A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers

Ian Berry was born in 1934 in Lancashire, England. He made his reputation in South Africa, where he worked for the Daily Mail and later for Drum magazine. He was the only photographer to document the massacre at Sharpeville in 1960, and his photographs were used in the trial to prove the victims' innocence.Henri Cartier-Bresson invited Ian to join Magnum in 1962, when he was based in Paris. He moved to London in 1964 to become the first contract photographer for the Observer Magazine. Since then assignments have taken him around the world: he has documented Russia's invasion of Czechoslovakia; conflicts in Israel, Ireland, Vietnam and the Congo; famine in Ethiopia; and apartheid in South Africa. The major body of work produced in South Africa is represented in two of his books: Black and Whites: L'Afrique du Sud and Living Apart (1996).Important editorial assignments have included work for National Geographic, Fortune, Stern, Geo, national Sunday magazines, Esquire, Paris-Match and Life. Berry has also reported on the political and social transformations in China and the former USSR. Recent projects have involved tracing the route of the Silk Road through Turkey, Iran and southern Central Asia to northern China for Conde Nast Traveler, photographing Berlin for a Stern supplement, the Three Gorges Dam project in China for the Telegraph Magazine, Greenland for a book on climate control and child slavery in Africa.Ian’s recent book, Water (GOST Books, 2022), brings together many classic images from Ian’s extensive archive with material shot over the course of 15 years travelling the globe to document the inextricable links between landscape, life and water. This new book brings together a selection of the resulting images which collectively tell the story of man’s complex relationship with water — at a time when climate change demonstrates just how precariously water and life are intertwined. In episode 213, Ian discusses, among other things:How all the pics in Water came to be used as B&WHow the project came aboutHow he got into photographyHow he came to be the only photographer at the Sharpeville MassacreThe importance of luckGetting into Magnum after a tea with HCB and a disasterous first meetingChanges in Magnum over the years - and photography in generalThe controversy over David Allan Harvey and the subsequent action by MagnumEverything being ‘too woke’Learining from other people and looking at contact sheets Referenced:Stuart SmithAbbasRoger MaddenDrum MagazineTom HopkinsonThe Sharpeville MassacreMichele Chevalier (Visa)Marc RiboudReni BurriHenri Cartier BressonBurt GlinnPeter DenchDavid Allan HarveySteve McCurryBruce DavidsonPhilip Jones GriffithsGilles PeressBruno BarbeyWerner Bischof Website | Instgram“I brought along my contact sheets which Henri spent ages going through. And he said ‘great, good to have you’. And I went back upstairs afterwards and they said ‘fine, you’re in Magnum.’ And that was it…”  Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month.Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.Follow me on Instagram here.Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.

Benjamin Rasmussen is a Faroese/American photographer living in Denver, Colorado.After growing up in the Philippines and studying photography at Ateneo de Manila University, he moved to the United States to explore contemporary American identity. His practice is research and photography based and centers on the intersection of law, history and sociology.Benjamin works for magazines including Time, The New Yorker and The Atlantic. He is also the founder of Pattern, an exhibition and educational space in Denver, Colorado that works to spark dialogue and acts as a meeting place for the art and documentary worlds.  Benjamin’s debut photobook, The Good Citizen, which explores how American society came to be what it is today, was published last year by GOST books. In episode 212, Benjamin discusses, among other things:His origin story growing up in the Philipines and then moving to the USA for collegeGrowing up amidst his family’s deeply religious rootsBy The Olive Trees projectFaroese hunting pilot whales - storyFaroe islands being too picturesqueThe dark side of his American familyThe origins of The Good Citizen projectThe five chapter structure of the bookBook banning in the USATrumpHis optimism re. photojournalismThe implications of AI Referenced:Michael BrownDred ScottStuart SmithFrank H WuTa-Nehisi CoatesJuan Fuentes“I’ve survived largely off editiorial commissions for the past 10-15 years. It’s been really interesting.You have a lot more complex voices who are involved even in my short history of it. The reality is that in my entire career rates haven’t changed. It’s getting increasingly difficult to survive financially, but I think in terms of the conversations that are happening it’s gotten so much more interesting. ”  Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month.Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.Follow me on Instagram here.Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.

