Behind the Binding | October - December 2025

Sylvie Blum | Wild Beauty | October 25th

Miguel "Chromatic" Valencia | The Other Side of San Diego | November 1

DAWNING | Pipe Dreams | November 15

Bootsy Holler | Making It | November 22 (with Nabil Ayers and Alec Hanley Bemis)

Peter Turnley | Paris Je t'aime | December 13

Immerse yourself in the captivating world of photography at Leica Store and Gallery Meatpacking with our electrifying Saturday Morning series, Behind the Binding! Join us for invigorating conversations with renowned photographers, unraveling the stories behind their captivating works and acclaimed books.

Programming begins promptly at 11:00 AM.

Following each talk, indulge in signed books, bagels, and brewed coffee with the artist!

Seating is limited, so be sure to reserve your spot in advance!

Sylvie Blum | Wild Beauty | October 25th

Wild Beauty presents an unparalleled collection of Sylvie Blum’s work, spanning 15 years of her career. This exceptional fine art book tells a story of our innate need for adventure, freedom and beauty. So many of us strive to feel and see extraordinary things on a daily basis and now the public has access to 224 pages of museum-worthy images that exude life’s most extraordinary moments.

All five of Sylvie’s limited edition books are sold out, and this will be her sixth and most ambitious book to date. The book is a selection of thousands of unpublished images, many of which are part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Bangkok. It will include behind-the-scenes images and work sketches from Sylvie’s shoots in diverse locations such as South Africa, Namibia, Thailand, the Californian desert, and her white-box studio in Los Angeles. These insights provide a rare glimpse into the creative process and dedication behind each photograph.

Miguel "Chromatic" Valencia | The Other Side of San Diego | November 1

The Other Side of San Diego is a documentary-style photo collection depicting the gang lifestyle and drug scenes in San Diego County, California. The other side of San Diego is often overlooked. The photographer, Miguel "Chromatic" Valencia, documents the landscape of the South East, North County, and South Bay neighborhoods where he grew up to represent the authentic and often unseen side of his community. This photo memoir includes interviews with members from those communities about the gang, drug, and prison experiences that define the narrative of their neighborhoods.

DAWNING | Pipe Dreams | November 15

DAWNING and FotoEvidence will present Pipe Dreams, a new collaborative photobook, emerging from immersive fieldwork, that investigates the impact of water scarcity on women and girls in Kenya.

Created by 25 anthropologists, photographers, and artists — more than half Kenyan — Pipe Dreamscombines 78 photographs, 33 photo-based graphic novel sequences, and 18 watercolors. Each medium plays a structural role: photography anchors the visible, drawn pages carry testimony beyond the camera’s reach, and watercolor opens a reflective space.

At this event, DAWNING founder Raul Roman, together with DAWNING photographers Nick Parisse and Rafe Andrews, will present selections from the book and discuss its themes: the intersection of the climate crisis and women’s rights, and the future of documentary practice.

Bootsy Holler | Making It | November 22

As an avid fan of Seattle's music scene during the late 1990s and early 2000s, photographer Bootsy Holler created a remarkable portfolio documenting the little-known bands who later defined a decade in music history. She captured live gigs, band portraits, backstage moments, rapt audiences and more, chronicling the formative years of artists such as Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Gossip, Beck, Moby, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Foo Fighters. Says Holler: "I was documenting my life. The musicians, promoters and bouncers were my friends, and I went to see bands I enjoyed and places I could get in for free. I didn't know I was in the middle of something new."
With open spine binding and cold glue bright orange thread, this collection of Holler's energetic, raw images, together with her own personal recollections, reflects on the second generation of Seattle's music scene, as the world transitioned from celluloid to digital, grunge to indie. It is a pilgrimage back in time, a nostalgic trip for anyone who cherishes music or yearns for a time when nobody texted or had a camera in their pocket. The book opens with a nod to a truly independent woman, with a foreword from Megan Jasper, CEO of Sub Pop Records.

Peter Turnley | Paris Je t'aime | December 13

I have now lived in Paris for 50 years. I first arrived on a fall September day in 1975 at the age of 20. From that first day in Paris, and for the following five decades, my life and my world were reborn.

