Alec Soth is so beautifully human and also a brilliant photographer, and one so obviously begets the other. But if you don't take a listen for the insight into his art practice, new body of work, and upcoming photobook , come for the ping pong stories.

Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published over twenty-five books including Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), NIAGARA (2006), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015), I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating (2019), and A Pound of Pictures (2022). Soth has had over fifty solo exhibitions including survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008), the Walker Art Center in Minnesota (2010) and Media Space in London (2015). Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2013). In 2008, Soth created Little Brown Mushroom, a multi-media enterprise focused on visual storytelling. Soth is represented by Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Hammons Gallery in Minneapolis, Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, Loock Galerie in Berlin, and is a member of Magnum Photos.

This is a really special episode. Andres Gonzalez talks about American Origami, which not only happens to be an extraordinarily impactful and important project, but also the most dynamically designed photobook. . . maybe ever. Andres is thoughtful, passionate, and extremely talented. Prepare to be inspired and more than a little in awe.

Andres Gonzalez is an educator and visual artist whose current work engages with in-depth research to investigate relationships between ritual, memory, and place within the American social landscape. He has published two books, Some(W)Here in 2012 made over decade while living in Istanbul, and American Origami in 2019 which won the Light Work Photo Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Paris Photo - Aperture Book Awards. 
 
 He has received recognition from the Pulitzer Center, the Alexia Foundation, and is a Fulbright Fellow. His work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Stedelijk Museum in the Amsterdam, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, where he also collaborated with the Columbia College theater department and members from Tectonic Theater Project on a theatrical adaption of American Origami.

To continue our short streak of publisher/designers, I interviewed David Chickey for the podcast. I have often said that I want to be Dave Chickey when I grow up. While we are similar in age, I'd need decades to even come close to his talent and accomplishments. And of course, he couldn't be more lovely or more sincere. (Sidenote: How cool is it that I get to talk to all of these amazing and creative humans? What a life!)

David Chickey is the publisher, designer, and editorial director of Radius Books, a nonprofit publishing company based in Santa Fe. He co-founded Radius Books in 2007 with a mission to encourage, promote, and publish books of artistic and cultural value. Radius titles have received national recognition, including multiple awards from AIGA, American Association of Museums Publishing, and best book nominations from The New Yorker, TIME, PDN, Smithsonian, Independent Publisher, and The Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation. 

Chickey is the former board chair of the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, and a graduate of Sussex University, England, and UNC-Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.