The Candid Frame: A Photography Podcast

Meryl Meisler was born 1951 in the South Bronx and raised in North Massapequa, Long Island, NY. Meryl began photographing herself, family, and friends while enrolled in a photography class taught by Cavalliere Ketchum at The University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1975, Meryl returned to New York City and studied with Lisette Model, photographing her hometown and the city around her. After working as a freelance illustrator by day, Meryl frequented and photographed the infamous New York Discos. Meisler began releasing large bodies of previously unseen work. Meryl’s first monograph, A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick (Bizarre, 2014), received international acclaim. The book juxtaposes her zenith of disco photos with images of the burned-out yet beautiful neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn in the 1980s.  Her latest monograph, New York PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco (Parallel Pictures Press 2021). Meryl lives and works in New York City and Woodstock, NY, continuing the photographic memoir she began in 1973