A Photographic Life

In episode 32 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the promise and marketing of 'instant' photography success and the importance of reading the terms and conditions when entering photo competitions. Plus this week Grant re-visits a recorded conversation with legendary photographer Michael Thompson in which he speaks about moving to New York from the West Coast, assisting Irving Penn and finding your own photographic voice. Michael Thompson is an American photographer who began his career as an assistant to Irving Penn after training at the Brooks Institute of Photography in California. Thompson's work has appeared in W, Details, Allure, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. His commercial photography includes campaigns for Gap, Elizabeth Arden, Chanel, and he was the PDN magazine Award winner for his project I Am African. His commercials include those for the fragrance Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker(winner of the 2006 FiFi Award for Best National Advertising Campaign -Television), the Frank Gehry Collection for Tiffany, and a PSA for his documentation of The American Ballet Theatre. Thompson was one of a small group of photographers who helped set a new agenda for editorial photography under the art direction of Fabian Baron in the early 90's in the re-launched Harpers Bazaar magazine. A collection of his work was published in 2005 by Harry N. Abrams titled Images. Thompson lives and works in Los Angeles. www.michaelthompsonphotographer.com Grant Scott is the founder/curator of www.unitednationsofphotography.com, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2019. He is currently work on his next documentary film project. His documentary film, www.donotbendfilm.com Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay has been screened across the UK and the US in 2018 and will be screened in the US and Canada in 2019. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 31 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the recent discussions around stock photography and 'free' photography in respect to the recent Squarespace and Unsplash collaboration. He also follows on from last week's podcast with an update on using charcoal to teach photography! Plus this week Grant re-visits a recorded conversation with legendary photographer Mary Ellen Mark from 2012 on the publication of her book Prom. In this short edited clip Ellen Mark comments on the importance of simplicity in portrait of photography and for the image to be about the subject and not the photographer. If you would like to learn more about Unsplash and their business model I suggest watching this excellent filmed interview with Mikael Cho, the company's Co-Founder and CEO. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZevNRITnWU Mary Ellen Mark was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were "away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes". Mark had 18 collections of her work published, most notably Streetwise and Ward 81. Her work was exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide and published in Life, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, New York Times, and Vanity Fair magazine. She was a member of Magnum Photos between 1977 and 1981 and received numerous accolades, including three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2014 Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from the George Eastman House and the Outstanding Contribution Photography Award from the World Photography Organisation. She died in 2015. You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 on Player FM https://player.fm/series/a-photographic-life and Podbean www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/i6uqx-6d9ad/A-Photographic-Life-Podcast Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 30 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the importance of networking, long-term relationships and collaboration within photography. He also explains the importance of charcoal and paper to learning photography! Plus this week photographer Danny North 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?’ London-based portrait photographer Danny North works closely with his subjects whether it’s Lewis Hamilton or the people of the Hebridean island of Eigg. In 2017, two of his images were selected for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Danny's work has appeared in Newsweek, The Guardian, The Independent, and Q Magazine, with his commercial clients including Monster Energy, MasterCard, Apple, Interscope, and Capitol Records. http://dannynorth.co You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 on Player FM https://player.fm/series/a-photographic-life and Podbean www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/i6uqx-6d9ad/A-Photographic-Life-Podcast Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 29 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering dyslexia amongst the photographic community, whether the expectation for writing to support photography is necessary, and where photographers are today with the moving image. Plus this week Grant re-visits a recorded conversation from 2011 with legendary photographer David Bailey. In this brief edited extract Bailey uses some strong language to deliver his thoughts on how people see him, the importance of cameras to photography, and the problems of achieving success early on in his career. As always with Bailey he doesn't mince his words! In 1959, Bailey became a photographic assistant at the John French studio, and in  1960, he was a contracted as a fashion photographer for British Vogue magazine. Along with Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy, Bailey captured and helped create the 'Swinging London' of the 1960s. The three photographers socialised with actors, musicians and royalty, and found themselves elevated to celebrity status, named by fellow photographer Norman Parkinson 'The Black Trinity'. 'Swinging London' was aptly reflected in his Box of Pin-Ups(1964): a box of poster-prints of 1960s celebrities including Terence Stamp, The Beatles, Mick Jagger, Jean Shrimpton, Cecil Beaton, Rudolf Nureyev, Andy Warhol and notorious East End gangsters, the Kray's. Strong objection to the presence of the Krays by fellow photographer, Lord Snowdon, was the major reason no American edition of the Box was released, and that a second British edition was not issued. Bailey's ascent at Vogue was meteoric and, at the height of his productivity, he shot 800 pages of Vogue editorial in one year. Since 1966, Bailey has also directed several television commercials and documentaries. From 1968 to 1971 he directed and produced TV documentaries titled Beaton, Warhol and Visconti. As well as fashion photography, Bailey photographed album sleeve art for musicians including The Rolling Stones. In 1976, Bailey co-published Ritz Newspaper. In 1985, he documented the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium. In 1995 he directed and wrote the South Bank Film The Lady is a Tramp featuring his wife Catherine Bailey. In 1998 he directed a documentary, Models Close Up, commissioned by Channel 4. In 2012, the BBC made a film of the story of his 1962 New York photoshoot with Jean Shrimpton, titled We'll Take Manhattan. He continues to work for a variety of editorial clients including Vogue and publish books of work from his archive and of new work. He does not have a website for his work. You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 on Player FM https://player.fm/series/a-photographic-life and Podbean www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/i6uqx-6d9ad/A-Photographic-Life-Podcast Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 28 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the relationship between photography and music, the importance of inspiration from multiple sources, making your own rules and the need for commitment in storytelling. Plus this week photographer Kenneth Jarecke 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?’ Kenneth Jarecke is an American photojournalist, author, editor, and war correspondent. He has worked in more than 80 countries and has been featured in LIFE, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated magazines amongst many others. He is a founding member of Contact Press Images, and is notable for making the iconic image of a burnt Iraqi soldier that was published in The Observer newspaper in 1991. Jarecke moved to New York City to pursue his dream of being a photojournalist. Still a teen, he landed in New York with minimal experience and talked his way into meeting Sports Illustrated editor, Barbara Hinkle. She encouraged him to start shooting in colour rather than black and white. He then met David Burnett and Robert Pledge of Contact Press Images at a photography workshop and subsequently became a founding member of Contact Press.  Jarecke was a White House photographer in the Ronald Reagan years and covered the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the first Gulf War, and nine Olympic Games since 1988. He currently resides on a ranch in Montana. www.kennethjarecke.com You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto and on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 27 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the Portrait Salon portrait competition's publishing of judging data and reflects upon where we are today with photo book publishing and whether book reviews are wanted or needed.  Plus this week photographic curator Helen Trompeteler 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?’ Helen Trompeteler is a Curator of Photography with over fifteen years’ experience working with museum collections, galleries and arts organisations. Her exhibitions and books include Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon (Co-Curator, 2015) and Man Ray Portraits (Assistant Curator, 2013). Past displays include Snowdon: A Life in View (2014), Fred Daniels: Cinema Portraits (2012) and Format Photography Agency (2010). Helen’s writing has been published internationally including texts for artist monographs, exhibition catalogues and magazines including Aesthetica, Of the Afternoon and Photomonitor. She has lectured on the history of photography for organisations including Central Saint Martins, Regent’s University, London and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She is a board member of Four Corners, London and has worked as an advisor to organisations including the Photographic Collections Network. www.trompeteler.com You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto and on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 26 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the debate around the Taylor Wessing NPG Portrait Award winning images and the discussions surrounding the opening of the Photography Centre within the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Both of which present issues concerning transparency of process that Grant feels need to be addressed. Plus this week photographer Stuart Franklin 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?’ Stuart Franklin was born in London in 1956. Having left school at 16, he went on to study photography at West Surrey College of Art and Design. His photographic career began when he started to work for The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph Magazine in London and later with Agence Presse Sygma in Paris, “At Sygma photographers arrived from Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon unloading their Domke bags and their stories. Later I felt confident enough to tell my own. I covered the 1983 Nigerian exodus, the Heysel Stadium disaster, the Beirut bombing of the French and American bases, the civil war there and in Sri Lanka, the conflict in Northern Ireland and finally the 1984–85 famine in Sudan.” In Khartoum, Stuart shared a flat with Sebastião Salgado for a few weeks. Salgado worked with Magnum Photos in Paris – founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, Robert Capa and George Rodger. Stuart was invited to join in the summer of 1985 and has been a full member since 1989, serving most recently as the agency’s elected president between 2006-2009. It was during 1989 that Stuart took his acclaimed photographs in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, where a demonstration for freedom ended in a massacre. After that, he began to move away from news into magazine feature photography. Between 1990 and 2004 he photographed about twenty stories for National Geographic Magazine. During this time, Stuart decided to pursue a better theoretical understanding of some of the issues he confronted, by embarking on a period of academic study in 1997. He graduated with a first class degree in Geography from Oxford University and went on to complete his doctoral thesis there in 2002. During 2009, Stuart traveled to Mali and the Middle East and co-curated the Noorderlicht Photo Festival 2009 with an exhibition entitled Point of No Return on the continuing conflict in Gaza. In a change of approach to documentary, Stuart undertook a course of training at the UK’s National Film and Television School in observational documentary. Subsequently, Stuart worked on his first long-form documentary Runners, together with film work for ESPN. During 2010, Stuart continued with his project Farmscapes supported and funded by the Scottish National Galleries. The work was first exhibited at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2012. During 2010-13 Stuart completed a long-term landscape project Narcissus, exhibited during in 2012/13 in Ålesund-Norway, Kristiansund – Norway, London, Paris, and Edinburgh. www.stuartfranklin.com You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto and on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 25 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is considering why so much online photographic discussion is filled with absolutes and anger, whilst also commenting on the current state of photography magazines and their relationship with their readers and the photographic industry. Plus this week Grant re-visits a recorded conversation with legendary photographer Susan Meiselas from 2013 in which she addresses the importance of narrative in visual storytelling, the utilisation of multi-media, what photography means to her and her belief in young photographers and what they need to do within the medium. Susan Meiselas was born in Baltimore, in 1948. Her first major photographic essay focused on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs, who she photographed during three consecutive summers while teaching photography in New York public schools. Carnival Strippers was originally published in 1976 and a selection was installed at the Whitney Museum of Art in June 2000. Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her extensive documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. She published her second monograph, Nicaragua, June 1978–July 1979, in 1981. Meiselas served as an editor and contributor to the book El Salvador: The Work of Thirty Photographers (1983) and edited Chile from Within (1991) featuring work by photographers living under the Pinochet regime, as well as an updated ebook on the 40th anniversary of the Chilean coup (2013). She has co-directed three films, Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family (1986); Pictures from a Revolution (1991) with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti where she searched for the people in her photographs ten years after they were taken and Re-framing History (2004) where she returned to Nicaragua again with 19 murals to place them in the landscape where they were first made to again interrogate the history they represent on the 25th anniversary of the Revolution. In 1997, she completed a six-year project curating a hundred-year photographic history of Kurdistan, integrating her own work into the book Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997) along with the pioneering website akaKURDISTAN (1998), an online archive of collective memory and cultural exchange. Meiselas has had one-woman exhibitions in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, and her work is included in collections around the world. She has received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for her work in Nicaragua (1979); the Leica Award for Excellence (1982); the Engelhard Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art (1985); the Hasselblad Foundation Photography prize (1994); the Cornell Capa Infinity Award (2005); the Harvard Arts Medal (2011) and most recently was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015). www.susanmeiselas.com Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 24 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott considers writing and photography. The use of captions and the provision of text to provide context on websites, in books and as part of a photographic exhibition, and the first steps to consider when looking to get commissioned. Plus this week legendary photographer Brian Duffy recalls making the iconic image of David Bowie and designing the iconic 1973 album cover Aladdin Sane as well as revealing the inspiration for Bowie's zig-zag make-up. This brief audio is extracted from a telephone conversation between Duffy and Grant Scott recorded shortly before Duffy's death in 2010. In 1955 Duffy began freelancing as a fashion artist for Harper's Bazaar magazine where he first came into contact with commercial photography. Inspired by the photographic contact sheets he saw passing through the art director's desk he sought a job as a photographers assistant, and was subsequently employed at Carlton studios and then at Cosmopolitan Artists. Duffy went on to work as an assistant to the photographer Adrian Flowers and whilst working for Flowers he received his first photographic commission for the The Sunday Times magazine. In 1957 Duffy was hired by British Vogue where he remained working until 1963. With fellow photographers; David Bailey and Terence Donovan, Duffy was a key player in the 'Black Trinity' as affectionately named by Norman Parkinson, who redefined not only the aesthetic of fashion photography but also the place of the photographer within the industry. Apart from Vogue, Duffy also worked for numerous publications including Glamour, Esquire, Town, Queen, The Observer, The Sunday Times and the Telegraph Magazine. Duffy was also a highly successful commercial advertising photographer. In 1968 he set up a film production company with Len Deighton and went on to produce the film adaptations of Deighton's book Only When I Larf (1967), and of the musical Oh! What a Lovely War. Duffy had an eight-year working relationship with David Bowie and shot five key sessions over this period providing the creative concept as well as the photographic image for three album covers, including the 1973 Aladdin Sane, 1979 Lodger and 1980 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). The story of his life and work is documented in a BBC documentary titled The Man Who Shot the 60's. Duffy died in May 2010, after suffering from the degenerative lung disease pulmonary fibrosis. www.duffyphotographer.com You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto and on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018

In episode 23 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the transferable skills of a photographer, the importance of remaining open-minded and how to remain positive throughout a long career as a photographer. As well as the resurgence in humanist photography. Plus this week photographer Tom Oldham 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?’ Tom Oldham is a London-based portrait photographer, shooting portraits of musicians, sports stars and all sorts of talented folk in locations across the nation and worldwide. He was a winner in the 2018 BJP Portrait of Britain with Son 2,  and his latest project, The Last of The Crooners, was awarded the 2018 Sony World Photography Award for Portraits in the Professional Category. In June 2017, he exhibited his project shot in Lesotho - The Herder Boys of Lesotho, at the White Space Gallery in London. In 2016 on the longest day of the year, he stayed up for 40 hours and shot a portrait per hour from midnight to midnight, for a project called The Longest Day. He is a founder member of the House of St Barnabas, and proudly shoot portraits of their graduates, team and guest speakers. His work has been exhibited at agencies Mother and Publicis and the Gibson Showroom in London. He also accepted into the 2015 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize and the 2016 Open Series in the AoP Awards for my work with Riders For Health in Liberia. www.tomoldham.com For those intrigued or confused by Tom's reference to the Helsinki Bus Station Theory this link may be of use: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/23/change-life-helsinki-bus-station-theory You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto and on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book #New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay will be screened across the UK and the US in 2018. © Grant Scott 2018