The 2025 Bild Expo was held on Tuesday, June 17th and Wednesday June 18th.  If you’re not familiar, the inaugural Bild Expo took place September 6–7, 2023, at NYC’s Javits Center. Named “Bild” (Yiddish for “image”), it celebrated B&H Photo’s 50th anniversary and acted as a successor to the defunct PhotoPlus/CREATE NYC shows.  Since it had been over a decade since last I visited New York City, I thought attending Bild would be a great photography industry event to attend that would provide an excuse to get back to NYC.  Thursday June 19th was Juneteenth which is a work holiday for me, so I made a three day trip of it.

 

On Tuesday, June 17th I caught a 7am direct flight to LaGuardia via American Airlines.  I sprang for 1st class as I had some credit card reward dollars to burn and I wanted both guaranteed overhead space for luggage and to be first off the plane due to a tight schedule.

Going into the Expo, I really didn’t know what to expect.   Was this an industry trade show?  Was it geared more to consumers?  Professional photographers/videographers/content creators?  Having attended the answer is a resounding “yes.”  Bild tries to be all of those things.

My flight got in about 9am.  I stayed at a hotel that on the list of official hotels for the expo and provided special pricing…for one night Tuesday night.  No problem- I wanted to stay nearer to Central Park on Thursday anyway.  I Ubered to the hotel from LaGuardia and was there about 9:45am.  I dropped off my luggage in my room and walked the ~three blocks to the Javits Center.  I arrived at the Javits Center at about 10:30am – which was in line with my expectations.  All attendees had to 1)register to attend, which was free, and 2)check in on arrival and get a badge.  Knowing that I wasn’t going to get to the Javits until about 30 minutes after the Expo opened, I foolishly hoped the line to enter would be gone and I’d breeze in and pick up my badge.  Nope.  There was an incredibly long line (2 blocks long) outside the Javits Center which did not appear to be moving when I arrived:

Fortunately we only waited about 10 minutes outside before the line started moving.  I sense the show didn’t open exactly on time, as can happen at these things on the first day.  The line did surge forward pretty quickly once things started moving and B&H had a huge number of people at the badge check in desks.  Again, I didn’t really know what to expect going into Bild, but I did not expect the massive number of attendees on Tuesday:

New York locals could pick up their badge ahead of the show by going to B&H which I suspect that many attendees did.  Next time I do hope there’s a better option for out of town attendees to get their badge before the show.  I would have paid twenty…thirty…heck, fifty bucks to avoid the badge line/check-in nonsense.  With the badge, attendees were provided a B&H bag with a printed program inside.  Really?  The huge expense of the printed “program” (mostly advertisements) might have made sense in 2005…but not 2025.  And the bag?  The bag would have made sense if it were the kind of show were vendors had anything to give out to attendees.  By and large, they didn’t.  One Chinese lens manufacturer in attendance did also give me a printed catalog.  But that was it.  The only purpose the bag served was to hold the program/catalog B&H was giving out…which I didn’t want to being with.

By this point it was just after 11am and I was hungry after an early morning of travel.  So I made my way over to the food vending area…which provided about anything you could want to eat…so long as it was kosher.  If you’re unaware, B&H Photo is closely associated with the Jewish community—specifically the Hasidic Jewish community, and more precisely, many of its founders and employees are part of the Satmar Hasidic sect, a branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.  So if I wanted to eat on premises, I would have to conform to Orthodox Jewish dietary practices.  I paid $35 for a not great pastrami sandwich, some dry cookies, and a drink.  But hey – WiFi was free:

Needless to say I made other arrangements for lunch the next day.  There were other lunch options within a couple of blocks of the Javits Center.

After choking down my sandwich it was time get down to business at the show.  The main 3rd floor show floor was dedicated to exhibitors with all the big names you’d expect.  Canon.  Nikon.  Sony.  Fuji.  As well as the next tier of more specialized “niche” players like Leica, OM Systems, and even Panasonic.  Then there were dozens of non-camera manufacturers who provide other products used in the photography and videography space.  Bag manufacturers.  Lighting.  Tripods.  You name it.  Most of the manufacturers whose names you recognize and would expect attended (Nomatic, ProPhoto, Neewer, etc.) and a few you would expect that didn’t  attend.  Ulanzi?  Sigma?  Voigtlander?  Bummer.

The common thread though on Tuesday in the Exhibitor Hall was that it was completely mobbed.  I suspect they got more attendees than what they counted on…which of course is good in some respects.  It seemed like the were 1000 attendees for every exhibitor.  I live in Dayton, Ohio.  When I want to see camera gear, my choices are the one remaining, barely hanging on camera store in town, and Best Buy.  So I was REALLY looking forward to getting hands on with camera gear at Bild.  I was also hoping to make contact and network with Marketing Department personnel who I could create a relationship with and eventually get product to review here on ThruMyLens and on the ThruMyLens YouTube channel.  But due to the massive number of attendees on Tuesday, both goals were nearly impossible.  Canon had perhaps the largest exhibitor presence in the expo and there was just no getting near any equipment that they brought or people to talk to on Tuesday.

And it became abundantly clear that most of the companies that were exhibiting had well prepped the booth representatives to not provide any attendees with contact information for the members of the marketing department.  “No, I don’t have their card or contact information, but I would be happy to pass your card along.”  Riiiight.

