Italian photographer Lorenzo Castore’s work is characterised by long term projects focusing on his personal experience, memory and the relationship between individual stories, history and the present time.In 1992 at the age of 19 Lorenzo moved from Rome to New York where he began to photograph in the streets. After a formative trip to India in 1997, he had a brief foray into photojournalism, covering the conflicts in Albania and Kosovo in 1999, afte which he decided to quit photojournalism and deepen his personal research.Since then has worked extensively in Poland, Cuba and Sardinia among other places and has produced several photobooks and a short film entitled No Peace Without War.In 2019 his lifelong work Time Maze began to be published by L’artiere in progressive chronological volumes. The first entitled A Beginning, 1994-2001 and the second Lack and Locking, 2001-2007. The next two volumes are already in the works or planned.Lorenzo’s is represented by Galerie S. in Paris, Galerie Anne Clergue in Arles, Alessia Paladini Gallery in Milan, Spot Home Gallery in Naples and Guido Costa Projects in Turin.In episode 223, Lorenzo discusses, among other things:His formative yearsHis journey into photographyHis time in New York……and the photograph that changed everythingThe importance of finding stories and making life an adventureHis project Time Maze - first book A BeginningHis brief foray into photojournalism in KosovoWhy he went to shoot in PolandHIs interest in minersThe forthcoming sequels to A BeginningReferenced:Michael AckermanAnders PetersenRamon PezJosef KoudelkaSaverio CostanzoHenri Cartier BressonGeorgio MortariEloi GimenoChristain CajouleWebsite | Instagram“I was postponing because of this embarrassment that I have when we say you talk about your personal life. It’s a really strange feeling, I really want to do it and at the same time I feel I have to do it very carefully.” Become a full tier 1 member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of previous episodes for £5 per month.For the tier 2 archive-only membership, to access the full library of past episodes for £3 per month, go here.  

Brian Griffin was born in Birmingham in 1948 and grew up in the neighbouring Black Country, in the English midlands. He started his working life at 16 working in a factory, where he remained for 5 years, before finally making his escape to Manchester Polytechnic where he took a degree in photography, shortly after which he left for London in pursuit of a photographic career as a fashion photographer. It was there that he met and was mentored by Roland Schenk, the charismatic art director on Management Today magazine, who offered him a job as a corporate photographer. The rest, as they say, is history. Brian was later considered 'the photographer of the decade' by the Guardian Newspaper in 1989; 'the most unpredictable and influential British portrait photographer of the last decades' by the British Journal of Photography in 2005 and 'one of Britain’s most influential photographers' by the World Photography Organisation in 2015. In 1991, his book Work was awarded the ‘Best Photography Book in the World’ prize at Barcelona Primavera Fotografica. Brian is patron of the Format Photography Festival in Derby; in September 2013, he received the ‘Centenary Medal’ from the Royal Photographic Society in recognition of a lifetime achievement in photography; and in 2014 he received an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University. Brian Griffin’s photographs are held in the permanent collections of many major art institutions and he has published twenty or so books, including his latest, Pop which features some of the highlights of his album artwork and band photography from decades working in the music industry with such artists as Iggy Pop, Elvis Costello, Depeche Mode and Kate Bush. In other words, he’s a bit of a legend. Become a full tier 1 member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of previous episodes for £5 per month.For the tier 2 archive-only membership, to access the full library of past episodes for £3 per month, go here.  

Natalie Keyssar is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work focuses on the personal effects of political turmoil and conflict, youth culture, and migration.  She has a BFA in Painting and Illustration from The Pratt Institute. Natalie has contributed to publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Time, Bloomberg Business Week, National Geographic and The New Yorker, and been awarded by organizations including the Philip Jones Griffith Award, the Aaron Siskind Foundation, PDN 30, Magenta Flash Forward, and American Photography. She has taught New Media at the International Center of Photography in New York, and  has instructed at various workshops across the US and Latin America with organizations such as Foundry, Women Photograph, The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the IWMF. Her work has been supported by The Pulitzer Center, The Magnum Foundation, The National Geographic Society, and the IWMF among many others, and she is the winner of the 2018 ICP Infinity Emerging Photographer Award, the 2019 PH Museum Women Photographer's Grant, and is a winner of the 2023 Aperture Creator Labs Photo Fund. She is a Canon Explorer of Light and Co-Founder of the NDA Workshops series with Daniella Zalcman. She speaks fluent Spanish and is available for assignments internationally, as well as teaching and speaking engagements.  In episode 222, Natalie discusses, among other things:The conflict in GazaHow the internet and social media is clumsily creating a hive mindHer Jewish identity and how it shapes her perspectiveHer Ukrainian roots and covering the war in UkraineWanting her work to tell you what it feels likeHer first trip to Venezuela and how it was love at first sight Referenced:Daniella ZalcmanAnastasia Taylor LindYelena YemchukBen MakuchStephanie SinclairChristina PiaiaScout TufankjianKatie OrlinskyAmie Ferris-RotmanCarlos RawlinsAna Maria ArevaloAndrea Hernandez BriceñoLexi Grace ParraIWMF Website | Instagram“There’s this psychological cocktail of rage and grief and desire to act, and since I don’t have any actual useful skills, I’m not a doctor or psychologist or aid worker or fighter, or any of the things I sometimes wish I was, I felt the need to do something. And then there is also a totally selfish need to see it for myself. It feels compulsive. And not like in ‘this is my calling and I’m gonna save the world’, but like it’s compulsive enough to make you get on a plane to go to a country that’s quite dangerous and in horrific turmoil. ”

Ambiguity is at the forefront of Richard Kalvar’s photography. Richard, who describes context as the “enemy”, seeks mystery and multiple meanings through surprising framing and meticulous timing. He describes his approach as “more like poetry than photojournalism – it attacks on the emotional level.”Richard has done extensive personal, assignment and commercial work in the United States, France, Italy, England, and Japan, among others, has published a number of solo books including Earthlings (Terriens) in 2007 and his most recent title, Selected Writings, published in 2023 by Damiani, and he has had important exhibitions in the US, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.His work has appeared in Geo, The Paris Review, Creative Camera, Aperture, Zoom, Newsweek, and Photo, among many others. Editorial assignments and even commercial work have given Richard an additional opportunity to do personal photography. He did many documentary stories that allowed him to disengage from documentary mode when the occasion arose.Richard joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1975, and became a full member two years later. He subsequently served several times as vice president, and once as president of the agency. In episode 221, Richard discusses, among other things:How he ended up settling in ParisHis introduction to photographyHow humour is an intrinsic element of his photographshow he is playing with things he has trouble dealing withWhy he called up Robert DelpireVU agency becoming VivaHow he ended up in MagnumHis favourite cities to shoot inThe legal restrictions on shooting in public in different placesPublic attitudes towards taking photographs of strangers in publicHis new book, Selected WritingsWhy his interest is in single images that stand alone Referenced:Jérôme DucrotAndré KerteszHCBRobert FrankLee FriedlanderElliott ErwittRobert DelpireViva AgencyGuy LeQuerecGilles PeressMary Ellen MarkAlex MajoliJonas BendiksenPaolo PellegrinOlivia ArthurWebsite | Instagram“I’m most interested in having pictures stand alone, and each one is something you can get into and is a story in itself and is also an imaginary story. I’m working with reality, that’s what’s really interesting to me and it’s also what’s interesting about photography in general, that you’re doing something that looks like real life but obviously isn’t. that’s the edge I like to work on. Where you have the impression that things are going on and not necessarily going on. If I have to tell a story, I feel a certain moral obligation to respect the truth or respect the feelings of the people that are in it. I think that’s a noble thing but for my kind of work it’s a break.”

Featuring:Aaron SchumannEugene RichardsMartin ParrGregory CrewdsonNick BrandtEmma HardyAntoine D’AgataIgor PosnerStacy KranitzIvor PrickettBertrand MeunierCurran HatlebergTrish MorrisseyMoises SamanYelena YemchukBenjamin RassmussenIan BerryLuca LocatelliCorinne DufkaMax PamLeonard Pongo

Leonard Pongo is a Belgian-Congolese photographer and visual artist. His long-term project The Uncanny, shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has earned him several international awards and world-wide recognition and was published as a book by GOST earlier this year (2023) as a result of Leonard receiving the ICP GOST First Photo Book Award in 2020.Leonard’s work has been published worldwide and featured in numerous exhibitions including the recent IncarNations at the Bozar Center for Fine Arts and the The 3rd Beijing Photo Biennial at CAFA Art Museum. He was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2016, is a recipient of the Visura Grant 2017, the Getty Reportage Grant 2018 and was shortlisted for the Leica Oskar Barnack award in 2022.Leonard’s latest project, Primordial Earth, was shown at the Lubumbashi Biennial and at the Rencontres de Bamako where it was awarded the “Prix de l’OIF”. It was exhibited at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts for Leonard’s first institutional solo show in Belgium in 2021, at the Oostende Museum of Modern Art and is currently feartured as part of a group show entitled A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern until January 14th 2024.Leonard divides his time between pursuing long term projects in Congo DR, teaching and assignment work and is also a member of The Photographic Collective. His work is part of institutional and private collections.In episode 219 Leornard discusses, among other things:Early creativity encouraged by his architect fatherHis first experience with photographyHis early desire to go to the DRCHis first trip in 2011 against the backdrop of an electionSensory overwhelmPlaying with mood and ambiguityWinning the Unseen-Gost Books Publishing AwardEditing down from 70,000 imagesHis Primordial Earth projectHis short film The Necessary EvilWebsite | Instagram“I think behind all the constructions and expectations, right or wrong, that I might have had, there was behind it at the core a very intense need for experience... the only way I could create relations to the land and the environment itself - not the people because that was easy, that was natural - but to the rest, the context, was through experiencing it. It felt to me that was the only way I could ever have anything to say about it.”

