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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. In our last few minutes today, shutterbugs, photo nerds, art lovers, visual storytellers, urban explorers. If you like taking photos or seeing great photographers' work, you are in luck. Tomorrow is the start of the annual Photoville Festival. Over 80 exhibitions in Brooklyn Bridge Park and other venues around the five boroughs. Plus to kick it off, there are workshops and classes, and all kinds of photo-related activities. Tomorrow and Sunday, the exhibitions are up through the 22nd.

Judging by the response that we get to our year-end best photo on your phone contest each year, I would guess there are some photography enthusiasts out there in the audience. You'll probably be familiar with our guest, Laura Roumanos, the executive director and co-founder of Photoville, the folks who help us run that contest in December. Hey Laura, welcome back to the show in another context. Congratulations on what sounds like it's going to be a great weekend.

Laura Roumanos: Good morning. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Can we start with the opening festival, some of the activities, then we'll talk about some of the many exhibitions up around town this month that'll last through the weekend. What are these workshops, and stories, and food? Give people some highlights.

Laura Roumanos: We started 14 years ago in Brooklyn Bridge Park when it was really developing on like very much undeveloped land on the uplands of Pier 3. Think about 14 years later. We're now in the beautiful, developed Emily Roebling Plaza under the Brooklyn Bridge. We have over just under 60 exhibitions in Brooklyn Bridge Park and 30 exhibitions throughout the city. We're kicking off tomorrow, and this weekend is our opening celebration. If you love photography, our friends at Leica Camera, who are celebrating 100 years this year, have demonstrations and talks.

We actually are working with our wonderful friends at St. Ann's Warehouse who have their space next door. We're hosting some talks and workshops there with like the Pulitzer Center and The END Fund. Also, we have an incredible ice sculptured exhibition in partnership with The Climate Museum. We also have wonderful family programming for the little ones and, of course, incredible, powerful exhibitions. Also, I do need to add--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Laura Roumanos: Oh, sorry, I was just going to add. Also, tomorrow evening in our beer garden, we have nighttime projections. We are kicking it off with Tamir Kalifa, who's a photojournalist who's actually going to give us the sneak preview of a song cycle he's written. Actually, performance with photography and then also our partnership with CatchLight of a Night of Photojournalism. There's so much for everyone.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a unifying theme to the festival?

Laura Roumanos: We like to always think about community and storytelling, and look this world right now, I mean, every year. We live in a very challenging world, and there's a lot going on. For us, the thing that helps us understand the world and human condition and what's happening is through photography. It's about community, connection, and understanding, and dialogue. We may not always agree, but I do think that photography is a really great bridge to help us understand maybe different perspectives.

Brian Lehrer: I want to mention your colleague at Photoville, Sam Barzilay, who joined us for one of 100 Years of 100 Things centennial segments. 100 years of street photography, which basically started from the invention of the handheld 35 millimeter camera from Leica. I see that one of the exhibitions in the festival is just that, 100 years of Leica photography.

Laura Roumanos: Yes. It's actually amazing. When we were working with Leica on the curation, when they were curating their 100-year kind of exhibition, we couldn't believe like, "Oh, that was shot in a Leica. Oh, that's such an iconic photo. Wow, that's unbelievable." Look, Leica camera is this like incredible, luxurious, like amazing camera. They are one of our biggest supporters because they're such a big believer in making photography accessible for everyone. I think people are going to be really surprised and delighted, and also I think challenged by seeing some of the photography that we have here at Photoville this year.

Brian Lehrer: History figures into some of the other exhibitions like Jamel Shabazz's photos of Downtown Brooklyn in the '80s, or Orchard Beach photos that's in the Bronx. For those of you who don't know documenting the development of breakdancing, tell us about those.

Laura Roumanos: Jamel Shabazz, I think hopefully many of you have heard about him, but if not, look him up right now. Many of the iconic photos that you've seen back from the '80s and '90s, even to today, of Brooklyn and the Bronx, are from Jamel Shabazz. Especially when you think about street photography. Jamel's actually also a close friend of ours, and we've exhibited his work for years. He has a book coming out, and we thought what better way to celebrate his iconic work and celebrating 50 years of his photography than having an outdoor exhibition at Brooklyn Bridge Park looking at his work, and actually at the Albie Square Mall in downtown Brooklyn. It's between 1980 and 1989. Gorgeous photos.

Jamel will be around this weekend. You'll probably see him. He'll probably be swarmed by so many people because he is such a legend, but he's one of the most generous humans you'll ever meet, and so talented. Then, when you think about Orchard Beach, what's really awesome is that, yes, we have exhibitions in Brooklyn Bridge Park. They're only up for two weeks, but through our incredible partnership with the New York City Parks Department, we have exhibitions throughout the city that are up for longer.