The speaker schedule was…interesting.  Several of the scheduled speakers over the course of the two days were what I would consider to be inspirational or perhaps motivational type talks with topics like, “The Lens of Change: How Photography Transforms Lives,”’ and “The Heart Of Photography: Turning Identity Into Art.”  Other speakers/topics sounded more instructional in nature.  “The Sound Effect: Audio for Creators,” FLOW: A Cutting-Edge Lightroom workflow,” and “AI Editing, the CapCut Way” are all examples of topics that could possibly have been invaluable to listen to…or provided only a cursory overview on the topic in the roughly 60 minutes the speaker had available.  I skipped almost all of these with the thought that I could probably catch the YouTube video that would be published later on topics that were of interest.

Quite honestly, 90% of the speakers that were lined up I’d never heard of prior.  That doesn’t mean they weren’t worthy speakers or even well known within their niche.  If you were a New York City photographer or went to school for photography or videography for example, I’m guessing you probably were very familiar with several of the speakers.  I accidentally attended (because I misread the starting time of the speaker I did want to see) the session by fine arts photographer Brooke Shaden called “Shooting Unforgettable Fine Arts Photography.”

I had never before heard of her.  I also know less than nothing about fine arts photography.  I stayed because the session I wanted to see that was immediately following (Fro Knows Photo) and I had a fantastic front row seat.  But…WOW.  Very strange.  Very…disturbing at times.  Not.  My.  Jam.  I will say that the biggest problem with the speaker sessions at Bild was that there was no description beyond the title for every session.  So I didn’t go to many.  I figured rather catch the replay videos on the B&H YouTube channel which were quite well done as you might expect.

I did end up speaking with a few company representatives on Tuesday.  I was very interested in getting hands some Leica gear and did get to play a little bit with both an M11 and a Q3:

I quickly discovered that the M11 isn’t for me.  It’s not that I don’t like to manually focus a camera mind you.  But Leica does it…weird.  The Q3?  I think I’m pretty satisfied at this point that the Q3 isn’t going to replace my Fuji X100VI.  I just don’t see it providing any real benefit over and above what I get from my Fuji.

I tried talking to ProGrade Digital – and wasn’t particularly successful.

I went to OM Systems…waited patiently…and was pretty much ignored.  More or less the same at Panasonic.  It wasn’t entirely the fault of the company reps – there were just 10-20 people for every one rep competing for their attention.  There were just too many people.

The nicest folks at Bild who were the easiest to speak with were…Fujifilm.  It really makes me want to support them more.  I plan on doing a separate article on the products of theirs I was hands on with both Saturday and Sunday.  But Fuji’s entire booth was fun.

I had planned leaving the show at 4pm anyway to get ready for my dinner reservation at the American Express Centurion restaurant, but ended up leaving at 2:30pm.  It was just too many people there for me to enjoy myself.  And it’s not like there weren’t other things to see and do in NYC.

WEDNESDAY

Fortunately Wednesday was significantly less crowded than Tuesday.  I ended up going back to Fuji’s area and spent more time with gear.  I also went to the PetaPixel Podcast Live (and made it onto the podcast during the Q&A – go to time stamp 46:39 ) as well as the Jarod Polin “Fro Knows Photo” talk.  I listen to both podcasts every week so I enjoyed both talks.  I caught up with Chris Niccolls after the show and confirmed that he is indeed a firearms enthusiast, like myself.

Funny story:  As much as I enjoy Jarold Polin’s YouTube channel and listen to his podcast weekly, he’s annoyingly liberal and a raging anti-Trumper.  Before I went back to Bild on Tuesday, I stopped in at Trump Tower and paid a visit to the official Trump store in the basement, and picked up a “Make America Great Again” hat.  I spotted “Fro” and his right-hand man Stephen Eckert.  Polin was talking to another fan so I went and shook hands with Eckert and showed him the hat.  Stephen said “oh God…don’t let Jarod see that.”  I sat in the front row of Polin’s presentation and ALMOST wore the hat just to irritate him.  Why?  Because Polin loves to say and do things that he knows will irritate people.  I was just going to return the favor.

I did run into a few other YouTube famous “influencers” like Gerald Undone:

I also ran into Hugh Brownstone of Three Blind Men and An Elephant:

After “Fro Knows Photo” Bild was done and it was time for the official B&H Creators Afterparty on the roof of the Javits Center:

The view was spectacular:

WOULD I GO BACK TO BILD?

Another Bild Expo isn’t guaranteed of course and the next one hasn’t been announced as of this writing.  But if attendance is any metric of  success it would make sense they will do it again.  But would I go again?  I’d have to really think about that.  It’s not like I didn’t enjoy  myself,  because I did.  I just wasn’t able to accomplish much of what I though I would at Bild.  But depending on the vendors and the speakers I would at least consider attending again.  I had intended to go on one of the photo walks, but was doing a bit of my own and missed it.  I’d probably also want to attend one of the evening bus or boat tours they made available if I attended again.

 PLANNING FOR BILD

Here are a few suggestions for anyone planning on attending any future Bild Expos:

• Do stay at one of the B&H coordinated hotels near the Javits Center.  I stayed with the Four Points By Sheraton Manhattan Midtown West – about three blocks from the Javits Center.  It worked out well.

• Don’t plan for every last minute of your time to be taken up with scheduled events.  Leave time for wandering and exploring – there’s lots to see and do.  Trying to pack too much in will detract from enjoyment.
• Don’t do back to back speaker sessions.  On both Tuesday and Wednesday the speaker sessions packed out.  You’d need to get in line 30 minutes ahead of time in order to get a good seat…which means you’d have to leave a session 30 minutes  early to get in line for the next session.
• Plan on eating lunch outside the Expo.  Just trust me on this one.
• Congratulations to B&H Photo on what I’m sure most will consider to be a very successful event.

Here’s my video about Bild 2025: