Photographer Yue Sun joins Michael Chovan-Dalton from the 2026 Chico Review to discuss

His work from Inner Mongolia and the transition of his hometown from coal mining to tourism.

https://www.yuesunphoto.com

https://www.instagram.com/__4le_/

b. 1998, Wuhai, Inner Mongolia, China

Based in Shanghai, China

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Yue Sun is a self-taught Chinese photographer, currently working as a freelance-architect in Shanghai.

BA Architecture(ARB/RIBA Part I), Architecture Association School of Architecture

Group Exhibitions

2026 - Gui Qu Lai Xi, FujiFilm X-Space, Hangzhou, China

2025 - 6th Lanzhou International Image Biennale

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:

https://charcoalbookclub.com

Photographer Klaus Ruckgaber joins Michael Chovan-Dalton from the 2026 Chico Review to discuss

Sehnsucht, the German word for a kind of longing, and how he uses that in his work.

https://fleischkleidung.com

https://www.instagram.com/fleischkleidung/

I was born March 7th 2002 in Mexico City.

I am attracted by the manifestation of feeling, the existential and the ungraspable.

I am an individual who believes that there are no absolutes, there is no absolute beauty or an absolute truth or meaning. My work is focused on that idea. Our flaws, we are our own unreliable narrator in our existence and we shouldn't hide this but instead to carry it with tenderness and acceptance. The way we see the world is unique, splendor can be found in the unconventional, the “dregs” of life can also be beautiful.

In decay flowers bloom, in the lesions there are lessons and without loss, love has no consequence.

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:

https://charcoalbookclub.com

Sipke Visser is a photographer and speaks about how he collaborates through photography at the 2026 Chico Review

https://www.sipkevisser.nl

https://www.instagram.com/sipkevisser/

https://www.chicoreview.com

After being born I spent the first 19 years of my life in Leeuwarden, a small town in the North of the Netherlands. In 2005 I moved to London for love and to pursue a life in photography. While making a living as a retoucher I have consistently been working on making art with photography as the main medium. While by very proficient with photoshop I never alter any of my own work, apart from grading.

My projects usually involve people. I love involving them with a project asking them to participate somehow, usually by adding text or drawings to a portrait or image. In 2005, for Return to Sender, I sent 500 hand written letters with an image to random people all across the UK, asking for a response. For the HAIR project I asked people to have all their hair cut off and to then reflect on that. In the pandemic I photographed the neighbours in black and white to then revisit them 2 years later inside their houses, shooting them in colour now. For Take a Look at Yourself I photographed 150 people with a large plate camera over a period of 8 years. I then asked them to have a really long good look at the image, and reflect.

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:

https://charcoalbookclub.com

Photographers CJ Harker and Jacob McGuinness join Michael Chovan-Dalton and Julia Colonna to discuss the founding of The Halide Project in Philadelphia, Harker's Tintype photography and work with Skate Jawn Magazine, and McGuinness' award winning pinhole photography.

https://www.thehalideproject.org

https://www.jacobmcguinness.com

https://cjharker.com

Jacob McGuinness is a photographer based in Philadelphia, PA. He received his BFA in Photography from the Tyler School of Art in 2017. He often works by building his own cameras, using them alongside alternative photographic processes to explore possibilities of analog photography. The work emerges from the balance of craft, invention, and image, where the tools themselves are reflected in the final vision. Jacob is a member of the New Jersey Pinhole Club (NJPC) and works with Philadelphia’s film community as a lab monitor and teaching assistant for The Halide Project.

CJ Harker is a photographer currently located in Philadelphia. Born and raised in Trenton, NJ, he was initially drawn to making both still and moving images through skateboarding. Skateboarding not only reenforced an anything-goes, DIY mentality but also nurtured his ingenuity and creative output.

CJ enjoys focusing on the craft of photography as well as keeping current with the latest technologies. In addition to a systematic digital workflow CJ’s skill set is comprised of historic and alternative photographic methods including traditional film processing, scanning and darkroom practices.

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:

https://charcoalbookclub.com

2026 Chico Attendees Series

Hannah Edelman is a photographer from South Florida and the 2026 Charcoal Publishing Prize recipient.

We talk about using photography as part of processing traumatic experiences.

Hannah Edelman (b. 1996) is a South Florida–born visual artist whose work in analog photography and printmaking bridges the technical and the poetic. Formally trained as a gelatin silver printer, she uses the camera to create works that explore cultural memory, myth, and the psychological weight of place. Rooted in process and materiality, Edelman’s practice reflects on how landscape and identity shape one another.

https://hannah-edelman.format.com/

https://www.instagram.com/hannah__edelman/

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

2026 Chico Attendees Series

Henry Comes-Pritchett, philosopher and photographer, speaks about photography as a tool to describe both memory as well as his vision of the future.

https://twodimensional.space

https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-comes-pritchett/

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

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

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