Featuring:Andrea ModicaJesse LenzMelissa DeWittTodd HidoKristen Joy EmackAnastasia SamoylovaMimi MollicaMimi PlumbJane Evelyn AtwoodChristopher AndersonTim CarpenterSofia KrysiakNelson ChanTom Booth WoodgerSilvana TrevaleGianluca GamberiniGregory BarkerDewi Lewis

Max Pam is an Australian photographer born in 1949 in suburban Melbourne, which as a teenager he found to be grim, oppressive and culturally isolated. He found refuge in the counter-culture of surfing and the imagery of National Geographic and Surfer Magazine and became determined to travel overseas.Max left Australia at 20, after accepting a job as a photographer assisting an astrophysicist. Together, the pair drove a VW Beetle from Calcutta to London. This adventure proved inspirational, and travel has remained a crucial and continuous link to his creative and personal development. As Gary Dufour noted in his essay in Indian Ocean Journals (Steidl, 2000): “Each photograph is shaped by incidents experienced as a traveller. His photographs extend upon the tradition of the gazetteer; each photograph a record of an experience, a personal account of an encounter somewhere in the world. Each glimpse is part of an unfolding story rather than simply a record of a place observed. While travel underscores his production Pam’s photographs are not the accidental evidence of a tourist.”Max’s work takes the viewer on compelling journeys around the globe, recording observations with an often surrealist intensity, matching the heightened sensory awareness of foreign travel. The work frequently implies an interior, psychic journey, corresponding with the physical journey of travel. His work in Asian counties is well represented in publications as are his travels in Europe, Australia, and the Indian Ocean Rim cultures including India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Yemen, The Republic of Tanzania, Mauritius, Madagascar, the Cocos and Christmas Islands. The images leave the viewer, as Tim Winton said in Going East (Marval 1992), “grateful for having been taken so mysteriously by surprise and so far and sweetly abroad.”Max’s first survey show was held at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1986, and was followed by a mid-career retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1991. He was also the subject of a major exhibition at the Comptoir de la Photographie, Paris in 1990, which covered the work of three decades. He has published several highly acclaimed photographic monographs and 'carnets de voyage', including Going East: Twenty Years of Asian Photography (1992), Max Pam (1999), Ethiopia (1999) and Indian Ocean Journals (2000). Going East won Europe’s major photo book award the Grand Prix du Livre Photographique in 1992. In the same year Max held his largest solo show to date at the Sogo Nara Museum of Art, Nara. He has published work in the leading international journals and is represented in major public and private collections in Australia, Great Britain, France and Japan.In episode 217 Max discusses, among other things:How he adopted the visual diary as his photographic approach.The influence of Diane Arbus.Why he chose such a specific period of his life to explore in his new memoir.How Arbus inspired him to shoot 6x6.How surfing in Australia introduced him travelling.How he ended up in India and why it fascinates him.The magic of film vs. digital.Working with book designers… or not.The time he failed to get into Magnum Photos.Surviving financially, teaching, and the importance of ‘marrying up’.Travel and family.Returning to Australia in a poor mental state, post typhoid.His wife’s Alzheimer’s and eventual death.Referenced:Philip Jones-GriffithDon McCullenLarry BurrowsDavid BaileyDiane ArbusEdward WestonTina ModottiRoger BallenGeorge OrwellBernard PlossuRamon PezSarah MoonOne Flew Over The Cuckoos NestPeter Beard Website | Instagram“I’m a very curious person and ultimately having the camera amplifies that curiosity in a really profound way. And it also gives you carte blanche to stick your head into areas where normally you’d think ‘ah, it’s a bit dodgy, maybe not, I could get my head cut off it I stuck it in the hole…’ But often then you think, ‘well come on man, you’ve got a camera there, isn’t this part of your self image?’ And so it’s like this ticket to ride on something that is actually quite dangerous.”

Corinne Dufka is an American photojournalist, human rights researcher, criminal investigator, and psychiatric social worker.Following completion of her master's degree in social work, Corinne worked as a humanitarian volunteer and social worker in Latin America. She volunteered with Nicaraguan refugees during the country's revolution, and with victims of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. She then moved to El Salvador as a social worker with the Lutheran church. While in El Salvador, Corinne became close with local photojournalists, and was asked by the director of a local human rights organization to launch a program to document human rights abuses through photography.Over the course of her subsequent twelve year career as a photojournalist she covered more than a dozen of the world’s bloodiest armed conflicts across three continents and was honored with the Robert Capa gold medal; a World Press Club Award; a Pulitzer nomination; and the Courage in Journalism Award.In 1998 Corinne went to Nairobi, Kenya to cover the bombing of the American Embassy. She arrived hours after the blast, and was deeply frustrated by 'missing the scoop.' Later, upon watching the news coverage of the attack, Corinne realized that she had lost “compassion” for the subjects of her work, and resolved to end her career as a photojournalist.After leaving photojournalism, Corinne joined Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization. In 2003, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, alternatively known as a ‘genius grant’, for her journalistic and documentary work documenting the 'devastation' of Sierra Leone and the conflict's toll on human rights.Corinne left HRW in 2022 and is now an independent researcher and advisor, focusing on helping countries mitigate the risk of armed conflict. Corinne has a daughter and a foster son and lives in Maryland with her four dogs. Corinne’s new book This Is War: Photographs from a Decade of Conflict is out now, published by G Editions. In episode 216 Corinne discusses, among other things:Her reasons for publishing a book of her photograhsThe experience of revisiting her archiveHer transition from psychiatric social worker to photojournalistHow she learnt the basics of photography in El SalvadorHow her family history and a challenges in childhood formed her independenceGetting badly injured in BosniaThe relative dangers of different types of conflictHer experiences of violence in LiberiaThe epiphany that led her to walk away from photojournalismHer work with Human Rights Watch‘Curiosity and compassion’Making an impact“I just don’t do ‘hopeless’. I constantly try to find a way of having impact. And photography has so much impact. Using people’s voices through testimony has so much impact. And one has to believe that people are inherently good and they inherently care and that they can be moved when presented with these images. People in positions of influence. So that is a given in everything I’ve done. That this work will have an impact. It may have to be repeated again and again and again, multiplied by other practitioners in photography or human rights, but it will have an impact.”

Italian photographer Luca Locatelli describes himself as an environmental visual storyteller. For more than a decade Luca has aimed to open a debate about the environment and our future with his work by synergizing art, science, and journalism to explore the world’s most promising solutions to the climate crisis. As an artist, Luca is concerned with trying to translate complex scientific data into visually engaging images and distribute them on social networks, in publications and at events. His work has been published in international media such as National Geographic, The New York Times, and TIME. It has also been displayed in prominent global venues, including the Guggenheim Museum of New York, the Shangai Center of Photography, and others. In addition, for over two years, Luca has been working on a significant and immersive cultural project about the Circular Economy with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which is now an exhibition entitled The Circle at Gallerie D’Italia Museum of Turin, Italy, until February 2024. Since 2004 Luca has been a founding partner of a non-governmental association that contributes to protect 600 thousand hectares of tropical forest in the Amazon. In episode 215 Luca discusses, among other things:How it started with a trip up the AmazonTrying to do 2 things and failingHow he discovered a talent for generating good story ideasExploring his interest in ways that technology can help solve the environmental crisisHis project about food, Hunger SolutionsHow he became interested in the circular economyThe End of Trash - Circular Economy SolutionsStealing the idea of ‘Think Week’ from Bill GatesHow he thinks about his own carbon footprintThe problem of fast fashionDeveloping economiesFuture generationsHopes that his work can have an impactCreating ‘disorientation’ in the viewerThe hope of nature-based solutionsReferenced:Kathy RyanChe GuevaraBill Gates Website | Instagram“When we think about photography and changing the world we always think in one direction… we think that photography is about the last flood, about the last fire, the last tremendous things happening in the world with climate change. It’s not the only perspective. What if we can give to young people pictures that can show them solutions and a way of imagining and opening a debate about the future?”

In episode 214:An audio clip from each of the top 10 most downloaded episodes of all time (as of September 2023).10 - Tom Craig (Episode 130)09 - Martin Parr #2 (Episode 197)08 - Tom Wood (Episode 160)07 - Todd Hido (Episode 103)06 - Chris Killip (Episode 094)05 - Paul Graham (Episode 149)04 - Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb (Episode 105)03 - Stephen Shore (Episode 192)02 - Mark Steinmetz (Episode 112)01 - Martin Parr (Episode 091)And a swift tour of the Bonus Questions which all guests now answer for the member-only podcast:What has photography taught you about yourself or life in general?What is your greatest strength and your main weakness as a photographer?If you could meet your 20 year-old self now, what advice would you give to her/him?What’s the one most essential lesson you would pass on to someone considering a photography ‘career’ today?How has a failure, or what seemed like a failure at the time, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favourite failure” of yours?Can you think of any ideas or beliefs - whether about photography or anything else in life - that you have now reversed or totally changed your position on?Is there a photobook that has a special place in your heart or a particular significance, or that has been especially influential or inspiring to you?Do you have a favourite photographer, if you absolutely had to pick someone? Why them?Are there any notable photobooks or photographers that you have only just discovered for the first time in recent years?If and when you feel creatively exhausted, uninspired or blocked what do you do to get yourself moving forward again?How do you deal with self doubt if and when it arises? Do you have any strategies or habits that you come back to?What other artforms or cultural output, either highbrow or popular, do you consume, enjoy or take inspiration from?What is the thing you like most about photography or about being a photographer? What is the thing you like the least?How do you deal with juggling the need to make a living with finding time to pursue personal projects that don’t necessarily earn you any money?How do you manage a work/life balance and deal with juggling career with relationship/home/family life?What do you think you might have ended up doing if you hadn’t become a photographer and would you have been good at it?What are you hopes for the future?

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…”

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. ”

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.”

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.

Much of the work of Dublin-born Irish photographer Trish Morrissey is a study of the language of photography through still and moving images, using performance and wit as tools to investigate the boundaries of photographic meaning. Although most of Trish’s work features her as the protagonist, she does not consider the photographs to be self portraits per se, though they can be read that way. She uses humour as a tool to disarm the viewer, hoping it wil then evaporate, leaving a slow burning psychologically tense afterglow. Weaving fact and fiction, Trish plunges into the heart of such issues as family experiences and national identities, feminine and masculine roles, and relationships between strangers.Her work has been exhibited widely, including in the shows ‘Landscape, Portrait: Now and Then’ at the Hestercombe Gallery in 2021; ‘Who’s Looking at the family now?’ at the London Art Fair 2019 and in the solo show ‘Trish Morrissey: A certain slant of light’ at the Francesca Maffeo Gallery in 2018 and most recently in 2022 he exhibition Trish Morrissey, Autofictions; Twenty Years of Photography and Film, at Serlachius Museum Gustaf, Finland.Her work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The National Media Museum, Bradford and the Wilson Centre for Photography, London and was published in 2022 in the book Autofictions to coincide with the aforementioned exhibition in Finland.In episode 209, Trish discusses, among other things:Her recent retrospective and bookThe Front projectHer parents family albumReading pictures from body languageHer collaborative project with her daughterThe performative side of her practiceA Certain Slant of LightExploring the female experienceEarly lifeResidency in AustraliaWorking with videoReferenced:Andy GrundbergZed NelsonNicholas Nixon, Brown SistersKate BestMark HarriottHilary MantelDiane Arbus“Everything I’ve done, when I’ve looked back on it I’ve realised is actually trying things on. It’s kind of like a way of rehearsing for the future…”

Curran Hatleberg is an American photographer based in Baltimore, MD. He attended Yale University and graduated in 2010 with an MFA. Influenced by the American tradition of road photography, Curran’s process entails driving throughout the United States and interacting with various strangers in different locales. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including shows at the Whitney Biennial, MASS MoCA, the International Center of Photography, Rencontres d’Arles, Higher Pictures and Fraenkel Gallery. He is the recipient of various grants, prizes and awards including a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. Curran’s work is held in  various museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, SF MoMA, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His work has been published frequently in periodicals such as Harpers, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vice and The Paris Review. Lost Coast, his first monograph, was released by TBW Books in fall 2016. His second monograph, River's Dream, was published by TBW Books in 2022. Curran has taught photography at numerous institutions, including Yale University and Cooper Union.In episode 208, Curran discusses, among other things:Coming from a big familyHis background in paintingThe benefits of taking a break from education‘Stumbling’ into an MFA at YaleHis first book The Lost CoastHis process and saying yes to everythingBeing open and vulnerable to what might happenThe fascination with the USATrying to convey the ‘atmospheric intensity’ of Florida in SummerHow he decides where to stop and photographThe ‘origin story’ of lending his van and trailer to a strangerHis artist’s book, Double RainbowBeing guided by reading fictionReferenced:Peter MatthiessenGeorge Saunders“I hate this idea that’s so grounded in the myth of road photographers, or American photography, where it’s this fallacy about the singular genius of the person bending the world to their will. It just seems so absurd to me. Chance is everything. I’m constantly levelled by how little control I have when I’m working. I feel insignificant and almost powerless a lot of the time.”

French photographer Bertrand Meunier has spent most of the past three decades quietly working either editorially or on personal long-term documentary projects both internationally and, in more recent years, at home in France. He worked extensively in Pakistan and Afghanistan among other places, primarily for Newsweek magazine, but much of his time has been spent in China documenting the tumultuous social and economic changes that the population has been faced with, focussing in particular on the economic decline of the large industrial cities, and the consequences for the people living in them. In 2001 he won the Leica Oskar Barnack prize for the work from China and in 2005 published a book, The Blood of China, When Silence Kills, in collaboration with Pierre Haski. In 2007, Bertrand won the annual Niépce prize.A more comprehensive and definitive collection of the work from China has just been published as a book by EXB Editions entitled Erased and a corresponding solo exhibition of the work is currently on show at theMusée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon sur Saône until September 17th 2023 and will subsequently be shown at the museum of photography Charleroi, Belgium from 30 September 2023 to 28 January 2024.Bertrand is currently finalizing the editing of his documentary film shot in a French prison and entitled Conversations. And he has recently obtained a creation grant in Luxembourg to work on a new documentary film about an open psychiatry centre.Bertrand lives in Paris with his partner Juliette and is a member of the Tendance Fleue collective. In episode 207, Bertrand discusses, among other things:Photography as a languageHis previous life as a professional climberHow he began his longstanding relationship with ChinaCurrent book and exhibition: ErasedHis biggest achievement in ChinaMemoryHis project on his dad and familyBeing ‘lost’ trying to shoot in FranceThe importance of teaching people to read photoographsThe ‘reverse angle’His forthcoming documentary about prisoners: ConversationsHis work on psychiatric facility in LuxembourgApplying for grantsPassionReferenced:HCBThe Provoke collectiveFor a Language to Come (Kitarubeki kotoba no tame ni), by Takuma Nakahira Website“Photography is like rock climbing, yeah, you have to focus, but if you do it to make a living? It’s a bad way to make a living. You do it because it’s a passion. It’s your life.”

Featuring:Brad ZellarChris CampbellBryan SchutmaatDena EberPradip MaldeJohnny AutryTania Franco KleinJustin HerfstTim CarpenterReed KlassTodd HidoWebsite | Instagram

Featuring:Martin Parr (Ep. 91 & 197)Dr. Claire HymanTracy Marshall GrantChris Dorley Brown (Ep. 97)James HymanSimon Roberts (Ian Parry Photojournalsim Grant) (Ep. 43)Michael BensonJillian Edelstein (KIckstarter) (Ep. 87)Gideon Mendel (Ep. 40)Alex Schneiderman Website | Instagram

After taking a degree in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Newport, Ivor Prickett began working in Europe and the Middle East, striving to convey and denounce the effects of war on the civilian population – on the people whose lives it ravages and uproots, whatever side they may be on. Initially focused on the private, domestic sphere of war’s long-term social and humanitarian consequences, Ivor’s gaze has shifted over the years towards places of forced migration and lands where people seek refuge, and then to the front lines of combat zones.His early projects focused on stories of displaced people throughout the Balkans and Caucasus. Based in the Middle East since 2009, Ivor documented the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt and Libya, working simultaneously on editorial assignments and his own long term projects. In 2012 he was selected for the World Press Photo Joop swart Masterclass, named as a FOAM Talent and selected by PDN for their 30 under 30 list. Travelling to more than ten countries between 2012 and 2015 Ivor documented the Syrian refugee crisis in the region as well as Europe, working closely in collaboration with UNHCR to produce a comprehensive study of the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history. Most recently Ivor’s work has focused on the fight to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Ultimately working exclusively for the The New York Times he spent months on the ground, particularly covering the Battle of Mosul, reporting in both words and pictures. His work in Iraq and Syria has earned him multiple World Press Photo Awards and in 2018 he was named as a Pulitzer finalist. The entire body of work titled End of the Caliphate was released as a book by renowned German publisher Steidl in June 2019. Ivor’s work has been recognised through a number of prestigious awards including The World Press Photo, The Pulitzer Prizes, The Overseas Press Club Awards, Pictures of the Year International, The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and The Ian Parry Scholarship. Most recently he was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet 2019 cycle and his work is currently touring the globe as part of the group exhibition. His pictures have been exhibited widely at institutions such as The Victoria and Albert Museum, Sothebys, Foam Gallery and The National Portrait Gallery, London and he currently has a major solo show at Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy, In conjunction with the 2023 Fotografia Europea festival, for which the theme is Europe Matters: Visions of a Restless Identity. Ivor’s show and the corresponding book is entitled No Home from War: Tales of Survival and Loss and features over fifty photographs taken in conflict zones from 2006 to 2022. It is the the largest show of Ivor’s work to date, the first in italy, and it will be up until 30th July 2023.Ivor is represented by Panos Pictures in London and he is a European Canon Ambassador. In episode 203, Ivor discusses, among other things:His route to Newport and what he got from going there.How he got started and his strategy to get his work seen.Arab Spring 2011 and the lessons learned from that.Branching out and needing to get closer to the source.Mosul.The NYT and being asked to write.Going through times of wanting to quit.What keeps him doing it.Is an art gallery the right place for photojournalism?Can your work have an impact?Ukraine.Processing the witnessing of horror and adjusting to normal life.AI and its implications for photojournalism.Referenced:Christine RedmondJoe StirlingKen GrantClive LandonCheryl NewmanTim HetheringtonChris HondrosDavid Furst Website | Instagram“By the time it came to the ISIS work in Iraq and Syria, it was almost like I wanted to get closer to the source myself and see up close what it was I’d been investigating all these years and what people had been running from. Maybe it was a personal fascination that led me there to a certain extent, but also Mosul was essentially a humanitarian crisis as much as a war, and that’s why I went in the first place. ”