We actually have a really wonderful exhibition up at Orchard Beach up in the Bronx with Ricky Flores, another. We're so lucky we work with the most amazing photographers. Ricky Flores documented Orchard Beach in the 1980s and looking at breaking, and dancing, and celebration. We always do an open call. When he submitted this work for Photoville, he was like, "This has to be exhibited in Orchard Beach. There's nowhere else."

We're like, "How about we do it in Brooklyn Bridge Park?" He's like, "No, we do it at Orchard Beach." That is going to be up throughout the summer. Especially the last few weeks, how it's been really warm. There's been so many people really enjoying these photos. We would definitely encourage New Yorkers to head out over to the Bronx. I think you'll all enjoy that.

Brian Lehrer: It's one of those few beaches where you can take a city bus. I've done it.

Laura Roumanos: Exactly. Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Going back further in time, there's Alice Austen. She has an incredible story and a museum on Staten Island dedicated to her life and work, as you know. What's some of her story, and where can we see her work?

Laura Roumanos: Alice Austen and I think something that we've discovered while working at Photoville is these hidden gems of New York City that not many people know about. The Alice Austen House in Staten Island is one of them. They've been a wonderful partner of ours for years. Alice Austen was a photographer back in the day. Basically, when she was 10 years old in 1876, she was introduced to a camera. It being in June, being Pride Month, Alice Austen was a proud queer woman, and we're looking lesbian woman.

Every year they've highlighted Staten Island photographers, and we're very proud of that partnership. This year they've decided, let's highlight Alice's work outdoors, outside of their museum, on their lawn. You'll be able to see childhood work of her community. I honestly would encourage all of you to get on that Staten Island ferry and head over to the Alice Austen House this summer.

Brian Lehrer: Neat. We could talk about any number of categories of photography on view. Nature, there's bats, and butterflies, and bison. Oh my. Very local and from very far away. Photojournalism, even an exhibition about New Yorkers' love for their senior dogs. Some of the photos are quite serious and deal with hard topics. How are you approaching those displays?

Laura Roumanos: Our history for 14 years of Photoville is we haven't shied away from what goes on in the world. We are so proud to have partners like Brooklyn Bridge Park, the New York City Parks. We do it in a responsible way. That's the beauty of also the shipping containers. We do have disclaimers to say that some of these exhibitions are emotionally triggering, whether maybe they're discussing war, conflict. We have exhibitions about gun violence, exhibition about trauma. We do that in a responsible way.

We have partnerships with The New York Times, with the Associated Press, with the Pulitzers, at Brooke ProPublica. We're doing this in a way because it is important for folks. Like I said earlier, is to have that discussion and to have that open dialogue and to understand others perspectives. At Photoville, we are a multicultural, multi-faith organization-- well, not organization, but we are people of many different perspectives.

We also understand that everyone else has that. We try and be as respectful and sensitive as possible. We're always open to conversation. I think everyone hopefully will come out of something. I think, Sam, when you spoke to him last time, he said, "We have 81 exhibitions. You don't have to like everything, but you will come away liking something." I think you like everything. We love everything. They're all our babies, we love everything.

Brian Lehrer: Sam also said when he was on with us that the fact that now people maybe have so much access to photography, because of phones, that there are too many photos that people have sometimes. I'm just curious if that changes what you do at Photoville in curating these exhibitions.

Laura Roumanos: It's about editing. Oh, never underestimate a good editor, a curator. We keep telling our artists, our curators, especially being out in public art, it's like edit down, edit down. Especially being outdoors. Look, we live in 2025. Everyone has such short attention spans now. It is keeping things brief. It's about getting to the point. Having a good editor is key. That's definitely, definitely something.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to have to leave it there. I just want to give you these last few seconds to say where people can go to find out how to navigate everything going on with the festival. Is it just go to photoville.nyc?

Laura Roumanos: photoville.nyc you'll see all the exhibitions, all the programming. We hope to see everyone over here, and we hope you have a really special time.

Brian Lehrer: Laura Roumanos, executive director and co-founder of Photoville, the folks behind this annual summer photo extravaganza, as well as our partner for our little photo contest each December. Thanks for coming on, Laura. Good luck with the festival. Sounds great.

Laura Roumanos: Thanks, Brian. Take care. Have a lovely one. Bye.

Brian Lehrer: Have a great weekend, everyone. Stay tuned for Alison.

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