Come With Me to the BILD Photo Expo in NYC

New York City recently hosted an excellent, two‑day photo expo aimed at photographers, content creators, and filmmakers. Presented by BH Photo, the oddly named BILD Expo hosted presentations and panels featuring photographers from a variety of genres and eras as well as a packed showroom floor with vendors of every level.

For over two decades, I attended an earlier incarnation of this event known as the PDN PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo. The main difference with this new show is that the only camera vendor present was B&H Photo. Also, none of the manufacturers present were selling products on‑site. At the PhotoPlus show, large vendors like Profoto and Nikon did sell lights or cameras, and smaller vendors sold camera straps, software, filters, and similar items on‑site. The BILD Expo took place across two floors of the Javits Convention Center, with one space devoted to exhibitors and another showcasing the panels and presentations.

You can’t help but experience FOMO at an event of this scale. No matter what you’re doing at any given moment, you are missing something else. It is fair to say that I experienced perhaps 1 percent of this show, and I ask that you keep that in mind as you read of my experience. I like to approach this type of event without a plan and allow myself to wander anywhere I choose. There are schedules posted online and at the event for the many presentations being given on the various stages and at the vendor booths, but I wasn’t drawn to any particular one. I stopped at whatever caught my interest in the moment.

I listened as my favorite beauty photographer, Matthew Jordan Smith, spoke of how moving to Japan affected his photography and career. He recalled meeting a potential client and showing some of his celebrity images of people like Zendaya and Samuel Jackson. The client didn’t recognize any of these American superstars, and Matthew realized he would have to essentially restart his photo career in this new city.

Matthew recalled photographing a woman in Japan who was not a professional model. As usual, Matthew had brought his glam squad to the shoot. “There’s a transformation that happens when you’re photographing celebrities. They are used to having hair and makeup, and they are used to transformation. The average person does not get this experience. The process is empowering. It creates a connection,” said Matthew.

Matthew recalls how one woman helped him remember why he loves photography. “It hit me this day. This one woman, she’s having a great time with the hair and makeup, and I can tell she’s emotional. And as we start to shoot, it amplifies; it becomes more and more and more. And I see her begin to tear up a little bit, but she’s smiling at the same time. I keep shooting, and I’m seeing her as she transforms right in front of me. She comes alive. She feels empowered… I feel empowered,” he said.

After the shoot, we had to take a break because she was crying so hard. Everyone in the room felt it. It was that connection. Seeing her get emotional made everyone in the room emotional, including me. Her tears were tears of joy. She felt, for the first time in her life, that she could be seen. She felt, for the first time in her life, that she was beautiful. I think she’s a beautiful woman, but she didn’t feel that way. So we cleaned her up, started again, and got amazing images. But after the shoot, I learned more.

She said that she wore makeup in her life as a mask to cover up who she was. She wore colored contacts to hide behind and other things to hide behind in her life. And during hair and makeup, the glam squad told her, ‘Take the contacts out. You are beautiful as you are, and let Matthew photograph the real you.’ And that’s what happened. That day, my lens became her mirror to see herself. No one whom you’ve ever photographed has ever seen their own face. We’ve only seen reflections. It’s up to you to show them who they really are, to bring out their joy, their beauty, their power. That’s the power that we all have as photographers.

I watched wedding photographer Sara France show how she uses shallow depth of field in wedding portraits to emphasize either the bride or the groom when doing couple portraits. Like me, she prefers back‑button autofocus on her mirrorless camera.

Peter Hurley spoke at the Canon booth and demonstrated his signature Triangle Lighting setup, which I began using in my headshot sessions after learning it from his coaching group. Peter has a high‑energy shooting style that helps elicit emotion from his subjects. He effortlessly alternates between complimenting and jabbing at his subjects, never giving them a second to remember that they’re normally uncomfortable in front of the camera. There was a time when you could only wonder how a successful photographer like Peter set up their lights and how they interacted with subjects. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than one photographer booked a headshot session back in the day to study his approach. Today, you can attend an event like BILD and see it all for free. You need only go home and apply what you have learned or dive deeper by joining that creator’s online education platform.

