This week I’m in London to speak to Mathieu Bitton, a photographer I’ve admired for some time and was lucky enough to meet in Germany earlier this year. He took time out from his work on tour with Dave Chappelle to talk to me about his love of vintage lenses and his home city of Paris as depicted in his new book, Paris Blues.

More about this show:

A camera is just a tool but spend enough time with photographers and you’ll see them go misty eyed when they talk about their first camera or a small fast prime that they had in their youth. Prime Lenses is a series of interviews with photographers talking about their photography by way of three lenses that mean a lot to them. These can be interchangeable, attached to a camera, integrated into a gadget, I’m interested in the sometimes complex relationship we have with the tools we choose, why they can mean so much and how they make us feel.

This week I was able to sneak in an extra episode, talking about the new Hektor lenses from Leitz Cine. Seth was gracious enough to sit down with me for a little bonus episode.

More about this show:

A camera is just a tool but spend enough time with photographers and you’ll see them go misty eyed when they talk about their first camera or a small fast prime that they had in their youth. Prime Lenses is a series of interviews with photographers talking about their photography by way of three lenses that mean a lot to them. These can be interchangeable, attached to a camera, integrated into a gadget, I’m interested in the sometimes complex relationship we have with the tools we choose, why they can mean so much and how they make us feel.

Like many folks I like to talk to on the show, Bil Brown is a multi-media artist. He studied writing and poetry but things changed for him when he saw a Leica round Allen Ginsberg’s neck. I was initially interested in how Bil’s commercial and political work coexisted but as you’ll hear, like me he loves to just dive in and our conversation is very wide ranging covering composition, motivation, gear, it’s a whole thing. This one’s densely packed and we keep returning to why we make photos and I really enjoyed it.

More about this show:

A camera is just a tool but spend enough time with photographers and you’ll see them go misty eyed when they talk about their first camera or a small fast prime that they had in their youth. Prime Lenses is a series of interviews with photographers talking about their photography by way of three lenses that mean a lot to them. These can be interchangeable, attached to a camera, integrated into a gadget, I’m interested in the sometimes complex relationship we have with the tools we choose, why they can mean so much and how they make us feel.