A Photographic Life- 376: 'Special Episode, A Conversation with Photographer Edmund Sumner'

In this special episode UNP Founder and Curator Grant Scott speaks with architectural photographer Edmund Summer about soft eyes, traces of memory, collaboration and understanding your subject matter. Edmund Sumner  Sumner is an architectural photographer, based in London, with a global clientele spanning four continents. Architects, publishers, government departments and curators alike have, for the past two and a half decades, turned to him to give meaning and context to architecture and design. His work is recognised for its commercial and creative qualities, visualising the formal and spatial aspirations of Modern architecture, sustaining style and environment in equal measure. Sumner collaborates with many of today’s leading architects, including Tadao Ando, Foster + Partners, Fernanda Canales and Gianni Botsford. A strong advocate for emerging architectural talent, he contributes his photographic and curatorial expertise to prestigious design festivals such as the Sharjah Architecture Triennial and Arab Design Now. His photographic commissions are complemented by ongoing dialogues with leading publishers and his studio has successfully produced four major publications on his work within the context of global cultural narratives. Beyond his commissioned work, Sumner maintains a personal, creative photography practice. This has led to a portfolio of solo exhibitions and gallery representations in both London and the US. www.edmundsumner.co.uk Dr.Grant Scott After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work zas a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018. Scott’s book Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is on sale now. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.thamesandhudson.com/products/casa-mexicana?srsltid=AfmBOorQsmfnp292BAP0TkVG1QKkrwcmqDOoSHwau_q4zKESFMV4Uz0L © Grant Scott 2025