Working within the documentary tradition, Stacy Kranitz makes photographs that acknowledge the limits of photographic representation. Her images do not tell the “truth” but are honest about their inherent shortcomings, and thus reclaim these failures (exoticism, ambiguity, fetishization) as sympathetic equivalents in order to more forcefully convey the complexity and instability of the lives, places, and moments they depict.Stacy was born in Kentucky and currently lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee. She is a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. Additional awards include the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography (2017), a Southern Documentary Fund Research and Development grant (2020), a Puffin Foundation grant (2022), and a Center for Documentation Fellowship (2023). Her work was shortlisted for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award (2019). She has presented solo exhibitions of her photographs at the Diffusion Festival of Photography in Cardiff, Wales (2015), the Rencontres d’Arles in Arles, France, the Cortona on the Move festival in Cortona, Italy (2022) and the Tennessee Triennial (2023) Her photographs are in several public collections including the Harvard Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, and Duke Universities, Archive of Documentary Arts. Stacy works as an assignment photographer for such publications as Time, National Geographic, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic and Mother Jones. Her first monograph, As it Was Give(n) To Me, was published by Twin Palms in 2022 and was shortlisted for a Paris Photo - Aperture First Photobook Award. In episode 202, Stacy discusses, among other things:Her ‘awful’ childhoodHer interest in the grey areasViolence as catharsisWhy she was dissatisfied with her early work……and what she did about itHow she ‘accidentally’ ended up living in her car for 3.5 yearsBlurring her professional and personal livesHow she came to work in AppalachiaThe title of her book, As it Was Give(n) To MeThe mythology of Daniel BooneWhy she included self-portraits in the bookPlaying with stereotypes and representation in her imagesHer grant writing endeavoursHer next project in AppalachiaThe challenges of editing the bookThe long term nature of her projects Referenced:Harry CottleThe FSAJack Woody Website | Instagram“The camera for me is a connector. It connects me to people. And I always knew that if I hadn’t been a photographer, especially an editorial photographer where you’re sent out to all these different places, that I would be a very unhealthy hermit and I would just wither away. (Which isn’t even logical, but that’s how I felt). So the camera is a lifeline for me.”

Igor Posner was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). After the fall of the Soviet Union, he moved to California in the early 90s. He studied molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he first started to take pictures and experiment in the darkroom.Initial infatuation with picture-taking led Igor to explore the silent and haunting experience of walking after dark on the streets of Los Angeles and Tijuana. In a collision between social and typical with personal and psychological, this first series of images “Nonesuch Records” savors the strange solitude of the enigmatic region between California and Mexico; amid the streets, bars, night shelter hotels, and disappearing nocturnal figures.After 14 years, Igor returned to St. Petersburg in 2006, taking up photography full time, which led to his first book Past Perfect Continuous, published by Red Hook Editions in 2017.In 2022, Igor published his second monograph, entitled, Cargó. The book is a visual exloration of psychological aspects of migration and the gradual disappearance of neighborhoods based on immigrant communities in North America.Igor is currently based in New York and in 2021 he joined Brooklyn-based independent publishing company Red Hook Editions as a managing partner. Igor’s work has been shown in North America, Europe, Russia, and Southeast Asia and he has been a member of Prospekt Photographers since 2011. In episode 202, Igor discusses, among other things:Growing up in St. PetersburgMoving to the USABeing gifted a camera by his motherThe New York Photo LeagueShooting in LAThe ‘language’ he employs intuitivelyReturning to RussiaFirst attempts at editing being a ‘total failure’Brighton Beach and his second book, Cargo.The themes associated with the bookCommercial workSocial mediaReferenced:Anders PetersenMichael AckermanAntoine D’agataRobert FrankJason Eskenazi Website | Instagram“All I wanted to do was go out there and be on the street and just photograph. It was an incredible sense of freedom and liberation for the first time in my life of not going from point A to point B. That’s what photography gives you because you have to be open to everything that’s around you. All of a sudden I started just looking at things. That’s a very trivial thing to say, but to me it felt like something I’ve never experienced before or at least not since my early childhood.”

Antoine D'Agata is a French photographer and film director and a full member of Magnum Photos. His photographic subjects have mostly been those on the fringes of society and his work deals with topics often considered taboo, such as addiction, sex, personal obsessions, darkness, and prostitution.Born in Marseilles in 1961, Antoine left France in his early 20s and remained overseas for the next ten years. Finding himself in New York in 1990, he pursued an interest in photography by taking courses at the International Center of Photography, where his teachers included Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. During his time in New York, Antoine worked as an intern in the editorial department of Magnum Photos, but after his return to France in 1993, he took a four-year break from photography. His first books of photographs, De Mala Muerte, and Mala Noche, were published in 1998, and the following year Galerie Vu began distributing his work. In 2001, he published Hometown and won the Niépce Prize for young photographers. He continued to publish regularly: Vortex and Insomnia appeared in 2003, accompanying his exhibition 1001 Nuits, which opened in Paris in September; Stigma was published in 2004, and Manifeste in 2005.Since 2005 Antoine d’Agata has had no settled place of residence but has worked around the world. He is currently based in Paris. In episode 201, Antoine discusses, among other things:Wanting to become a priest at 15SacrificeMoving to LondonSituationismHis intro to photography before he took picturesBeing accepted into the ICP as a ’social experiment’Being ‘ashamed’ of having left the streetCritics not having the full factsMoments of ParoxsysmThe question for morality and ethicsQuitting photography for 4-5 yearsCambodia, his book Ice, Crystal Meth and the consequences of using itHow he manages to endure the banality of the real worldContaminationHis Covid project with a heat sensitive cameraHis commitment to and passion for teaching workshops Referenced:Luc DelahayeMoises Saman Instagram“I didn’t want to betray in any way what I was or what I was doing, so I needed to find different ways to keep going without negating what I believed in, and photography seemed to be the only considerable way to do it…”

Based in London, Emma Hardy is well practiced in capturing the nuances of everyday life. Her images reflect an often unnoticed drama behind the scenes. Coming from a theatrical background and having worked as an actress herself before focusing on photography, Emma cites her fascination with people’s behaviour, the tensions, interactions and quirky humour, as a driving energy in her work.Mainly self-taught, Emma photographs on film, simply, with natural or available light, stating “I try not to impose much technique or too much of myself on my subjects.” As such, there’s a hallmark honesty to her work. Her images are infused with a believable sense of being, her portraits are intimate and unselfconscious. Tilda Swinton, Natalia Vodianova, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Stella McCartney have sat for her, among others.She started photographing portraits, documents and fashion for British Vogue, The Telegraph magazine, Vanity Fair, The Fader, The New York Times and Rolling Stone, among many others, and had her first solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2006 with a project titled Exceptional Youth.  Other exhibitions in London, New York and Milan followed, and she was invited to photograph a series of portraits for the London 2012 Olympics, again featured at the National Portrait Gallery. Thirty-nine of her portraits are in the permanent collection at the NPG London. In 2012 she was commissioned by Oxfam & The Economist to travel to Cambodia to document the citizens of Phnom Penh who were battling the governments land grabs—this series became an exhibition in London in 2013 titled Losing Ground, the exhibition travelled to Washington DC where the images were used as a lobbying tool to help the Cambodian situation onto the G8 summit list.Permissions, Emma’s first monograph, was published by Gost Books in November 2022.  Some of the images were exhibited at 1014 Gallery in Dalston, London, December 2022 - January 2023.Describing her aesthetic as raw but tender, Emma finds beauty in imperfection, and polish in the detail of everyday life. And through her lens, the most ordinary moments seem steeped in romance and intrigue, as if her subjects are characters in a movie playing in her head.On episode 200, Emma discusses, among other things:Is art more pure if it’s done for the joy of it?Beauty and lyricismChildhood feelings of being an outsiderTaking pictures of her children from an early ageTrying to transmit how she felt in her workThe inclusion of still lifes of flowersWhy she started to photograph her mumThe issue of permission and consentHow the way she shot changed over timeReferenced:Nan GoldinRichard BillinghamNick WaplingtonVivian Maier4000 Weeks by Oliver BurkemanStuart SmithStephen Ledger-LomasNiall Sweeney Website | Instagram“When things line up, when life or the universe says ‘I’ve got something I can show you. Are you ready? ARE you ready?’ And you might be ready, and you might catch this thing that is shown to you. And that’s incredibly beautiful. And the times that that has happened I was very aware of it. Like, my whole body started fizzing.”

