Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joseph Mario Giordano. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Joseph Mario, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?
While I’m still a working photojournalist, I’m cresting books as I go along. I would hope that my legacy would be my books and what they say about our time in America. Failed capitalism, racism, police brutality, those forgotten, are all the subjects that I cover and will continue to cover. I’m not so naive to think that things will change, but i hope my books are a reflection of our time.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a working photojournalist based in Baltimore and co-host of the photojournalism podcast, 10 Frames Per Second. I teach analog photography At Baltimore School for the Arts. My first book, We Used to Live At Night (Culture Crush Editions) chronicles 25 years of the city at night. My work has been featured on NPR, ProPublica, Al-Jazeera, GQ, Architectural Digest, Taste, The Observer New Review Sunday Magazine, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, and the Washington Post, Work, from my Struggle series, of members of America’s Civil Rights Movement, is in the permanent collections at the Reginald Lewis Museum. In 2015 I was short-listed for the National Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Prize and my international photographs covering the collapse of the steel industry are the subject of a solo show at the Museum of Industry in Baltimore. For the past two years, I’ve been working with the BMI on a series about the modern definition of work and industry. This year I will be featured in American Photography Annual 40. It’s a huge honor to me that the work I do in Baltimore gets a national stage. It highlights the work of the city’s anti-gun activists. I am most proud of the three books I produced and not self published. Recently I was awarded a slot in American Photography Annual #40 in the Series category.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In 1996, just out of the military, I had all my gear stolen while on a project in the UK. I had little money, which I had saved from working on a construction site, but took a bus to Prague. I wrote for 5 years until I moved back to the states and started my photography from scratch. In 2013, I gave up advertising and commercial work to concentrate on telling stories in my city, Baltimore. 2013 saw a spike in homicides and no one was covering it outside of “numbers’ on the news. “Numbers” are people. I wanted to tell the story of the victims’ families and those who were affected by the city’s violence. I made friends with activists who were working outside the (ineffectual) police to march, stage interventions, and generally be there for their fellow neighbors. In 2023, with the activists’ consent and partnership, the project was published as a book. There were times when I wanted to give up photography again, but it’s a calling. You have to stick with it. Let the photos take themselves. And you will succeed. Success isn’t the end game. Being happy with your work is. Everything else is secondary. It’s never been a business for me. I mean, you have to legally think if it that way, but once photography becomes “work”, you’re finished.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
For me, it’s not so much an audiance as connecting with potential clients. I follow galleries, publishers, editors as much as I can. When you’re ready, a well written DM (on a business account not a private one) can do wonders. Two of my books and most of my assignments/write ups have been the result of working social media. For instance, I followed Culture Crush Editions. Looked at the work on their website, and it fit with my 25 years of night time work. A chain of DM’s between me and the publisher led to them publishing my first book. You really need to learn, if you’re in the photo business, that social media is a tool like any other. Follow people in the industry then follow photographers they follow. You’d be surprised. But it takes work. A lot of work.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.jmgiordanophotography.com/
- Instagram: @jmgiordanophoto
Image Credits
J.M. Giordano