In episode 3 of WGB, we visit Mike Meadows in Maryland on a stormy night and sip a few new beers. I got a chance to talk to Mike about some intense gigs and lessons learned from them in addition to exploring what his preferred genre of commercial photography requires.
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www. Instagram.com/SirMeadows

Website: www.BryonSummers.com
www. Instagram.com/WereGettingBetter
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Photographer Spotlight:

Jamel Shabazz

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Shabazz started documenting friends and peers at the age of 15. Shabazz’s work in the 1980s covered the fashion, lifestyle, environment, and social conditions of African Americans. He’s noted as a pioneer of street photography and is responsible for hundreds if not thousands of images at the beginning of the hip hop era. You can find his work in over 5 books compiled with collections of curated images in addition to collaborative projects. To date, Shabazz has taught  with the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, the Bronx Museum, The International Center of Photography, and the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Expanding the Walls Project.

For more on Jamel Shabazz, visit JamelShabazz.com and watch for a quick reference to his work in episode 2 of Luke Cage on Netflix.

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Music: KB @push-music

We're Getting Better - Episode 203: Mike Meadows

Who are you trying to impress?

I’ve been extremely geeked about the success so far of the We Love You project. I’ve talked about it in almost every episode of Shooting with Shooters and of course posting flyers all over social media for every city we visited. The goal is to take a the individual portrait of 1000 Black men ranging from babies to great grandfathers. So far we’ve hit 4 cities and now have had over 500 participants. 

Rewind to earlier this year. A month before my 30th birthday. I’m packing up my Brooklyn apartment and getting ready to move back to Maryland. I’m moving back home… for 2nd time. 5 years prior, I had made a similar move from Norfolk, Virginia back home to regroup. It’s great to have family that lets you come back and embraces you… but at some point you start to feel like you failed. After all, you’re not following the expected path to adulthood. You graduate high school, go to college. Four years later you start your career and find a wife or a husband then start a family. You work for about 30 years retire and enjoy life as a grandparent after watching your own kids follow the same path to adulthood. 

… yea, that wasn't and still isn’t my path.

Website: www.BryonSummers.com
www. Instagram.com/WereGettingBetter
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Photographer Spotlight:
Coreen Simpson

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Music: KB @push-music

We're Getting Better - Episode 204: Who Are You Trying To Impress

"Whats your lane? Is it  sports? Its it portraits? Maybe its nature… Oh and thats just the overall genre. If you had to really specify what you shoot, what would it be? So not just sports…  but which sport? Is it Hockey portraits? Maybe you have a passion for zoology and you’ve got a burning desire to document every living species of bird in North America. Now THATS a lane..."

Website: www.BryonSummers.com
www. Instagram.com/WereGettingBetter
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Photographer Spotlight:

Roy DeCarava. 

Born December 9th,1919 in Harlem, Roy DeCarava would grow up to be a renowned master photographer. He began his career as a painter and later turned to photography by the 1940s. His photographs were initially used as references for what would eventually end up on the canvas as paintings but by 1952, DeCarava was all in. He embraced photography as his new medium and was even the 9th photographer to receive the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. He considered his images artistic expressions - serious, artistic, and universally human. He worked for Columbia, Prestige, ABC Paramount, and Atlantic records as well as Sports Illustrated  and Scientific American until the 1970s when he became a professor of art at Cooper Union. He’s received several honorary degrees from Rhode Island School of Design, Maryland Institute of Art, The Parsons School of Design and the Art Institute of Boston for contributions to American Art. In addition to his many accolades, DeCarava was awarded the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the National Arts Club and the Master of Photography Award of the International Center of Photography. In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Art from the National Endowment for the Arts, presented by President George W. Bush. Decarava died of natural caused October 27, 2009.

For more of Roy DeCarava visit http://decarava.org/ 

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Music: KB @push-music

We're Getting Better - Episode 205: Whats your lane?

In episode 6 of WGB, we vist Christina Bright at her home in Newark, NJ. We talk to Christina aka Chris Miss about what it is to be a creative in addtion to being a mom, actress, model, and influencer among the many other hats she wears.
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 Instagram.com/ChrisMiss_

Website: www.BryonSummers.com
www. Instagram.com/WereGettingBetter
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Photographer Spotlight:

Dawoud Bey

Bey, born in New York in 1953 holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University School of Art and is currently Professor of Art and a Distinguished College Artist at Columbia College Chicago, where he has taught since 1998.

but before all of that he credited a 1969, visit to the exhibition Harlem on My Mind at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for his determination to become an artist. Ten years later, in 1979 he exhibited his first one-person show at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Bey has held numerous exhibitions worldwide, at institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Barbican Centre in London, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art among many others. 

In 2012 the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago organized Dawoud Bey: Picturing People, a survey exhibition of his work from 1981-2012. Harlem, USA was published by Yale University Press in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2012, where the work was exhibited in its entirety for the first time since it was first shown at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. He recently completed a project with the Birmingham Museum of Art that commemorates the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project.

Bey’s works are included in the permanent collections of numerous museums, both in the United States and abroad.

In addition to his photographs, Bey’s writings have appeared in publications throughout Europe and the United States, including High Times Hard Times: New York Painting, 1967-1975, The Van DerZee Studio, and David Hammons: Been There Done That. He has curated a wide range of exhibitions at museums and institutions.

For more on Dawoud Bey check out Rena Bransten Gallery  dot com

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Music: KB @push-music

We're Getting Better - Episode 206: Christina Bright

As a kid, my mother would read me bedtime stories, but my father would tell me exciting stories from his own childhood. They were action packed, almost unbelievable, and probably influenced my own rambunctious childhood.

This particular story took place in Mt. Vernon, New York in the '60s and involved his brother Freddy, an abandoned car, and kid breaking in his new boots.

My Dad's Stories - New Boots and Plaid Pants

We've been gone for a bit. Here's what's been going on:

The channel is updated and rebranded simply as BRYON.

We're Getting Better episodes are still here.

You can expect more of My Dad's Stories.

New Show - GET THE SHOT, an interview series that allows me to sit with creatives to get the story behind a great shot they took with their camera OR an actual shot they took in life to get them closer to their goals.

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If you’ve been here since We’re Getting Better, thank you for sticking around. If you’re just now being introduced, welcome.

The world is a studio. It’s up to you to get the shot

BRYON - Update

From the creator of We’re Getting Better and Shooting With Shooters, we present BRYON –  a new self-titled podcast channel. Listen to archived episodes of WGB to current shows like My Dad's Stories, and the new show, Get The Shot. Subscribe for more creative, personal, and career-related shows coming soon.

BRYON

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