I have never tried to describe life in Paris. I have always been much more interested in feeling it and offering others the chance to feel it as well. During my life in photography, I have documented most of the world’s important news stories and have traveled to over 90 countries. Amid all this that has profoundly impacted my heart, there has been one constant-I have always returned to Paris, my adopted home which has been both a necessary, and essential balm for my soul.

Once in France, I sought out my heroes of French photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, Edouard Boubat, Robert Doisneau, Josef Koudelka and many others. Most of these people were not only my mentors but became my friends.

The illuminated human spirit of Paris is eternal, and as I have photographed the life of Paris likely as much as anyone of my generation, I am honored to carry on the traditions and to have joined a group of predecessors who have devoted their inspiration and hearts to sharing the intangible and rich spirit of this most amazing of cities.

I share with you here within the pages of this book, a visual testament to all that Paris has offered me, and with these photographs, I am grateful to give back to the city and its people and visitors, my love.

About the Speakers

Austrian-born Sylvie Blum started a career in modeling prior taking the helm as a photographer. Sylvie has worked as a well-known art and fashion model for 16 years in front of the camera with esteemed photographers such as Helmut Newton, Jan Saudek, Lucien Clergue, Jeanloup Sieff.

In 1991, she met legendary artist and photographer Günter Blum and became “his model, his muse, his wife”. By his side, Sylvie refined her understanding of light, composition, dark room techniques and other aspects of photography. After her husband’s long illness and death in 1997, Sylvie bought a Polaroid SX-70 and initially started photographing herself and published her first book “Venus” in 2000.

Fascinated by artistic nudes, as they were so perfectly presented in the 1930’s by photographic legends such as George Hoyningen-Huene or Horst P. Horst, Sylvie Blum started creating body fragments, photographic torsos that attain an almost sculptural impression in the artistic lighting and delicate gradation of gray tones.

From 2002 - 2019 Sylvie published 5 art books dedicated to the human form. Her pop art "selfies" soon became famous amongst art collectors and museums. Whether on the trail of Ansel Adams, Leni Riefenstahl or Herbert List, her images all have something in common. British Maxim stated “… Sylvie is the Ansel Adams of the nude female form.”

In 2005 Sylvie relocated to the USA, soon working on different art projects. Sylvie met David Fahey in Los Angeles, who soon became her mentor and artistic inspiration. In 2011, her book "Naked Beauty" edited by David Fahey was published by TeNeues Publishing group. The Fahey Klein Gallery exhibited her work together with iconic photographer Herb Ritts. The Museum of Contemporary Art MOCA in BANGKOK exhibited Sylvie Blum’s work titled “Naked Beauty” in a 10,000 sqft exhibition showing 300 images. Sylvie Blum’s iconic images remain in the permanent collection and exhibition of the MOCA.

My name is Miguel ‘Chromatic’ Valencia and I shoot documentary/street images, my project ‘The other side of San Diego’ is about the communities inside the margins of South and South East San Diego, where these lifestyles of gangs, prostitution, drugs and the out of control homeless population in surrounding areas influence dread and consume the lives, and community here.

My vision is to bring awareness at its rawest form and instead of gentrification to inspire and tell the stories about some of these people really living those lifestyles, and for many of them to be heard because some of those persons in my photos are no longer alive or are incarcerated.

I explore the different and dangerous parts of these areas, where gang members are patrolling down the street or people are dropping drugs off and then where sometimes I have trespassed to shoot particular gang graffiti. There is a significance and story behind many of my captures because of whom I was introduced to, the area I have stepped or the things that happen in front of me.

These photographs are a unique perspective of reality at its finest and I believe that viewers, readers want to see this kind of photography because they get a glimpse into something up close and personal, especially here in San Diego, Ca where they say it’s about beaches and nice housing but they never tell you about the districts I’ve photographed that exist, the ‘real San Diego’ the other side where people are killing over nothing and fugitives on the run because of something.

DAWNING

Raul Roman is Founder and Executive Director of DAWNING and Director of Pipe Dreams. He has led DAWNING’s projects across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, building investigations that merge immersive fieldwork with the visual arts. With a background as a social scientist and educator, Raul has directed every DAWNING project to date, guiding the organization’s mission to document underreported global crises with depth and humanity.

Rafe Andrews is Creative Producer and Photographer for Pipe Dreams and Lead Creative Producer at DAWNING. A founding member of the organization, he has helped shape projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America since 2017. With a background in music, production, photography, and writing, Rafe develops cross-disciplinary approaches that bring coherence and creative force to DAWNING’s investigations.