A panel titled, Woman in Media: Breaking Barriers, featured Shuang Hu, Barbara Jones, Lina Renzina, and Keren Sachs who spoke on a variety of topics including the difference in how men and women approach their careers.

Fairly early on in my career I was seeing men completely unafraid to ask for what they want, and thinking, I am really talented and I deserve just as much as they do. Would a man think twice to ask for this? As women, socially, we’re taught that wanting something or being ambitious or driven or loud is against what women are supposed to be. And I think if you try to decenter that and rethink that, you do deserve this. The difference a lot of times is that the men asked (for what they want) and you didn’t.

Keren spoke of her love for LinkedIn, a platform I struggle with. Many of my connections express political opinions, which I avoid to not alienate potential clients. I also find it difficult to make meaningful responses to posts that are little more than a two‑sentence recap of a conference someone attended or a mention of a new promotion at work. Keren’s experience has been different.

I love LinkedIn. I have used it in so many different ways, and there’s a way to use it to find your value and your worth by seeing what other people are talking about on the site. (Should you) reach out to people on LinkedIn? Absolutely. But don’t reach out and say, ‘Can I pick your brain?’ Because just as you are worth something, our brains are also worth something. There’s nothing that turns me off more than somebody just wanting everything in my brain that I’ve worked so hard to gain and learn. But I’m happy to share that when you come having done your research, with an understanding of who I am.

It’s doing research, knowing where you want to go, knowing who the right people are, and reaching out to them. When I started my company, I raised $3,000,000 to launch the business, and that was a lot of LinkedIn emails and a lot of LinkedIn messages. There were a lot of nos, but I eventually landed my lead investor through a connection I found on LinkedIn. So being persistent and keeping at it is so worth it, but also knowing your value and not giving up. No matter how many times I was told, that’s not a great idea, or, you’re a woman… Somebody asked to speak to my husband because they didn’t want to talk to me about my business. I’ve experienced all of it, all of it, but I believed in what I was doing, and I knew the right investors were out there for me.

An audience member asked if being a woman is an advantage or disadvantage in the competitive field of photography. Barbara Jones responded:

I don’t want anyone walking away from this panel thinking that any of us feel being a woman is a disadvantage. It’s an advantage, and (the question is) how do you use it to get where you want to go, and how do you use who you are — being emotional, empathetic, and kind? It’s about understanding who you are, whether you’re a man, a woman or however you identify. It’s being okay and being confident with who you are.

Throughout the venue, there were shooting opportunities featuring models. Some stations were hosted by lighting vendors and others were sponsored by B&H Photo. Nikon provided models and an opportunity to use some of their most exotic lenses. Curious photographers could take pictures on any of the currently available bodies and 32 GB SanDisk cards they provided at no cost. I shot a few comparison images with the 135mm Plena and 85mm f/1.2 lenses. Both focused quickly, and even when shot wide open, the lenses produced razor‑sharp images with individual eyelashes easily discernible. I dislike using long focal lengths, but the rendering of the 135mm lens was so pleasing that I will purchase the lens at some point.

At the Leica booth, I tried the insanely priced 75mm f/1.25 Noctilux lens on my M10. Because of the lens’s shallow depth of field when shot wide open, my in‑focus hit rate was low when using the camera’s built‑in rangefinder and only slightly better when using the add‑on EVF. There are two elements involved in photography: the process of taking a photograph and the photograph resulting from the process. In my professional work, I am most concerned with the quality of the photographs I deliver to my client, and my Nikon D6 and Nikon Z9 are well suited for my client’s needs. In my personal work, I’m more focused on the process of shooting, and I get the most enjoyment when using my Leica M10. I wrestle with how easy photography has become today and how that diminishes my enjoyment of the process. So even though I missed a ton of shots using the 75 mm Noctilux, I’d still love to own one because I love taking photographs on the M10.

At the Nikon booth, I took a quick snap with the Nikon Z5 II paired with the Nikkor Z 26mm f/2.8 pancake lens. The image wasn’t a great photograph, but it was tack‑sharp and required only minimal effort on my part to create. Despite the impressive quality of the image, the experience of creating it wasn’t as satisfying as it would have been had I used a Leica M camera and manual‑focus lens. Sculptors, painters, and poets don’t take an easy approach in the creation of their art. I welcome the path of least resistance in my client work, but avoid it in my personal work.