Yelena Yemchuk's output as a visual artist is immediately recognizable, regardless of medium. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Yelena immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was eleven. She became interested in photography when her father gave her a 35mm Minolta camera for her fourteenth birthday.Yelena went on to study art at Parsons in New York and photography at Art Center in Pasadena. Yelena has exhibited paintings, films and photography at galleries and museums worldwide. She has shot for the New Yorker, New York Times, Another, ID, Vogue, and others.Yelena released her first book Gidropark, published by Damiani in April 2011, followed by Anna Maria, published by United Vagabonds in September 2017. Yelena had her first institutional debut with her project Mabel, Betty & Bette, a photography and video work at the Dallas Contemporary Museum. A monograph with the same title was released by Kominek Books in March 2021. Her newest book Odesa was released in May 2022, by Gost Books.In episode 211, Yelena discusses, among other things:The relevance of her book to the current warThe “immigrant parent bullshit story”Moving to New YorkThe influence of her uncle and her dad’s best friendDiscovering her calling at art school doing photographyHer early career success, including working with Smashing PumpkinsReturning to Ukraine in 1990Gidropark projectDeciding to focus on her personal workMabel, Betty & BetteYYY, published by Depart pour l’imageOdessa being “love at first sight”Deciding to focus on the youthForthcoming book, Milanka“It was very clear to me that I needed to tell the story of these people. Not just the cadets, but the story of the people in Odesa. And it was like an urgency. I wanted to go back all the time. If i didn’t have kids I probably would have just stayed there. I couldn’t get enough… I was going back and forth. I couldn’t stop. I had to tell this story. I had to shoot these people. It was like a romance. It was like I had a lover over there.”  Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month.Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.Follow me on Instagram here.Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.

Moises Saman is widely considered to be one of the leading documentary and conflict photographers of his generation and has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 2014. His work has largely focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Arab Spring and its aftermath.Moises was born in Lima, Peru, from a mixed Spanish and Peruvian family and grew up in Barcelona, Spain. He studied Communications and Sociology in the United States at California State University, graduating in 1998. It was during his last year in university that Moises first became interested in becoming a photographer, influenced by the work of a number of photojournalists that had been covering the wars in the Balkans.After graduating, Moises moved to New York City to complete a summer internship at New York Newsday and joined as a Staff Photographer, a position he held until 2007. During his 7 years at Newsday Moises' work focused on covering the fallout of the 9/11 attacks, spending most of his time traveling between Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries. In the Autumn of 2007 Moises left Newsday to become a freelance photographer represented by Panos Pictures. During that time he become a regular contributor for The New York Times, Human Rights Watch, Newsweek, and TIME Magazine, among other international publications.Over the years Moises' work has received awards from the World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year and the Overseas Press Club and his photographs have been shown in a several exhibitions worldwide. In 2015 Moises received a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue his work.In 2011, Moises relocated to Cairo, Egypt, where he was based for three years while covering the Arab Spring for The New York Times and other publications, mainly The New Yorker. His first book, Discordia, on which he colloaborated with artist Daria Birang, documents the tumultuous transitions that have taken place in the region. The work featured in Discordia has received numerous awards, including the Eugene Smith Memorial Fund.Moises’s latest book, Glad Tidings of Benevolence, was published earlier this year by GOST books to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. It brings together Moises’s photographs taken in Iraq during this period and the following years, with documents and texts relating to the war. Exploring the construction—through image and language—of competing narratives of the war, the book represents the culmination of Moises’s twenty years of work across Iraq.Moises currently lives in Amman, Jordan with his wife and their young daughter. In episode 210, Moises discusses, among other things:The catalyst that was 9/11NewsdayHis introduction to photography via his studie in sociologyThe Balkans conflictLearning the ropes in AfghanistanHow his attitude towards photojournalism evolved over timeThe impact of spending eight days in Abu Ghraib prisonSurviving a helicopter crashThe myth of objectivityTrying to show a more nuanced pictureEvery day life continuing amidst war“The framing of the frame”Covering The Arab SpringCollaborating with artist Daria Birang on DiscordiaFacts, truth and questioningVictim vs. perpetratorHis current project in Amman Referenced:Judith ButlerStuart SmithDaria Birang “One thing I’ve realised is, at least for me, that perhaps this other approach to the work, the one that’s a little bit quieter and more nuanced, more human really, where you’re also celebrating humanity rather than the lack thereof in this very difficult context, that perhaps is a little more effective. I like to think that.  Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month.Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.Follow me on Instagram here.Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.

