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Matinee: 'Photo Chats with Stephen Johnson'
12 April 2025
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 599th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Photo Chats with Stephen Johnson.
This 1:42 clip features California photographer Stephen Johnson talking about the online Photo Chat Zoom sessions he's been conducting for a few years now. In fact, it's an invitation to them.
Johnson, who wrote Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography published by O'Reilly in 2006, also created With a New Eye, his digital national parks project. He was named to the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2003, made an Explorer of Light by Canon in 2006, and lectures at leading industry seminars and universities. Hhis work can be seen at the Pacifica Center for the Arts Galleries in the Sanchez Art Center.
On his Photo Chats page, where you can request a format invitation (nothing is referenced in the video), he explains:
Since the beginning of the Covid Pandemic, I have been doing weekly virtual Photo Chats on Zoom with groups of photo friends. The chats seemed a good way of keep friends and students encouraged to keep working, share and problem solve. The Photo Chats have become much more than that, they are casual virtual get togethers and have created a little community, with regular sharing, guests presentations, demos and photo feedback. Let me know if you would like to join us.
In addition the discussion of general topics which start each session (Generative AI was one such), the participants share their work for comment by the others in the session. "The comments are helpful, not critical in any negative sense," one participant commented.
At first, the page explains, the sessions were free. But they require a $25 tuition fee. You might think of it as no more than buying a round.