A Photographic Life

In this monthly conversation series Grant Scott speaks with editor, writer and curator of photography Bill Shapiro. In an informal conversation each month Grant and Bill comment on the photographic environment as they see it. This month they reflect on the photographic pivot. How to move from one area to another, utilise transferable skills and build a professional practice for the 21st Century. Bill Shapiro Bill Shapiro served as the Editor-in-Chief of LIFE, the legendary photo magazine; LIFE’s relaunch in 2004 was the largest in Time Inc. history. Later, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of LIFE.com, which won the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital photography. Shapiro is the author of several books, among them Gus & Me, a children’s book he co-wrote with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and, What We Keep, which looks at the objects in our life that hold the most emotional significance. A fine-art photography curator for New York galleries and a consultant to photographers, Shapiro is also a Contributing Editor to the Leica Conversations series. He has written about photography for the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, Vogue, and Esquire, among others. Every Friday — more or less — he posts about under-the-radar photographers on his Instagram feed, where he’s @billshapiro. Dr.Grant Scott After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as 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 next book Condé Nast Have Left The Building: Six Decades of Vogue House will be published by Orphans Publishing in the Spring of 2024. © Grant Scott 2023

In episode 278 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on not getting bored with photography, photographers obsessed with kit of all kinds, the slow death of the NFT and finding new ways to say new things with a camera. Plus this week, photographer Massimo Leardini takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Originally from Cattolica, in the Italian Province of Rimini, Massimo Leardini has been based in Norway for the past 30 years where he works with a small number of models on extended collaborations. He has published several books of his work including Scandinavian in 2013, Catarsi in 2015, Primitive in 2016 and In Between in 2017. In 2020, he published ELV in which he explores his fascination with the female body and the landscape. Presenting a series of images including contorted fragments of the female body, set deep within the primordial forests of Scandinavia. His work has been widely exhibited internationally and in Norway. www.leardini.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. Scott’s next book Condé Nast Have Left The Building: Six Decades of Vogue House will be published by Orphans Publishing in the Spring of 2024. © Grant Scott 2023

In episode 277 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on understanding and promoting contemporary landscape photography, when clients are made redundant, and what a photographer leaves behind. Plus this week, photographer Nicholas Sinclair takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Nicholas Sinclair was born in London in 1954 and studied Fine Art and Art History at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne between 1973 to 1976. His career as a photographer began in 1982 while playing the drums in a Moroccan circus when he began taking photographs of the circus acts between performances, photographs that were first published by The British Journal of Photography in 1983 and exhibited at The University of Sussex in the same year. After the season ended, he visited other circuses with the aim of extending the series. This work was subsequently shown at The National Theatre in London in 1985 and at The Photography Centre of Athens in 1986. In 1987 he began photographing British artists in their studios a series of portraits that spans thirty years and includes Anthony Caro, Gillian Wearing, Frank Auerbach, Gilbert & George, Paula Rego and Richard Hamilton. Work from this series is now in the permanent collections of European museums and galleries including The National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, amongst other institutions. Forty-seven of these portraits are in the collection of Pallant House Gallery in Chichester where they were exhibited in 2014. In 1995 he was commissioned by Brighton Museum & Art Gallery to make a series of photographs of contemporary fetishism for inclusion in the exhibition Fetishism: Visualising Power and Desire. In 2002 Sinclair published his first book of landscape photographs entitled Crossing the Water, a series made on the perimeter of a lake over a twelve-month period. In 2003 he was made a Hasselblad Master and in 2009 Sinclair moved to Berlin and established a studio there in 2011. In 2019 a German production company made a thirty-minute documentary about his work and he was appointed Visiting Professor at Richmond, The American International University in London. In 2021 Sinclair published Polaroids, a book of studio portraits to mark ten years of working in the studio and a short film entitled Rhythm of the Blood. He is currently working on a new series of photographs titled Neon Trees Miscellany made in East Berlin. www.nicholassinclair.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. Scott’s next book Condé Nast Have Left The Building: Six Decades of Vogue House will be published by Orphans Publishing in the Spring of 2024. © Grant Scott 2023

In the third of three special episodes UNP founder and curator Grant Scott looks at where we have been over the past decades with photographic practice to help identify themes and recurring issues that have formed the foundation for where photography is today in the 21st Century. Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. © Grant Scott 2023 Image: Charles C. Ebbets in 1932 Music: © Grant Campbell 2023 https://grantcampbell.bandcamp.com/music

In the second of three special episodes UNP founder and curator Grant Scott looks at where we have been over the past decades with photographic practice to help identify themes and recurring issues that have formed the foundation for where photography is today in the 21st Century. Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. © Grant Scott 2023 Image: Charles C. Ebbets in 1932 Music: © Grant Campbell 2023 https://grantcampbell.bandcamp.com/music

In the first of three special episodes UNP founder and curator Grant Scott looks at where we have been over the past decades with photographic practice to help identify themes and recurring issues that have formed the foundation for where photography is today in the 21st Century. Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. © Grant Scott 2023