Nick Brandt’s photographic series always relate to the devastating impact that humankind is having on both the rapidly disappearing natural world and now on itself, as a result of environmental destruction, climate change and human actions.In the East African trilogy, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across The Ravaged Land(2001-2012), Nick established a style of portrait photography of animals in the wild similar to that of humans in a studio setting, shooting on medium format film, and attempting to portray animals as sentient creatures not so different from us.In Inherit the Dust(2016), Nick photographed in places in East Africa where the animals used to roam. In each location, life size panels of unreleased animal portrait photographs were erected, setting the panels within a world of explosive human development. It is not just the animals who are the victims in this out of control world, but also the humans.Photographed in color, This Empty World(2019) addresses the escalating destruction of the East African natural world at the hands of humans, showing a world where, overwhelmed by runaway development, there is no longer space for animals to survive. The people in the photos are also often helplessly swept along by the relentless tide of ‘progress’. Each image is a combination of two moments in time shot from the exact same camera position, once with wild animals that enter the frame, after which a set is built and a cast of people drawn from local communities.The Day May Break (2021) is the first part of a global series portraying people & animals impacted by environmental destruction. Photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya, the people in the photos have all been badly affected by climate change - displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, displaced & impoverished after years-long severe droughts. The photos were taken at 5 sanctuaries/conservancies. The animals are almost all long-term rescues, due to everything from poaching of their parents to habitat destruction & poisoning. These animals can never be released back into the wild. Now habituated, it was therefore safe for strangers to be photographed close to the animals in the same frame.Nick has had solo gallery and museum shows around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Paris and Los Angeles. All the series are published in book form. Born and raised in London, where he originally studied Painting and Film, Nick now lives in the southern Californian mountains. In 2010, Nick co-founded Big Life Foundation, a non-profit in Kenya/Tanzania employing more than 300 local rangers protecting 1.6 million acres of the Amboseli/Kilimanjaro ecosystem.On episode 199, Nick discusses, among other things:Why he moved to the USAHis 18 ‘wasted’ years making filmsHis first trilogy of projects: On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across The Ravaged LandHaving a niche that enabled him to start making a livingOnly taking photographs to exist on printsInherit the DustGoing in to each project both ‘excited and scared shitless’This Empty WorldThe Day May BreakHow he was personally impacted by wild fires at home in CaliforniaThe story of Kuda and Sky IIHis level of optimism about climate changeReferenced:Martin McDonaghRichard AvedonIrving PennArnold NewmanGreta Thunberg Website | Instagram“Every project I go into I have no bloody clue whether it’s gonna work. But, that is part of the buzz, by which I mean I like to go into each project excited and scared shitless. I find that challenge to be incredibly stimulating.”

Gregory Crewdson’s photographs have entered the American visual lexicon, taking their place alongside the paintings of Edward Hopper and the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch as indelible evocations of a silent psychological interzone between the everyday and the uncanny. Often working with a large team, Crewdson typically plans each image with meticulous attention to detail, orchestrating light, color, and production design to conjure dreamlike scenes infused with mystery and suspense. While the small-town settings of many of Crewdson’s images are broadly familiar, he is careful to avoid signifiers of identifiable sites and moments, establishing a world outside time.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Crewdson is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and the Yale University School of Art, where he is now director of graduate studies in photography. He lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. In a career spanning more than three decades, he has produced a succession of widely acclaimed bodies of work, from Natural Wonder (1992–97) to Cathedral of the Pines (2013–14). Beneath the Roses (2003–08), a series of pictures that took nearly ten years to complete—and which employed a crew of more than one hundred people—was the subject of the 2012 feature documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, by Ben Shapiro.Crewdson’s emblematic series Twilight (1998–2002) ushers the viewer into a nocturnal arena of alienation and desire that is at once forbidding and darkly magnetic. In these lush photographs, the elements intervene unexpectedly and alarmingly into suburban domestic space. Crewdson’s psychological realism is tempered in these images by their heightened theatricality, while themes of memory and imagination, the banal and the fantastic, function in concert with a narrative of pain and redemption that runs through American history and its picturing.Cathedral of the Pines, which was first exhibited at Gagosian in New York in 2016, depicts unnamed figures situated in the forests around the town of Becket, Massachusetts. In scenes that evoke nineteenth-century American and European history paintings, the works’ subjects appear traumatized by mysterious events or suspended in a fugue state. Working with a small crew to maintain an intimate and immediate atmosphere, the artist also used people close to him as models. But even once we know who “plays” the protagonists, their actions remain cryptic and their relationships unclear. “There are no answers here,” states the artist, “only questions.” The 2018–19 series An Eclipse of Moths is set amid down-at-heel postindustrial locations including an abandoned factory and a disused taxi depot. They serve as backdrops for Crewdson’s enigmatic dramas of decay and potential rebirth.Gregory’s most recent body of work, Eveningside (2021-2022), was shot in B&W and formed the centrepiece of a retrospective trilogy of work, alongside Cathedral of the Pines and An Eclipse of Moths, in a major exhibition at Galerie D’Italia in Turin from October 2022 until January 2023. A older series called Fireflies (1996) was also included as ‘both connective tissue and counterpoint…’. A book, also entitled Eveningside, was published to accompany the show. On episode 198, Gregory discusses, among other things:The three phases of his creative processWhy he chose B&W for EveningsideHis transition from film to digitalThe abiding themes in his workHow every artist has one story to tellFalling in love with photography from day oneHis love of moviesThe significance of nudity in his workAllowing for ‘a certain kind of unexpected beauty and mystery’ to come out of the processWindowsNever being quite satisfied with the resultsThe relationship between true beauty and sadnessThe act of making a picture being an act of seperation from the worldThe way in which the subjects of his work always seem disconnected and alone…And how that references the act of making the picture.ReferencedThe Night of the HunterThe Last Picture ShowMankRomaRick SandsLaurie Simmonds Gallery | Instagram“I’ve said many times, I feel like every artist has one story to tell and that central story is told through an artists lifetime, and when you come of age in your early twenties you’re confronted with movies and artwork that you love or you hate and you’re defined in a certain way as a kind of aesthetic being, and then you spend your life sort of working out those things, and trying to find yourself within that frame of influences.”

Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952), the man who the Daily Telegraph declared to be, “arguably Britain’s greatest living photographer” is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world.His major projects have been rural communities (1975–1982), The Last Resort (1983–1985), The Cost of Living (1987–1989), Small World (1987–1994) and Common Sense (1995–1999). Since 1994, Martin has been a member of Magnum Photos, where he scraped in by one vote and where between 2013 and 2017 he served as President. His work has been published in numerous photobooks, over 120 of his own, and he has exhibited prolifically throughout his career.In 2017 the Martin Parr Foundation was opened in Bristol. The MPF is as a gallery and archive and research resource dedicated to both preserving the Martin’s photographic legacy and to supporting emerging, established and overlooked photographers who have made and continue to make work focused on the British Isles.Since his first A Small Voice appearance on Episode 91 of the podcast in October 2018, Martin has had a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which opened in March 2019. Entitled Only Human, the show included portraits from around the world, with a special focus on Britishness, explored through a series of projects that investigated British identity. Also since that episode Martin was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in June, 2021.Martin’s latest book, A Year in the Life of Chew Stoke Village was released in September 2022 by RRB Books.On episode 197, Martin discusses, among other things:Influence of his methodist grandfather… and peers at ManchesterEarly experiences in Hebdon BridgeThe move to Ireland - From the Pope to a Flat WhiteLiverpool and the controversy around The Last Resort workBristol and Bath - The Cost of LivingBeing blown away by his first experience of ArlesJoining Magnum amidst disapproval from the old guardSmall WorldA Year in the Life of Chew Stoke VillageSigns of the TimesCommon SenseThe work of the Martin Parr FoundationGood work and bad workReferenced:Robert DoisneauBill BrandtRobert FrankGarry WinograndAlan MurgatroydBrian GriffinDaniel MeadowsAlbert Street WorkshopFintan O’ToolePeter FraserPeter MitchellTom WoodAnna FoxKen GrantDavid MooreJohn HindePhilip Jones GriffithsHenri Cartier-BressonBoris MikhailovKrass Clement Martin: Website | Instagram | Episode 91 | Chew Stoke bookMPF: Website | Instagram“Most of the pictures I take are very bad, because to get the good pictures is almost impossible. If you went out in the morning and said ‘today I’m only gonna take good pictures’ you wouldn’t get anywhere. You wouldn’t even start. So you’ve got to have that momentum of shooting, and you’ve got to have found the right subject, the right place, the right time, and then things will start to happen.”

Photographer, writer, and filmmaker, Eugene Richards, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1944. After graduating from Northeastern University with a degree in English, he studied photography with Minor White. In 1968, he joined VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America, a government program established as an arm of the so-called” War on Poverty.”  Following a year and a half in eastern Arkansas, Eugene helped found a social service organization and a community newspaper, Many Voices, which reported on black political action as well as the Ku Klux Klan.  Photographs he made during these four years were published in his first monograph, Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta.Upon returning to Dorchester, Eugene began to document the changing, racially diverse neighborhood where he was born.  After being invited to join Magnum Photos in 1978, he worked increasingly as a freelance magazine photographer, undertaking assignments on such diverse topics as the American family, drug addiction, emergency medicine, pediatric AIDS, aging and death in America.  In 1992, he directed and shot Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, the first of seven short films he would eventually make.Eugene has authored sixteen books and his photographs have been collected into three comprehensive monographs. Exploding Into Life, which chronicles his first wife Dorothea Lynch’s struggle with breast cancer, received Nikon's Book of the Year award. For Below The Line: Living Poor in America, his documentation of urban and rural poverty, Eugene received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography. The Knife & Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room received an Award of Excellence from the American College of Emergency Physicians. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, an extensive reportorial on the effects of hardcore drug usage, received the Kraszna-Krausz Award for Photographic Innovation in Books. That same year, Americans We was the recipient of the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award for Best Photographic Book. In 2005, Pictures of the Year International chose The Fat Baby, an anthology of fifteen photographic essays, Best Book of the year. Eugene’s most recent books include The Blue Room, a study of abandoned houses in rural America; War Is Personal, an assessment in words and pictures of the human consequences of the Iraq war; and Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down, a remembrance of life on the Arkansas Delta.Eugene has won just about every major award that exists for documentary photography including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, the Leica Medal of Excellence and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, among many others.His new self-published book, In This Brief Life, due for release in September 2023, features over fifty years of mostly unseen photographs, from his earliest pictures of sharecropper life in the Arkansas Delta throughout his lifetime as a photographer. On episode 196, Eugene discusses, among other things:The recent political landscape in the USA.In This Brief Life - his forthcoming, Kickstarter funded book.Why he self-publishes books.His change of heart about the value of InstagramWhy going through his archive was an ‘obsessive experience’Being ‘out of touch with what journalism is’The Knife & Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency RoomTips on getting to know people on a storyBelow The Line: Living Poor in AmericaThe Blue RoomReturning to ArkansasDocumentary project Thy Kingom ComeCemetery projectExploding Into LifeMany VoicesWhy he left MagnumReferenced:Ed BarnesPeter HoweEugene Smith AwardDorothea LynchCornell CapaJohn MorrisHoward ChapnickJim Hughes, Camera ArtsMinor WhiteRoy DeCaravaWalker EvansFSABill BrandtWilliam KleinMike NicholsTerence MalickKoudelkaLeonard FreedReni BurriMary Ellen MarkNachtweySalgado Website | Instagram| New book“You’re sitting there with thirty or forty contacts books all over the floor, and you find yourself staying up late into the night thinking ‘there has to be something there’ and finding nothing at all. And the people on Instagram write to you and say, ‘oh my God, I’d love to look at your contact sheets’ and I tell them quite honestly, probably not, because they’re gonna disappoint the shit out of you!”

