Born in France and raised in Australia, Denis Piel began shooting advertising work in the 1960s, establishing his own studio before discovering a passion for fashion photography. After moving to Europe in the early 1970s, he shot for many of the hippest young fashion magazines, like French Elle and Honey. In 1979, Piel moved to New York, where his work brought him to the attention of Alexander Liberman, the legendary art director of American Vogue, who contracted him to shoot exclusively for Condé Nast. Over the next eleven years, Piel shot more than a thousand editorial spreads and celebrity portraits for the American, German, Italian, French, and British editions of Vogue, while also photographing for Vanity Fair, Self, and GQ. In the middle of the decade, he established a film production company and began shooting commercials, most famously for Donna Karan. After he left Condé Nast to concentrate on directing, Denis continued to shoot commercials while also making a feature-length documentary, Love is Blind. In the early 2000s, Denis and his family left New York and moved permanently to a Renaissance chateau in South-West France. There, he has focused on art photography, much of it inspired by the gardens and local environment. This conversation delves into all aspects of his career and photography; from the cameras he uses to his many collaborators and inspirations.

Susan Wood is a New Yorker born and bred. She started her career in the early 1950s, working in the lab at LIFE magazine before having her first photo published in Harper’s Bazaar in 1955. Over the subsequent decades, Susan photographed for everyone and truly across all genres. Fashion, interiors, portraits, food, travel, crafts, documentary, and movie stills—Susan did it all at a time when there were very few female photographers in the industry. Among the magazines she worked for were Vogue, New York Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Mademoiselle, People, LOOK, Good Housekeeping, and Glamour. We discuss her 60 year career, what it was like working as a female photographer at that time, her creative process, the many famous people she has photographed and much more.

Meryl Meisler is an acclaimed photographer known for her street and documentary work. Meisler began photographing in the mid-70s, focusing on the Jewish community in her hometown on Long Island as well as the nightlife scene in NYC. After becoming an art and photography teacher at a public school in Bushwick, Brooklyn, she continued to shoot the world and people around her. Following her retirement in 2007 that she began to delve into her old, boxed-up contact sheets and negatives—revealing a New York that was long gone, captured in a totally individual and unique manner. Since then Meisler’s photographic career has had a renaissance; publishing three books of her photographs—centering mostly on Bushwick, disco and Long Island suburbia—and has participated in countless gallery exhibitions.

I had the opportunity to chat with famed photographer Robert Farber in his Upper East Side studio. Rising to prominence as a nude and fashion photographer in the mid-to-late 1970s, by the late 1980s posters of his photos were everywhere and are a defining memory of that time. Robert developed his signature soft focus aesthetic in the early 1970s by experimenting with different films, filters and development processes with the goal of creating a painterly effect on film. A must listen if you interested in photography, Robert opens up about the many aspects of his career as well as the sometime difficulties of balancing this hectic lifestyle with a family.

When I was in London in May I spent the afternoon with photographer and commercial director Willie Christie. A wonderfully gossipy conversation, Willie discusses his career from photo assistant to photographer to commercial director to screenwriter to today. Full of interesting stories and memories about his time as a fashion photographer in the 1970s when he was married to Grace Coddington and shooting primarily for British Vogue, Willie then went on to direct videos for Pink Floyd and have a highly successful commercial directing career that spanned decades.

Now 96, Tony Vaccaro is a legend in the photography world. Drafted into WWII at age 20, he brought his 35 mm camera with him to the frontlines in Europe—vividly capturing all aspects of an infantryman’s life: the chaos, the boredom, the destruction, the death. Tony stayed on in Europe after the war, documenting the reconstruction, before returning to New York where he established himself as a very in-demand fashion and celebrity photographer for Life and Look magazines. To all of his work he brought a love of symmetry and a deep humanity.

This conversation is with renowned photographer and film director, Jerry Schatzberg, who at 90 years old is still creating and working hard. We discussed his path from the Bronx to Vogue fashion photographer, to celebrity photographer and nightclub owner, to acclaimed director.

The first conversation is with Duane Michals, a renowned photographer who has worked across a number of different genres—art, portraiture, interiors, fashion and advertising.