As a teenager I wanted to be a professional journalist and an amateur photographer. This was a perfectly good and eminently attainable goal for a bright, lower-middle class fifteen year old boy to have. So, for reasons that are too complicated to explore here, I promptly set about dismantling any prospect of achieving it in a miasma of Marlboro reds and vast quantities of Pakistani Black. After hundreds of identical misspent nights in the White Hart, a relentless pursuit of any and all self-destructive displacement activites, and a brief detour into the cul-de-sac of a media production degree, the ‘dream’ was eventually realised when I sat down in front of a portable typewriter (old sckool, y’all) and became a freelance journalist, contributing features on a diverse range of subjects to a wide array of publications from specialist magazines to national broadsheets. This arrangement was soon to change, however, when a long-standing love of photography was re-ignited by a short succession of annual pilgrimages to the World Press Photo exhibition at the Barbican in London. Instinctively feeling - or perhaps hoping - that I may have caught a glimpse into my future, I enrolled on a post-graduate diploma in photojournalism at the London College of Printing, after which I managed to combine both disciplines before ultimately electing to focus on the photography. Thus the adolescent ambition was fulfilled, but arse about backwards. Then a bunch of other stuff - aka ‘life’ - happened; I worked consistently as a freelance editorial photographer (though never really as much as I should have); had an all too brief foray into the big bucks of commercial and lifestyle commissions; made sure I torpedoed every opportunity to progress that came my way lest I might have to face the terrifying prospect of success; and more or less sleep-walked zombie-like through what should have been the best years of my life. Thankfully the Marlboro reds and Pakistani Black, and indeed the endless, Groundhog Day nights in the pub, had long since lost any allure they may have once had. As, to be brutally frank, had photography and just about everything else. Anyway, then a bunch more stuff happened, most of which (with the notable exception of my inexplicably becoming a father) was less than fascinating. In 2015 I decided to start a photography podcast. I’ve written about the reasons for this in my blog but the truth is it was what the Americans might call a ‘hail Mary pass’. A last ditch attempt at dragging myself out of the mire of self-flagellation, regret, disappointment and depression in which I found myself. I’ve come to realise that though I seem to lack the confidence and self-belief to really succeed and thrive, I can at least always muster the necessary resources to save myself from oblivion. Such was the case in September 2015 when I started this podcast. As Marc Maron once put it when asked whether he could have imagined when he started his podcast eventually interviewing the President. “I didn’t imagine anything. It was an alternative to suicide!” Thanks for listening. I really mean that. Here’s to the next 100 episodes. I’ll do them as well as I can, keeping in mind my aforementioned podcasting hero’s beautiful words of advice: try to act from your heart, no matter how broken it is. In episode 100, I discuss, among other things: Early days First breaks Regrets Voice memos The podcast My long-term project: 'Indicative Only'. Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter “Never believe you’ve played your last hand... Never believe you've played your last hand. There’s always more cards coming.”  Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month.Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.Follow me on Instagram here.Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.

Photographer, Ben Smith introduces a new weekly photography podcast: 'A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers' and answers a few 'frequently anticipated questions.'  Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month.Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.Follow me on Instagram here.Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.