Aaron Schuman is an American photographer, writer, curator and educator based in the UK. He received a BFA in Photography and History of Art from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1999, and an MA in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the University of London: London Consortium at Birkbeck College in 2003.Aaron is the author of several critically-acclaimed monographs: Sonata, published by Mack in the summer of 2022; Slant, published by Mack, which was cited as one of 2019's "Best Photobooks" by numerous photographers, critics and publications, and Folk, published by NB Books, which also was cited as one of 2016's "Best Photobooks" by numerous people, and was long-listed for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2017. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in many public and private collections.In addition to to his own photographic work, Aaron has contributed essays, interviews, texts and photographs to many other books and monographs. He has also written and photographed for a wide variety of journals, magazines and publications, such as Aperture, Foam, ArtReview, Frieze, Magnum Online, Hotshoe, The British Journal of Photography and more.Aaron has curated several major international festivals and exhibitions, was the founder and editor of the online photography journal, SeeSaw Magazine (2004-2014) and is Associate Professor in Photography and Visual Culture, and the founder and Programme Leader of the MA/Masters in Photography programme, at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol).On episode 195, Aaron discusses, among other things:SeeSaw MagazineHow he fell into curating……And then teachingEarly interest in documentary photographyWriting to Richard AvedonTakeaways from working for Annie LeibowitzImpact of Wolgang Tilmans Turner Prize show……And the experience of printing for himHow his writing had an important influence on his photographyGetting the balance backFirst book, FolkSlantSonata - trying to see the world through clear, fresh eyes Referenced:Richard AvedonAnnie LeibowitzWolgang TilmansCartier BressonBruce Davidson“I’m not interested in necessarily making explicitly autobiographical work in a kind of diaristic sense, but I am interested in infusing what I do with something that’s coming from me. It’s a question I ask my students all the time, you know, ‘this is a really good idea for a project but why are you the person to make this project? What do you have to bring to this?’ Because, yes, the subject matter itself might be compelling but if you’re just doing it in the way that I did with the Tibetan monks, that it’s been done a million times before, it’s not addding anything to the culture - we already have those pictures.”

Featuring:Alison McCauleyRobert GumpertMimi PlumbPeter FraserEva VoutsakiJem SouthamPatrick BrownAlba ZariPradip MaldeLewis BushGreg WilliamsJoanne CoatesRich Joseph-FacunSam JonesBryan SchutmaatKavi PujaraBen BrodyAnastasia SamoylovaStephen ShorePaddy Summerfield

Paddy Summerfield (born 1947) is a British fine art photographer who has lived and worked in Oxford in the UK all his life. Paddy is known for his evocative series’ of black and white images, shot on 35mm film, which co-opt the traditional genre of documentary photography to realise a more personal and inward looking vision. He has said his photographs are exclusively about abandonment and loss.After taking an Art Foundation course at the Oxford Polytechnic, Summerfield attended Guildford School of Art, studying firstly in the Photography Department, then joining the Film department the following year. In 1967, when still a first-year student, he made photographs that appeared in 1970 in Bill Jay's magazine Album. Between 1968 and 1978, Paddy documented Oxford University students in the summer terms. His pictures published in Creative Camera, and on its cover in January 1974, were recognised as psychological and expressionist, unusual in an era of journalistic and documentary photography. Throughout his life, Paddy has focused on making photographic essays that are personal documents. From 1997 to 2007 he photographed his parents, his mother with Alzheimer's disease and his father caring for her. A book of the work entitled Mother and Father was published by Dewi Lewis, as have been all of Paddy’s other books: Empty Days, The Holiday Pictures, Home Movie and The Oxford Pictures.Next Spring there will be an exhibition at North Wall as part of the Photo Oxford Festival (April 18 - 7 May 2023) of Pictures From The Garden a project in which seven photographers - Vanessa Winship, Alys Tomlinson, Matthew Finn, Nik Roche, Sian Davey, Jem Southam and Alex Schneideman - have made work in response to Paddy’s Mother and Father project, with a corresponding book published by, of course, Dewi Lewis. On episode 193, Paddy discusses, among other things:The current Pictures From The Garden projectMother and Father ‘proper work’Early years: sister and boarding schoolAbandonment and loss but always ending on hopeAll his books being autobiograhicalOxford PicturesEmpty DaysDocumentary - personal documentSeaside photographs Referenced:Gerry BadgerAshmolean MuseumDewi LewisSamuel PalmerSir Nick Serota Website | Instagram“You try and capture the world don’t you? You try and hold on to something. But it’s more than that - you want to capture an emotion, something that’s strong and lingering and grabbing hold of your interior life. I think that’s what I do, that’s what I WANT to do - create the emotion.”

Stephen Shore's work has been widely published and exhibited for the past forty-five years. He was the first living photographer to have a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since Alfred Stieglitz, forty years earlier. He has also had one-man shows at George Eastman House, Rochester; Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Jeu de Paume, Paris; and Art Institute of Chicago. In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art opened a major retrospective spanning Stephen Shore's entire career. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His series of exhibitions at Light Gallery in New York in the early 1970s sparked new interest in color photography and in the use of the view camera for documentary work.More than 25 books have been published of Stephen Shore's photographs including Uncommon Places: The Complete Works; American Surfaces; Stephen Shore, a retrospective monograph in Phaidon's Contemporary Artists series; Stephen Shore: Survey and most recently, Transparencies: Small Camera Works 1971-1979 and Stephen Shore: Elements. In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art published Stephen Shore in conjunction with their retrospective of his photographic career.Stephen also wrote The Nature of Photographs, published by Phaidon Press, which addresses how a photograph functions visually. His work is represented by 303 Gallery, New York; and Sprüth Magers, London and Berlin. Since 1982 he has been the director of the Photography Program at Bard College, NY, where he is the Susan Weber Professor in the Arts.His new book, Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography. A Memoir, was published by Mack Books in 2021. On episode 192, Stephen discusses, among other things:How the new book came aboutHow it differs from previous book, The Nature of Photographs.Artist’s superstition over discussing the creative processThe importance of experimentationShowing and not explainingPhotography as a ‘generous medium’Creating the book as an ‘experience’Structure vs. compositionInclusion vs. exclusionMastering the discipline - 3 phasesDoes he believe in The Muse?Being attentive in the midst of lifeWorking with a performance coachThe influence of paintings… and Walker EvansThe nature (and importance) of ambitionGetting a solo show at The Met, aged 23Sustaining driveHis interest in drone photography… and InstagramThe day he realised the 8x10 camera was for himReferenced:The Nature of PhotographsLee FriedlanderGarry WinograndBruno BettelheimRichard AvedonJerry GoldsmithGregory CrewdsonGeorge EliotWalker EvansWebsite | Instagram | Interview with David Campany“To look at something completely ordinary, what you see day to day in your life, and pay attention to it, that’s what interests me. And just from years of trying it and doing it, I feel like it provides a certain kind of food for people, that it’s nourishing.”

Anastasia Samoylova (b. 1984, USSR) is an American artist who moves between observational photography and studio practice. Her work explores notions of environmentalism, consumerism and the picturesque.Recent exhibitions include Eastman Museum; Chrysler Museum of Art; The Photographer's Gallery; Kunst Haus Wien; HistoryMiami Museum; and Museum of Fine Arts, Le Locle.In 2022 Anastasia was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Her work is in the collections at the Perez Art Museum Miami and Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, among others.Published monographs include Floridas (Steidl, 2022) and FloodZone (Steidl, 2019), with her latest work, Image Cities, forthcoming as a book and exhibition in 2023.On episode 191, Anastasia discusses, among other things:Recent hurricaneForthcoming book and exhibition project, Image CitiesHer abiding interest in collageAdding vs. reducing - abstracting the worldFlorida and her FloodZone bookHer perspective on the climate emergency: alarmist but not defeatistWhy she ended up living in MiamiHow she came to start making picturesThe distinctive Florida colour paletteThe Floridas bookClimate anxiety - and other typesHaving a strong work ethicReferenced:Stephen ShoreEugène AtgetJacques TatiMies van der RoheAnsel AdamsWalker EvansDavid CampanyAlec SothWilliam EgglestonAlexander RodchenkoVarvara Stepanova Website | Instagram “The key impulse here is the sense of gratitude for being able to do what I’ve always known I wanted to do, and feeling zero entitlement to this. It’s an immense privilege to be in this line of work.”