In episode 273 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the death of editorial publishing, the rise of Threads by Meta and the natural process of ageing based on digital evolution. Plus this week, photographer Andrew Macpherson takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Andrew Macpherson was born in London and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. He has worked as a photographer since he left school at 15, traveling the world to photograph musicians, actors and designers. By his mid-twenties he was a regular contributor to magazines such as Rolling Stone, The Face, Elle, Bazaar and Vogue. His passion for photography and the darkroom process led him to become a master printer, however as a life long environmentalist the carbon and chemical footprints of film created a great deal of inner conflict, and he became an enthusiastic early adopter of the digital revolution in the Nineties. Macpherson has created multiple bodies of personal work throughout his career, ranging from an exploration of the American landscape in his body of work Chasing Ansel Adams to studies of performance, flowers and spirit. Macpherson is currently collaborating on several personal projects including Immortality & Impermanence with artist Onik Agaronyan, Pagan Spirit, an exploration into romanticism and pictorialism with dancer Joanna Hadfield, and Trinity: The Crucible of Life a poem of creation told through discarded objects. www.andrewmacpherson.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. Scott’s next book Condé Nast Have Left The Building: Six Decades of Vogue House will be published by Orphans Publishing in the Spring of 2024. © Grant Scott 2023

In this 'Photo Collecting' episode UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed connecting with Peter Fetterman in Santa Monica to discuss all aspects of photo collecting, including pricing, selling, archives, keeping true to your vision, the art market and the photography gallery. Born in London, Peter Fetterman has been deeply involved in the medium of photography for over thirty years. Initially a filmmaker, producer and collector, he set up his first gallery over twenty years ago. Fetterman was one of the pioneer tenants of Bergamot Station, the Santa Monica Center of the Arts when it first opened in 1994. Today, his gallery has one of the largest inventories of classic 20th Century photography in the United States particularly in humanist photography including work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Steve McCurry, Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, Willy Ronis, André Kertesz, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Lillian Bassman. His book The Power of Photography was published in 2022. www.peterfetterman.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. Scott's next book Condé Nast Have Left The Building: Six Decades of Vogue House will be published by Orphans Publishing in the Spring of 2024. © Grant Scott 2023

In this 'Photobook Special' episode UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his she connecting with Mary V Swanson in Arizona and Darius Himes in New York to discuss their book Publish Your Photography Book and all things 'photobook' related. You can find out more about the book mentioned in this episode here www.publishyourphotographybook.com and here on Instagram @publishyourphotographybook Mary V Swanson is an educator, author, entrepreneur and a respected advisor to artists and arts organisations. She received her MFA in Photography from Arizona State University in 1979 and throughout graduate school she served as a research assistant for the Curator of Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. She began her career at The Friends of Photography in Carmel, California, managing the education offerings including the Ansel Adams Workshop and then moved to New York to head Special Projects at Magnum Photos, before relocating to Tucson, Arizona in 1990 to launch Swanstock, an agency managing licensing rights for fine art photographers. She currently works independently, offering consulting services to artists and arts organisations, and offering her own classes and educational seminars, serving as an advisor for multiple not-for-profit industry organisations, and other community-minded activities. Swanson coauthored with Darius Himes Publish Your Photography Book: Revised & Updated in 2014. Among the recent awards she has received are the 2015 Honoured Educator from the Society for Photographic Education, the 2014 Susan Carr Award for Education from the American Society for Media Photographers (ASMP) and the FOCUS Award for Lifetime Achievement in Photography from the Griffin Museum. She frequently serves as a judge on contemporary photography and photobook competitions, as a portfolio reviewer for industry events, and she presents group learning through interactive lectures, workshops and Master Class Retreats. Swanson is based in Tucson, Arizona. @maryvirginiaswanson. Darius Himes completed his Master of Arts in Liberal Arts at St. John's College in 2000, and received a BFA in Photography from Arizona State University, having studied under William Jenkins and Bill Jay. Based in New York City, Himes has overseen a global team producing auctions and exhibition as the International Head of Photographs for the auction house Christie’s since 2014. Prior to joining Christie’s, Himes was the director of the Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco from 2011–2014. In 2007 he co-founded Radius Books, a non-profit publisher of books on photography and the visual arts, where he continues to serve on the Board. While working with artists such as John McCracken and Lee Friedlander, he has published first monographs for over a dozen emerging artists, including Renate Aller, Colleen Plumb, Aaron Huey, Janelle Lynch, Michael Lundgren, Alison Rossiter, and Meghan Riepenhoff. Himes was also the founding editor of the photo-eye Booklist, a quarterly journal devoted to photography books, which was published from 2002–2007. A lecturer and writer, he has contributed to Aperture, The Photobook Review, Blind Spot, Bookforum, FOAM and BOMB. @dariushimes Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. © Grant Scott 2023

In this monthly conversation series Grant Scott speaks with editor, writer and curator of photography Bill Shapiro. In an informal conversation each month Grant and Bill comment on the photographic environment as they see it. This month they reflect on photography and artificial intelligence in a rigorous discussion dealing with the impact AI is and will have on the future of photography. Bill Shapiro Bill Shapiro served as the Editor-in-Chief of LIFE, the legendary photo magazine; LIFE’s relaunch in 2004 was the largest in Time Inc. history. Later, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of LIFE.com, which won the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital photography. Shapiro is the author of several books, among them Gus & Me, a children’s book he co-wrote with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and, What We Keep, which looks at the objects in our life that hold the most emotional significance. A fine-art photography curator for New York galleries and a consultant to photographers, Shapiro is also a Contributing Editor to the Leica Conversations series. He has written about photography for the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, Vogue, and Esquire, among others. Every Friday — more or less — he posts about under-the-radar photographers on his Instagram feed, where he’s @billshapiro. Dr.Grant Scott After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as 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. © Grant Scott 2023