026 Chico Review to talk about her work and limited edition book, Spilt Milk. "Spilt Milk is about family, memory, and what is handed down through generations. I am using family photographs and other items to construct images, exploring how certain behaviors have affected the family dynamic. Through this project, I am re-evaluating my personal history and altering my perspective with the newly acquired knowledge."https://www.andreabirnbaum.comhttps://www.andreabirnbaum.com/books/spilt-milk-limited-editionhttps://www.instagram.com/andreabirnbaumphotoAndrea Birnbaum is a social documentary photographer and educator. Her work as a freelance photographer spans many genres, including editorial, corporate, non-profit and portraiture for more than twenty years. She holds an MFA in Media Arts from Maine Media College in Rockport, Maine.Recent exhibitions include:2025 Family, Community and Belonging, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ2024 Re-examining the Family Tree, Photographic Nights of Selma, Selma, Alabama2021 Once Upon a Time, Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA2021 Memory, juried by Fran Forman, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC2021 A Woman’s View, juried by Elinor Carucci, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC2021 Julia Margaret Cameron and Pollux Exhibitio, FotoNostrum, Barcelona, Spain2020 You Can Always See The Sun, Photographic Nights of Selma, Selma, AlabamaThis podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book ClubBegin Building your dream photobook library today athttps://charcoalbookclub.comThe 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.comhttps://www.charcoalworkshops.com