A Photographic Life

In episode 212 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the price of residential workshops, the future of portraiture and bullying in photography. Plus this week photographer William Saunders 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?’ William Saunders grew up in the small town of Sisters, Oregon, 2000 population. He states that "Half of the folks were hippies and the other half were cowboys, we all got along and inspired each other" and think this is where a lot of my Americana inspiration comes from. I never picked up a camera until I was 19 or 20 years old in college. A journalism professor randomly found out about my background in the outdoors and convinced me on the spot to try out photography. He made the switch to photojournalism in his sophomore year and madly fell in love with the art of making pictures and telling stories through the medium. After college he assisted the Director, Tim Kemple full-time for two years traveling the world making pictures for high end outdoor clients. After two years he went solo working freelance for brands such as The North Face, Under Armor and Patagonia. Saunders images appear in magazines such as Outside Magazine, The Surfers Journal, and The Ski Journal. He is currently am based in Utah and is the Overall winner of Redbull Illume's 2021 photo contest. www.willsaundersphoto.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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 211 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott hands over the podcast to five of his photography graduates to explain what photography means to them. The students contributing to this week's episode include Cameron Howard, Laura Skog, Jack Rees, Sasha Burdian and Sophie Jeffreys. All five students are graduates from the Photography BA (HONS) at Oxford Brookes University a course created to reflect photography in the 21st Century led by Grant Scott. These are the first students to graduate from the course and their contributions were written and recorded under their own initiative as a response to previous contributions to the podcast. Grant had no input into their contributions and was unaware that the students had taken on the challenge until they were revealed to him at the students Degree Show Private View. You can find out more about the Photography BA (HONS) at Oxford Brookes University here: www.brookes.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/photography You can view the work created by the students here: www.lauraskogphotography.com https://cameronhowardphotography.com https://sophie-jeffrey.com https://jackreesphoto.co.uk https://sashaburdian.co.uk 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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 3 of this new podcast series Grant Scott continues his search for Bill Jay and hears from photographer Alen MacWeenie and Anna Ray Jones about Bill's relationship with Tony, Tony's beginnings as a photographer and the impact a trip to New York in 1968 had on the history of photography in the UK. Bill Jay was a photographer, writer on and advocate of photography, curator, magazine and picture editor, lecturer, public speaker and mentor. He was the first editor of “the immensely influential magazine Creative Camera and founder and editor of Album magazine. He is the author of more than 20 books on the history and criticism of photography, and roughly 400 essays, lectures and articles. His own photographs have been widely published, including a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He is also known for his portrait photographs of photographers. www.donotbendfilm.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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 210 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the documentation of the everyday, the latest NFT news, not needing rules and listening to young photographers. Plus this week photographer Edmund Clark 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?’ Edmund Clark worked as a researcher in London and Brussels before gaining a postgraduate diploma in photojournalism at the London College of Communication. Clark's research-based work combines a range of references and forms including bookmaking, installations, photography, video, documents, text and found images and material; whatever is conceptually and formally relevant to investigating the subject and communicating with an audience. Recurring themes include developing strategies for reconfiguring how subjects are seen and engaging with state censorship to explore unseen experiences, spaces and processes of control and incarceration in the ‘Global War on Terror’ and elsewhere. Clark's work has been published in seven books My Shadow's Reflection (2018), In Place of Hate (2017), Negative Publicity: Artefacts of Extraordinary Rendition(2017), Control Order House (2016), The Mountains of Majeed (2014), Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2010), and Still Life Killing Time (2007). His work has been exhibited widely including at the International Center of Photography Museum, New York, and the Imperial War Museum, London. His work has been acquired for national and international collections including the ICP Museum and the George Eastman House Museum in America and the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Media Museum in Great Britain. Awards include the Royal Photographic Society Hood Medal for outstanding photography for public service, the British Journal of Photography International Photography Award and, together with Crofton Black, an ICP Infinity Award and the inaugural Rencontres d’Arles Photo-Text Book Award. For four years he was the artist-in-residence in Europe's only wholly therapeutic prison, HMP Grendon. He is is represented by the Flowers Gallery, London and New York, the East Wing Gallery, Dubai and the Parotta Contemporary, Stuttgart and Berlin. Today Clark teaches postgraduate students at the London College of Communication, London. www.edmundclark.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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 209 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the digital forum, the mindful photographer and photographic degree shows. Plus this week photographer Rashod Taylor 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?’ Rashod Taylor is a fine art and portrait photographer whose work addresses themes of family, culture, legacy, and the black experience. He attended Murray State University and received a Bachelor's degree in Art with a specialization in Fine Art Photography. Since then, Rashod has exhibited and published his work across the United States and internationally. Most recently his series Little Black Boy was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Rashod is the 2021 recipient of the Arnold Newman Prize For New Directions in Photographic Portraiture, a 2020 Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist, winner of Lens Culture’s Critics Choice award and a 2021 Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards winner. His clients include National Geographic, The Atlantic, Essence Magazine, ProPublica and Buzzfeed News. He is continuing to work on his Little Black Boy series, where he documents his son’s life while examining the Black American experience and fatherhood. He lives in Bloomington, Illinois, with his wife and son. www.rashodtaylor.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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 208 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the role of the viewer in photography, sadness within documentary photography and why art directors can be an important factor to photographic success. Plus this week photographer David Butow 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?’ David Butow is a freelance photojournalist whose projects and assignments have taken him to over two dozen countries including Afghanistan, Burma, Iraq, Peru, Yemen, Zimbabwe and Ukraine. Born in New York and raised in Dallas, he has a degree in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. After college he moved to Los Angeles and worked in newspapers before beginning a freelance career for magazines in the 1990's. From the mid-90's through the late-2000's he worked as a contract photographer for US News and World Report magazine covering social issues and news events such as post- 9/11 in New York, the Palestinian/Israeli Intifada, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the death of Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. More recently, his photographs of events such as the China earthquake in 2008, the funeral of Nelson Mandela, Hong Kong protests of 2019, January 6th and various projects in the U.S. have won awards including from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International and White House News Photographers Association. From 2017-2021, he was based in Washington, D.C., doing primarily political assignments at the White House and US Capitol for TIME, CNN, Politico, NBC, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone and other clients. After four years in Washington, D.C., he relocated to Los Angeles. He is currently in Western Ukraine and Poland. www.davidbutow.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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 207 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on keeping it simple, ignorant criticism, lack of empathy, and not placing your agendas on others. Plus this week photographer Ian Brown 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?’ Ian Brown is an award winning photographer whose work focuses on the human condition. Brown grew up dividing his time between the urban landscape and time in the highlands of Northern Ontario. He survived cancer at the age of 19, a heart attack at age 32 and being shot at in the middle of a civil war in Colombia while on assignment for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) documenting conditions in the remote Darrien jungle region a body of work that later went on to become the international exhibition Lost between River and Sky. His work includes projects documenting HIV survivors in Malawi, Africa; a continuing documentary series on the Opioid epidemic and a long term study on the urban anthropology of Detroit. This project, Prairie and Pavement was one of the featured exhibitions at the 2014 Scotiabank Photography Festival in Toronto. For his major portrait body of work American Dreams Brown traveled over 80,000 miles and to all fifty states over the course of twelve years photographing people and asking them to write down in their own handwriting their ideas on America and the concept of the 'American Dream'. This work was published in September 2020. Brown's work has been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post and various international publications and he divides his time between Toronto and a cabin outside the Algonquin Park in Canada. www.ianbrownphotography.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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 206 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the truth within images of conflict, whether smartphones have become too smart and he suggests a Photo Life Hack to save you money. Plus this week photographer Tricia Porter takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Born in 1946 Tricia Porter's interest in photography began as a teenager, when she wanted to bring back a visual record of her first trip outside Britain, to Moscow in an old bus loaded with college students and camping gear. She met the photographer, Sylvester Jacobs who encouraged her to buy a camera and she began attending lectures and seminars at The Photographers Gallery, London, and the ICA Photo Study Centre learning from photographers work, such as Tony Ray Jones, Bill Jay, Steiglitz, Ansel Adams, Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Kertesz, Bill Brandt and many more. Her first photography exhibition was in Liverpool in 1972, the outcome of documenting her surroundings while living in Liverpool's inner city. In 1974, she moved to Liverpool 8, an area of the city that was notorious for its poverty, planning blight and vandalism. The resulting Bedford Street exhibition was shown at the Liverpool Academy of Arts, and later the Half Moon Gallery in London. It gained Arts Council support, and Porter went on to create a follow-up exhibition, Some Liverpool Kids, which was also shown at the Academy in 1976. She left Liverpool in 1976 to live in rural Hampshire and has remained living there until today. Throughout her career Porter has running community based photography workshops, and continued to exhibit her work with the most recent ‘Liverpool Photographs 1972-74' being staged at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool in 2015. Cafe Royal Books have published five books of Porter's work, Portraits of People in a Dying Community Liverpool 1972, Some Kids in Liverpool 8 1974, Industry Year 1986, Liverpool Docks 1975, and Selborne 1980-82 www.porterfolio.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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 205 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on client expectations and if they are reasonable, those who give back to the communities they are part of, and the importance of having fun! Plus this week photographer Donwilson Odhiambo 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?’ Donwilson Odhiambo is an award-winning Kenyan documentary photojournalist, videographer and a mental health activist, born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya and who grew up in Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa photographer who grew up in Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa. He documents the social, cultural, political, and economic activities of day-to-day life on the African continent. As a response to issues including illegal drugs, crime, early marriages and teenage pregnancies in his area he established TAMI (Talking Art and Mental Illness) a project that is open to all, in which he invites experts including psychiatrists to share advice and essentials such as sanitary towels, condoms and food packages with those who attend and need them most. www.instagram.com/donwilsonofficial 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). © Grant Scott 2022

In episode 2 of this new podcast series Grant Scott continues his search for Bill Jay and hears from photographers Homer Sykes, and Martin Parr, as he tracks Jay's career from school to magazines and the influence of David Hurn and Tony Ray Jones on Jay and his editorship of Creative Camera magazine. Bill Jay was a photographer, writer on and advocate of photography, curator, magazine and picture editor, lecturer, public speaker and mentor. He was the first editor of "the immensely influential magazine Creative Camera and founder and editor of Album magazine. He is the author of more than 20 books on the history and criticism of photography, and roughly 400 essays, lectures and articles. His own photographs have been widely published, including a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He is also known for his portrait photographs of photographers. www.donotbendfilm.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). © Grant Scott 2022