Featuring:Tom Booth WoodgerCraig EastonAaron SchumannRoger DeakinsKeith Cullen from Setanta BooksMartin Amis from photobookstore.co.uk and Photo EditionsTom Broadbent from The Photobook Club CollectiveAndi Galdi VinkoMartin ParrMatthew KillipChilli PowerSam BinyminAlys TomlinsonMatt Martin from Photobook Cafe Instagram  | Martin Parr Foundation |  Royal Photographic Society

Ben Brody is an independent photographer, educator, and picture editor working on long-form projects related to the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their aftermath.  He is the Director of Photography for The GroundTruth Project and Report for America, and a co-founder of Mass Books.His first book, Attention Servicemember, was shortlisted for the 2019 Aperture - Paris Photo First Book Award and is now in its second edition.Ben holds an MFA from Hartford Art School's International Low-Residency Photography program.  He resides in western Massachusetts. On episode 189, Ben discusses, among other things:How he got into photography.How 9/11 influenced his decision to join the army.The mandate he was given by his superiors.Reappropriating the reappropriated.How the media’s portrayal of war becomes a ‘feedback loop’.Vernacular vs. ‘professional’ images of war, as exemplified by Abu Ghraib.Why he went to Afghanistan as a civilian photographer.Circumventing the restrictions of the embed program.His new book 300M and how it came about.Referenced:Kurt Vonnergut, Slaughterhouse FiveEd ClarkJoe SaccoShabana Basij-RasikhWebsite | Instagram | Books | 300m (video)“I felt like there was a space in culture to make a photobook that was narrated by a totally ordinary soldier, who was not some scary CAG operator or CIA spook. And also by a pretty ordinary photographer, not like a famous photographer with a storied history who’s really invested in a cult of personal celebrity. When I made Attention Service Member and now 300M, which is almost like an epilogue to Service Member, I had the luxury of having probably seventy five photobooks already about the global war on terror that had come out before me. So I was able to analyse those books and assess, ‘what hasn’t been done before?’”

Kavi Pujara (born Leicester, 1972) is a self-taught photographer. He has a BSc in Software Engineering and an MA in Screenwriting and he works as a film editor for the BBC alongside independently making personal, long-term documentary photo projects. His work has been included in the touring group exhibition Facing Britain, he was also one of the winners in the British Journal of Photography, Portrait of Britain 2020 and was the recipient of a Martin Parr Foundation photographic bursary in 2020. Two of his portraits have also this year been selected for the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition and will be on display in London from 27 October - 18 December 2022. His first book project, published by Setanta Books, is This Golden Mile. Photographed against the backdrop of Brexit, the Windrush scandal, and a government intent on reducing net migration, Kavi documents Indian migration to Leicester, where he was born, exploring themes of identity, home and Britishness. An exhibition of the work will open next weekend at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol. On episode 188, Kavi discusses, among other things:His family historyGrowing up in LeicesterExperiences of racism growing up and on TVEscaping Leicester to do a degree and discover music and booksDiscovering cinema and film editingHis experience of screenwritingWinning the MPF bursaryHow moving back and the Brexit vote inspired This Golden MilePatriotism towards the UK amongst his parent’s generation of immigrantsThe process of making the pictures for This Golden MileThe Nationality and Borders ActThe value of having the mentorship of Martin Parr……and the two most important nuggets he imparted.Referenced:Joel MeyorwitzMike MuschampTony Ray-JonesGarry WinograndDario MitidieriAsif KapadiaSmoking In Bed: Conversations with Bruce RobinsonKalpesh LathigraSathnam SangheraSian DaveyKeith CullenJason Taylor Website | Instagram“The spark [for the project] came from that moment of relocating back to Leicester and within two weeks of that was the EU referendum result. Both of those moments, the personal and the political were in the space of a few weeks and I wanted to use photography to reconnect with the community I grew up in…but it was impossible to ignore the shift from that point. It was almost night and day. I really took it to heart and found it quite depressing, that societal turn towards anti-immigrant populism.”

187 - Bryan SchutmaatBryan Schutmaat is an American photographer based in Austin, Texas whose work has been widely exhibited and published. He has won numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the Aperture Portfolio Prize, and an Aaron Siskind Fellowship. Bryan’s prints are held in many collections, such as Baltimore Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Pier 24 Photography, Rijksmuseum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. With his friend and fellow photographer Matthew Genitempo, he co-founded the imprint, Trespasser.On episode 187, Bryan discusses, among other things:How Grays The Mountain Sends was influenced by poet Richard Hugo and the landscape of Montana and the American west.The connection between the state a person is from and the sterotype of what that meansWhy the American west ‘breaks his heart’How his dad shaped his view of the working classFinding the commonalities between people and placeGood Goddamn and the freedom of switching to 35mm from large formatThe close relationship between photography and poetryPunk rock ethos as applied to TrespasserHis experience of the Hertford MFA programThe pros and cons of talking about your work as an artistVesselsNFTsReferenced:Richard HugoWallace StegnaGeoff DyerThe 25th HourTownes van ZandtWillie NelsonNelson ChanMike MillsSpike JonzeMinor ThreatSalad Days (documentary)Matthew GenitempoJohn CassavettesFive Easy PiecesJ CarrierTim CarpenterCarl WooleyRobert LyonsMary FryAlec SothJustine KurlandLois ConnorRobert AdamsIngmar BergmanNomadlandThe Thin Red LineSaving Private RyanThe Grapes of WrathPablo CabadoLeon BridgesAbigail VarneyWebsite | Instagram“I think in this new space of iPhones and NFTs - I’m looking down at my iPhone right now - that’s just an undignied way to look at photographs you’ve put a lot of time and effort into. So the pictures on my website of installation shots or of books are just to remind people that what you’re looking at on screen is a very compromised version of what these pictures oughta be… it’s basically telling the viewer that, if you can, I would like this website to be a stepping stone to experience the book or the exhibition. It’s just sort of attempting to remind people that prints and physical tactile things matter in this digital age. So I don’t want to see that lost.”

Sam Jones is an acclaimed American photographer and director whose portraits of President Obama, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Bob Dylan, Kristin Stewart, Robert Downey Jr, Amy Adams, Jack Nicholson, and many others have appeared on the covers of Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, Time, Entertainment Weekly and Men’s Journal. His collection of candid celebrity portraiture, The Here And Now: The Photographs of Sam Jones, was published by Harper Collins. Other published works include Non-Fiction, a collection of cinematic portraiture, and Some Where Else, a photographic book and musical collaboration with musician Blake Mills.Sam is also an acclaimed director, creating numerous national commercials for Skype, Sonos, Canon, Target, Dove and many others. He is a sought after music video director who won MTV’s music video of the year for Foo Fighters Walk. He has directed videos for Mumford and Sons, Tom Petty, John Mayer, and many others. He also directed the multi-award winning interactive video for Cold War Kids’ I’ve Seen Enough.In 2013 Sam launched Off Camera with Sam Jones on Directv’s Audience Network. Off Camera is an hour long show created out of his passion for long form conversational interviews. Via worldwide broadcast, online magazine, and podcast, Jones shares his conversations with the artists, actors, and musicians who fascinate and inspire him most. Robert Downey Jr., Sarah Silverman, Dave Grohl, Laura Dern, Tony Hawk, Matt Damon and Will Ferrell have all appeared on the show.Sam directed the feature length Showtime Documentary Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued, a film that reexamines Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes and documents new recordings of lost Dylan lyrics by Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford and others in Capitol Records Studios. The film features Bob Dylan as narrator, and documents the exciting collaboration between some of the most successful current artists in music and a 26-year-old Bob Dylan. The film premiered on Showtime Networks.In 2002, Sam started his feature-length documentary career with I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, which chronicles beloved indie-rock band Wilco’s tumultuous recording of their acclaimed fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and his most recent feature length documentary, Until The Wheels Fall Off, a portrait of the life and career of legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk, was released earlier this year.Sam lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters. On episode 186, Sam discusses, among other things:The unholy trinity of skateboarding, bands and zines.Finishing what you started.The amazing saga of his documentary about the band Wilco, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.How the town he grew up in, Fullerton, California, influenced his path in unexpected ways.Photography seeming like the safe choice.Confidence.The shift that occurred as he gained experience.His TV show / podcast, Off Camera and what he learned from doing it.The societal change in the way we see famous people.His documentary about skateboarder Tony Hawk, Until The Wheels Fall Off. Referenced:Neil BlenderGordon & SmithMark BosterHugh GrantSteve MartinLaird HamiltonRobert Downey Jr.Tom CruiseDax SheppardKristen BellTony HawkRodney Mullen Website | Instagram | Off Camera | Documentaries“Just like if you’re a kid and you didn’t grow up with a swimming pool in your back yard you’re gonna figure out a way to get invited to go swimming at your friend’s house. And so when I get an idea and I want to see it through, I don’t see the obstacles as things that will stop me, I just seem them as necessary parts of the process.”

