In my life and career, I've been privileged to meet and observe the work of countless photographers.

Some are masters, while others are just emerging.

But they have each committed to the art of photography.

For them, it's not just

about creating a technically competent photograph. It's about using tools and techniques

to express something about themselves and the way they experience the world. They understand that

their photographs are incomplete until someone else has the opportunity to gaze upon it

and have their own special experience. The best of these people know that it's not about

emulating someone else's style or technique, but taking the uniqueness of themselves,

flaws and all, and communicating something that only they

could express. It's not an easy thing to do, but sometimes such work demands us to be rigorously

honest, vulnerable, and open to the unexpected surprises of both life and art. I've seen Ellen Friedlander do just that over the years that I've

known her. Her self-portraits, as well as her unique take on street photography, reveal a woman

who is willing to take the raw material of her life and use it to make work infused with

visual beauty and raw and deep emotion.

And so I had made the first street extended, which was bird market, out of a photograph

that I knew I really loved, but I didn't, but I didn't, you know, we're inundated with

photographs outside here. And I know that for me, it's been really important for me to find

my own point of view and my own way of speaking and my own vocabulary.

And that was my beginning.

We'll talk to Ellen about her lifelong commitment to photography in various roles and how she used a painful personal chapter in her life to transform herself and her work.

This is IbarianX and welcome back to the candor frame.

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