Colin Westerbeck has authored many books and essays on photography, including Bystander: a History of Street Photography, co-authored with Joel Meyerowitz. He was a Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1986 through 2003, and taught photographic history at the undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California from 2004 to 2008, and again in 2017. From 2008 until 2012, he was Director of the California Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside. We talk about the vast realm of street photography and the role of luck in a noteworthy and rewarding career.

“A book on street photography is a book of all the oddballs you could possibly imagine. And yet there is something not only human but humane and even humanist about that.”

Barret Oliver lives in Los Angeles where he works as a photographer and printer and is known for his use of nineteenth century processes. His print work has been featured in gallery and museum exhibitions, publications and motion pictures. We spoke about his close collaborations with artists, the joys and challenges of using historic processes to create hand made prints, and why he believes these techniques remain relevant today.

“We forget that photographs are objects as well, and that the way you make something, the materials and the techniques, often have an influence on its meaning.”

Endia Beal is a North Carolina based artist, who is internationally known for her photographic narratives and video testimonies that examine the personal, yet contemporary stories of marginalized communities and individuals. We talk about the inspiration for her work, her experience in Yale’s MFA program, and the differences she observes in her millennial students.

“Instead of trying to capture stories that are already known to the world, it's time to capture the ones that make me feel uncomfortable, those that I am afraid to discuss. “

Sheila Bergman is the Executive Director of UCR ARTS. Bergman oversees the California Museum of Photography and Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts. We talked about her vision for the museum and the desire to engage with the photography community at home and worldwide.

“What do we want our legacy to be? And what impact do we want to have?

Douglas McCulloh is the curator of In the Sunshine of Neglect: Defining Photographs and Radical Experiments in Inland Southern California, 1950 to the Present at the California Museum of Photography. We spoke about the birth of the New Topographics tradition, the depth and variety of photographic production from the Inland Empire, and the reasons why the region is the perfect place for artistic experimentation.

“The bottom line is that there’s freedom on the margins.”

Darius Himes is the International Head of Photography at Christie’s. We talk about the inner workings of the auction world, the emotional dynamics of auction bidding, and some of the treasures that he’s had the privilege to work with.

“I think you start by doing a lot of looking.”

Spanning five decades of the artist’s work, Judy Dater: Only Human provides a survey of Dater’s work, celebrating her achievement as a pioneering figure in 1970s feminist art and her subsequent creative evolution.

“There’s a certain feeling that runs through it, a certain kind of humanity that I think is there and something I care about”.

Zélika García is the Director and Founder of Zona Maco Art Fairs in Mexico City.

“If you only buy what you think you can sell then you choose the wrong thing.”

Eric V. Ibarra is the Founder and Executive Director of Las Fotos Project, a non-profit, community-based photography program whose mission is to bring about positive change for teenage girls facing adversity.

“All of these pictures are about how beautiful East L.A is, how beautiful the people are, how beautiful their stories are. That's not what you typically hear from East L.A.”

Tarrah Von Lintel is the owner of Von Lintel Gallery in Culver City. The gallery is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

“What I take great pride and pleasure in is to help put an artist on the map.”

János Vetõ NahTe, photographer, self-taught painter, and musician, was a leading figure of non-conformist photo art in Hungary’s neo-avant-garde period (up to 1980) and the New Wave period that followed, and continues his approach today. Vető’s work is included in the exhibition Promote Tolerate Ban at the Wende Museum in Culver City.

“History happens. Without war we don’t have Goya, we don’t have the Guernica.”

Eve Schillo is Assistant Curator, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

“I'm really thrilled this collection is out there, living large. As much as it's nice to have it on view in an encyclopedic museum, it was time for it to engage with the world.”

Marie Harris is an assistant curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

“I think it's important to remember that they're not just pieces of history. They're not just documents of what happened, but they were active parts of making things happen. They created social change.“

“I'm a lucky guy. I don't really have a job. I've managed to turn a passion into some kind of lifestyle that keeps it going.”

Curator of All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party. "We have to be willing to be a little bit uncomfortable and that's hard to ask people to do. It’s a great privilege to curate a show or to edit a book.  It’s a privilege that I occupy this space. And it’s also a responsibility."

Recipient of the first PAC·LA Contemporary Artist Grant, Heffernan worked in residency at the Huntington Library, where she applied her research-based practice to a rare book in the Huntington's collection.   "I hope my consideration of The Huntington's copy of Anatomy will yield insights about this book that is a representation of bodies, and also a body itself."

"The collector's job is to find the photograph, preserve the photograph and be sure it lands eventually in a good place.  Even though it may not be displayed all the time, photographs are preserved and live on in museums."

"On the one hand we'd love to see all such boundaries disappear, and on the other hand, we're also trying to see that the different concerns, interests, and histories of particular communities are somehow reflected in the landscape, and in the museums, institutions, and newspapers that represent this city on some level."

"Do something that really means something to you.  It'll be different because everybody is different and everybody has a way of doing things. Just follow yourself."

"There's always something that ties together the work being done by artists from the same generation or the same time. It’s almost a universal language that sometimes ties to specific things about their own region."