One of the best things about events like these is being able to speak to company reps who know more about your gear than you do. There are so many menu options on today’s cameras that it isn’t possible to master them all. I welcomed the opportunity to talk with a Nikon product specialist who walked me through the process of setting up different shooting banks on my Z9 for different shooting situations. He also helped me set up wireless image transfer to my phone, something I had found confusing due to the camera’s extensive options in its Network menu. He gave me his email address and said he could set up a phone call to help me set up wireless image transfer to my computer for my corporate work. I am a member of Nikon’s professional organization, NPS, but he wasn’t aware of this when he offered to assist with the post‑conference phone call.

The highlight of the event for me was a one‑on‑one briefing with Brian Matiash, software quality engineer at Lightroom Desktop, who gave me a briefing on the most recent Lightroom Desktop updates. The most interesting addition was the Distraction Removal panel, which allows for quick removal of both reflections and unwanted people. In a recent article, I detailed how Photoshop can detect both the reflection and the image behind that reflection in a photograph taken of a subject inside a reflective storefront window. This feature has been added to Lightroom in the form of a simple one‑click adjustment in the aforementioned Distraction Removal panel.

I used this feature to remove a person from a recent street photograph that I shot in Brooklyn on Guyana’s Independence Day. As you can see from the series of screenshots, when I select “People,” the program determines that the man on the right in the photograph is the element that I would like to remove. With one click, the removal is complete. If you don’t like the result, you have the option to see variations of the removal or have the program attempt to remove the person again.

I tried the feature on a few different images before settling on the photograph posted here since it produced the best final image. As with any AI‑based technology, the results may not be perfect when a feature is first available, but as the AI engine continues to learn, it is reasonable to assume the results will improve.

Another new feature deals with how Lightroom handles the application of certain image adjustments made using the Enhance interface. Previously, if you used the Denoise feature in Lightroom, the program would create a new derivative DNG file with reduced noise baked in. The new interface allows for the non‑destructive application of Denoise (as well as Super Resolution). And because the implementation of Denoise is done non‑destructively, the user can modify the amount that is applied at any point in the workflow just as one would adjust saturation or tint. If the image is imported into Camera Raw, adjustments can be made there as well.

Lightroom has also modified the way it manages how one AI adjustment affects a subsequent AI adjustment. In the past, when multiple AI tools were used in succession, Lightroom would inform the user via a blue bar at the bottom of the image that some settings need to be recomputed. For example, the message might appear if a user applied Adaptive Color and then Denoise because one adjustment would, in effect, cancel out another. Users found this confusing. Now, Lightroom features a new toolbar called AI Edit Status that informs the user which AI edits have been applied and which edits have been invalidated, and therefore need to be re‑applied. The interface is simpler and easier to understand in practice than it might seem in this written summary.

Prior to walking me through these new features, Brian listened as I detailed a few issues I have with the way Lightroom implements certain features like tagging images and setting permissions for shared galleries. And by “listened,” I mean just that. He actively listened as I explained my concerns. I appreciate that Adobe has consistently put me in contact with people who work directly on the programs they’re speaking about. When I raise a legitimate concern, they acknowledge that the program could use improvement in that area. And while they understandably can’t reveal what Adobe is working on, I’m confident that the company is listening to what real‑world users are saying about their products and is making changes accordingly.

Since the event is sponsored by B&H Photo, it's no surprise that they had set up multiple purchasing stations. Many items were discounted for the duration of the show. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t buy anything, but I did purchase a tiny Godox IM20 Mini Flash for the discounted price of $29. The flash looked perfect on my M10 once I taped over the large logo on the side of the flash, and it will be useful in casual shooting situations. BH Photo provided a free shuttle from Javits to the store, just as they used to do at the PhotoPlus Expo back in the day.

From the viewpoint of an attendee, the BILD Expo was as enjoyable as it was informative. I saw creatives of every demographic, and it is wonderful to see how many people share the same passion for image and video creation that I do. I ran into old friends and made several new ones as well. I am looking forward to next year’s event.