Nick Parisse is Photographer and Director of Photography for Pipe Dreams and DAWNING’s Director of Photography. A founding member of the organization, he defines the visual direction of DAWNING’s projects worldwide, from fieldwork to final form. His work ensures that each DAWNING investigation reaches both artistic and documentary depth. Nick also teaches photography and digital imaging at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Bootsy Holler is a Los Angeles-based artist andphotographer with deep roots in the Pacific Northwest. Having grown up in Washington state and spent her 20s and 30s immersed in Seattle’s vibrant music scene, her work is a raw, personal chronicle of a generation trying to “make it.” Holler has long documented her own life as well as the lives unfolding around her – especially where music, friends, and family intersect. Holler’s fine artwork has appeared in galleries and publications worldwide. Her documentary music imagery includes a Pearl Jam photograph in the permanent collection of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, and Leica Gallery London exhibited MAKiNG iT in October 2024.

Nabil Ayers is the president of the Beggars Group of record labels, host of the “Identified” podcast, and author of the memoir, "My Life in the Sunshine” (Viking, 2022). Ayers has contributed to the New York Times, The Guardian, and GQ on topics of family, race, and music, and is a recovering rock drummer and record store owner.

Alec Hanley Bemis is a writer, creative producer, and founder of the independent music projects Brassland, OTH Songs, and AHB’s Goodies (a mixtape delivery service on Substack). His writing on culture has appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, The New York Times, and LA Weekly. He began making zines in the 1990s, and co-founded a new one in 2024 called Is Not Music.

Peter Turnley is renowned for his photography of the realities of the human condition. His photographs have been featured on the cover of Newsweek 43 times and are published frequently in the world’s most prestigious publications. He has worked in over 90 countries and has witnessed most major stories of international geo-political and historic significance in the last thirty years. His photographs draw attention to the plight of those who suffer great hardships or injustice. He also affirms with his vision the many aspects of life that are beautiful, poetic, just, and inspirational.

Turnley’s photographs have been featured in Newsweek, Harper’s, Stern, Paris Match, Geo, LIFE, National Geographic, The London Sunday Times, VSD, Le Figaro, Le Monde, New Yorker, and DoubleTake. Peter Turnley worked on contract for the Newsweek Magazine from 1986-2001 and as a contributing editor/photographer with Harper’s Magazine from 2003-2007. Turnley’s photographs have been published the world over and have won many international awards including the Overseas Press Club Award for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, numerous awards and citations from World Press Photo, and the University of Missouri’s Pictures of the Year competition.

Turnley has photographed most of the world’s conflicts of the last decade including the Gulf War-1991, the Balkans (Bosnia), Somalia, Rwanda, South Africa, Chechnya, Haiti, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, the war in Iraq-2003, and also maintains an ongoing documentation of the major refugee populations of the world. He witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989, the liberation of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid in South Africa. He was in New York at “Ground Zero” on Sept 11, 2001, New Orleans during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Haiti after the tragic earthquake of 2011, and Egypt during the toppling of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. He is currently working on a long-term project on daily life in Cuba, “Cuba-A Grace of Spirit”. Turnley has produced portraits and covered many of the modern world’s most influential people: Obama, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, Mandela, Arafat, Schroeder, Ceausescu, Gaddafi, Chirac, Clinton, Reagan, Bush Sr, Lady Diana, and Pope Jean Paul II among others.

Since 1975, Turnley has also continually photographed the life of Paris, his adopted home. Turnley was born in the U.S., but has lived more than half his life in Paris. His tender, humorous, and sensual view of Paris, offers distinct contrast to the stark realities depicted in his photojournalism. He has photographed the extensively the life of Paris these past 35 years. Turnley worked as the assistant to the famous French photographer Robert Doisneau in Paris in the early 1980’s.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Sorbonne of Paris, and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris, Turnley has received Honorary Doctorate degrees from the New School of Social Research in New York and St. Francis College of Indiana. He received a Nieman Fellowship from Harvard for the academic year 2000-2001.

He presently lives in both New York and Paris, and has previously published six books of his work: French Kiss – A Love Letter to Paris, Beijing Spring, Moments of Revolution, In Times of War and Peace, Parisians, and McClellan Street.