Sep 24 2024 60 mins
Robert LeBlanc is a Los Angeles-based artist who works primarily in photography and video. His projects capture non-traditional communities, including hotshot firefighters, hurricane survivors, and Holiness snake handlers. Through raw, unguarded images, he offers a glimpse of daily life into otherwise rarely-pictured social spaces. He works from the conviction that a meaningful documentary series is made through mutual engagement, transparency, and years of trust-building.
LeBlanc is a self-taught photographer who first bought a 35-mm point-and-shoot camera in 2003 to document and share skate culture, and his experience navigating the world on a skateboard. Over the next 12 years, he created an authentic record of day-to-day life in his cohort, culminating in his debut artist book, Unlawful Conduct. Each copy of this limited edition came enclosed in a unique case, die-cut from a specially-made large-scale graffiti mural. Unlawful Conduct sold out before print and was carried in highly selective bookstores worldwide, including museums MoMA PS1 Bookstore and Frye Museum Store.
In 2017, LeBlanc became one of a handful of photographers awarded a government contract to document hotshot wildfires. Over the next four years, he documented Montana and California crews as they risked their lives to battle remote and unpredictable wildfires. This rare and intimate perspective on the proliferation of natural disasters is chronologized in his second publication, Moon Dust. In partnership with Mystery Ranch and Monster Energy Cares, book sale proceeds are donated to the Eric Marsh Foundation, U.S. Hotshots Association, and Backbone Series Scholarship.
LeBlanc’s 2023 monograph, GLORYLAND, pictures not only the last Holiness serpent-handling church in West Virginia but an old mystic religious ritual on the verge of extinction. LeBlanc spent over five years with the church congregation, giving a unique and intimate view of this dying demonstration of devout faith.
Listen in as we explore his process, history and long-form projects in the works.
Robert on Instagram
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The post Episode 122: Robert LeBlanc (Documentary Photography) first appeared on A Photojournalism Podcast for Everyone.