2026 Chico Attendees Series

Henry Comes-Pritchett, philosopher and photographer, speaks about photography as a tool to describe both memory as well as his vision of the future.

https://twodimensional.space

https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-comes-pritchett/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club

Begin Building your dream photobook library today at

https://charcoalbookclub.com

The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry.

https://chicoreview.com

https://www.charcoalworkshops.com

2026 Chico Attendees Series

Mark Woods, photographer and cinematographer, speaks about his love of the stand-alone image.

Mark Woods is a fine art black & white still photographer and commercial cinematographer raised in a California family deeply rooted in photography and film. His father operated a portrait studio in Hollywood, while his grandfather famously purchased and released the film Reefer Madness. Growing up surrounded by cameras, film, and darkrooms would later shape Woods’ lifelong visual career.

Woods discovered his passion for image-making while attending the University of California, Berkeley in 1968, where he studied Photo Ethnographic Anthropology. During his years at Berkeley, he became known for creating powerful street photography and formal documentary imagery. By the time he graduated in 1971, Woods had become the university’s preferred photographer for student activities, jazz festivals, and campus publications, often credited as Francis Woods.

After returning to Hollywood, Woods worked extensively in both still photography and motion picture production. He opened a still photography studio at Columbia Studios, producing advertising imagery before transitioning fully into cinematography. Over the course of a 30-year career, he shot and directed more than 1,000 commercials and 25 feature films, earning multiple industry awards for his work.

In addition to his commercial career, Woods taught advanced cinematography at several respected institutions, including California State University Northridge (CSUN), the American Film Institute (AFI), National University, and ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.

In 2004, Woods returned to his roots in analog black & white photography, building a traditional darkroom and focusing more deeply on fine art still imagery. His photographic series include Berkeley 1968–1973, W/O & Later (Hollywood Behind The Scenes ’73–’79), Pasadena’s Arroyo landscapes, early Chinese structures at the Huntington Gardens, floral portraits, and other still life works.

Working primarily with large format photography and traditional analog processes, Woods combines documentary realism with a strong pictorialist influence. His landscapes are created using natural light, while his still lifes are carefully illuminated using strobes, tungsten lighting, or available light depending on the subject and mood.

Today, Mark Woods continues to explore timeless photographic methods while preserving moments of history, atmosphere, and human experience through both still photography and cinematography.

https://www.markwoods.com

https://stills-that-move.myshopify.com

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club

Begin Building your dream photobook library today at

https://charcoalbookclub.com

The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry.

https://chicoreview.com

https://www.charcoalworkshops.com

Photographer Michelle Arcila joined me at the JKC Gallery to discuss the process of making incredibly personal work that involves family and trauma and who that work might be for. We also talk about photographing your family, especially your children, and how to find the balance between exploring a painful narrative in the work while protecting those you are photographing from your past experiences.

https://www.michellearcila.net

https://www.instagram.com/michelle.arcila/

Michelle Arcila is a Costa Rican/American photographer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2002 with a BFA in photography. Her work primarily focuses on family lore, motherhood, bicultural identity, and ancestral trauma. Her photographs have been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally; they also appear in a number of private collections. In 2012, after the birth of her first daughter, she took a hiatus from commercial work. During that time she was able to really start exploring how the work she was creating related to not only her experience of growing up in the United States as a first generation American; which came with the feeling of not feeling from here and not feeling from there (“No soy de aquí, no soy de allá.”) and how that sentiment played into her role as a mother and perhaps how all of this combined has affected her mental health struggles.

She is the recipient of the Photowork 2025 Fellowship and was shortlisted for the PHMuseum 2025 Women’s Grant.

She currently divides her time between the Hudson Valley and Brooklyn, NY, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:

https://charcoalbookclub.com