185 - Rich Joseph-FacunRich Joseph-Facun is a photographer of Indigenous Mexican and Filipino descent. His work aims to offer an authentic look into endangered, bygone, and fringe cultures—those transitions in time where places fade but people persist.The exploration of place, community and cultural identity present themselves as a common denominator in both his life and photographic endeavors.Before finding “home” in the Appalachian Foothills of southeast Ohio, Rich roamed the globe for 15 years working as a photojournalist. During that time he was sent on assignment to over a dozen countries, and for three of those years he was based in the United Arab Emirates.His photography has been commissioned by various publications, including NPR, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian (UK), among others. Additionally, Rich’s work has been recognized by Photolucida’s Critical Mass, CNN, Juxtapoz, British Journal of Photography, The Washington Post and Pictures of the Year International. In 2021 his first monograph Black Diamonds was released by Fall Line Press. The work is a visual exploration of the former coal mining boom towns of SE Ohio, Appalachia. Subsequently, it was highlighted by Charcoal Book Club as their “Book-Of-The-Month.” Black Diamonds is also part of the permanent collection at the Frederick and Kazuko Harris Fine Arts Library and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s Research Library.Having successfully run a kickstarter campaign which met the target funding, Rich is currently in the process of producing his next monograph Little Cities, slated to be released in Autumn 2022 by Little Oak Press. The work examines how both Indigenous peoples and descendants of settler colonialists inhabited and utilized the land around them. On episode 185, Rich discusses, among other things:Where he lives in Millfield, ohioBecoming a dad at 17His journey into photographyLiving in the UAEHow he ended up living in rural OhioThe origins of the project Black DiamondsBeing a person of colour in the U.S. during the Trump yearsAppalachia and its attendent photographic clichésHis latest book Little CitiesWhy doing a book without people in it is ‘scary’.The Bubble - a possible 3rd part of a trilogy“I was feeling great about the community. I was super excited about it, every day going out and making images. Everything was resonating with me. It was like being in a Disney movie and all the birds were chirping…”

Joanne Coates is an English, working class documentary photographer based in North Yorkshire, interested in rurality, hidden histories and class. She was born in the rural North of England, educated first in working class alternative communities, then at The Sir John Cass School of Fine Art and The London College of Communication from where she has a Ba Hons in Photography. Her practice is as much about process, participation and working with communities as the still image. Joanne’s work has been exhibited both in the UK and internationally.Joanne is Director of the Arts organisation Lens Think, a Social Enterprise based in Yorkshire and the North East, dedicated to making opportunities and gaining access for marginalised groups & developing photography in the North of England. Its aim is to fight for class equality and a more creative industries through participation and radical community arts. The organisation works with schools, and provides mentorships to 3 artists per year.In 2021 Joanne was a joint awardee of the Jerwood / Photoworks prize. The resulting work, The Lie of the Land, explores the social history of the land and narrates a story of gender and class in relation to the countryside of the North East of England, and will be exhibited at The Jerwood Space in London from 23 September – 10 December 2022.Her project Daughters of the Soil, about role of women in agriculture in Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, was published as a book, in a small, limited-edition print run, and is now more or less sold out. The work will be exhibited at the Vane Gallery, Gateshead from 11 August – 3 September 2022, where there will be a few remaining copies of the book available. Preview Wednesday 10 August 5-8pm. Small Voice listeners welcome! On episode 184, Joanne discusses, among other things:How her practice has shiftedThe Lie of The Land and Daughters of the SoilClass and why it’s important to her identity and workSocial mobilityNorthern culture and the North / South divideTall poppy syndrome and being yourselfThe importance of communityEngaging with her subjectsWhy everyone is a political photographerLens ThinkAdvantages vs. disadvantages of being based up northHer recent autism diagnosisReferenced:Nathalie OlahJo SpenceNan GoldinGregory CrewsdonThe Girls NetworkMolly DineenBecky BeasleyDisability Visibility Website | Instagram | Twitter“I’m never gonna be that person who walks up to someone at a private view and says ‘hi, this is me and this is what my work’s about…’ I would vomit in my mouth. I just wouldn’t be able to do it. But someone else, that might be who they are, and there’s actually nothing wrong with that. That might be very natural for them so it wouldn’t be a forced interaction.”

Featuring:Susan MeiselasKristine PotterVanessa WinshipCurran HatlebergKlavdij Sluban

Greg Williams is one of the most trusted and acclaimed photographers in entertainment—his name and candid portraiture synonymous with authentic glamour. Greg established his reportage style as a photojournalist in the ‘90s—covering war zones in Burma, Chechnya and Sierra Leone. An assignment for the Sunday Times Magazine gave Greg his first access to the film industry and he has now shot ‘specials’ on over 200 movies, including four poster campaigns for the Bond franchise. Greg has also enjoyed exclusive access to BAFTA, the Golden Globes and the Oscars and is a regular contributor to Vanity Fair and British Vogue.In addition to his prodigious photographic output, Greg is also a filmmaker, principally with his first person, ‘moving reportage’ documentaries, and a product designer—Greg’s limited edition Leica Q2, in partnership with Daniel Craig, is Leica’s fastest selling large scale edition. His education platform Skills Faster, is home to his highly successful Candid Photography Course, with the intention of ‘democratising good photography’. After 30 years in the business Greg’s talent and brand relationships are second to none. He publishes exclusives to over 1M followers on Instagram and on gregwilliams.com where he also sells his products and prints. Greg Williams Photography operates from Greg’s studio/gallery space in Mayfair, London. On episode 182, Greg discusses, among other things:The “transformative” impact of having a huge Instagram folllowing.Keeping it simple.Colloboration with his subjects.His free newspaper, Hollywood Authentic.Wanting to be a photographer at 6.His dyslexa and why it’s good to not have too many options in life.Early experiences pursuing photojournalism in Chechnya and Sierra Leone.Covering show jumping bunny rabbits and other syndicated stories.His entree into shooting behind the scenes on film sets.Why he always shows his subjects the picture of themselves.James Bond.Sharing his knowledge and process on his website and in his courses.Why he favours B&W.Plans for the future, including some podcasting. Website | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube“I’d done a lot of commercial work; a lot of advertising work; a lot of lit stuff; a lot of set building; a lot of stuff that required a huge amount of production; and for me there was something about bringing that all back in to one man with the cameras that fit into his shoulder bag, walking into a room without anybody else needed other than a subject.”

Originally from London, Lewis Bush studied at the University of Warwick, worked as a researcher for the United Nations HIV/AIDS taskforce in Geneva, and in 2012 started to develop his own research led photographic projects. In his work he looks for ways to visualise powerful agents, practices and technologies, and the links that connect them. To do this he employs a wide range of research strategies, from depth interviewing to open source investigation, and works across media and platforms, using photography, text, video, data visualisation, exhibitions, books, films, and apps.For Metropole (2015) he investigated the transformation of London at the hands of unaccoutable developers and property speculators. In Shadows of the State (2018), he examined the secret communications used by intelligence agencies, creating images from intercepted signals and uncovering a previously unknown geography of covert radio broadcast sites. Many of his projects have been published as books and have been featured in the press internationally.In 2018 Lewis spent six months as photographer in residence at the Société Jersiaise in the Bailiwick of Jersey, where he laid the groundwork for an ongoing project about the international finance industry, tentatively titled Trading Zones. In 2019 he was BMW artist in residence at Gobelins – École de l’image, Paris, France, working on an augmented reality app about computer vision and artificial intelligence, titled Ways of Seeing Algorithmically.As well as being recipient of both the Archisle and BMW residencies, his work has been nominated and shortlisted for numerous international prizes.As an educator Lewis teaches on the MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography (online/part-time) course at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London and has been a visiting speaker at numerous other institutions and he is currently a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics, department of Media and Communications where he is researching the impact of machine intelligence on photojournalism, and consequently on democracy, funded by an Economic and Social Research Council grant.Lewis recently fully funded on Kickstarter a forthcoming book entitled Depravity's Rainbow: A Dark History of Space Travel which explores the influence of imperialism, the Holocaust, and the Cold War on contemporary space exploration. On episode 181, Lewis discusses, among other things:Depravity's Rainbow and the fascinating story of Wernher von BraunNumber Stations, as featured in his project Shadows of the StateMaking abstract subjects visibleThe perils of calling people out for ethical transgressionsCurrent trends among photography studentsHis photographic and academic journeyBlueprints and cyanotypesThe colonisation of space by billionairesHis project, MetropoleHis blog, Disphotic Website | Instagram | Twitter “I trained first as a historian and then I worked as a researcher and then I retrained as a journalist, and however kinda weird and conceptual my projects are I think the accuracy and truthfulness of them is critical. ”

Pradip Malde is a photographer and a professor at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, where he is the co-director of the Haiti Institute. Much of his work considers the experience of loss and how it serves as a catalyst for regeneration. He is currently working in rural communities in Haiti, Tanzania and Tennessee, designing models for community development through photography.Pradip’s works are held in the collections of the Museum of the Art Institute, Chicago; Princeton University Museum; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Yale University Museum and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, among others. He is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow.Pradip was born in Arusha, Tanzania in 1957. His parents were the children of Indians who emigrated to East Africa but had to flee from the turmoil that spread through that region in the 1970s. Concerned about loss and belonging since then, he has come to think of artifacts as membranes, where what may be explicit and immutable begins to lead us into the realms of memory and meaning, and, ultimately, an understanding of the experiences of others.Pradip’s first monograph, entitiled From Where Loss Comes, was recently published by Charcoal Press. It is an unblinking look at how sacrifice and belonging are deeply rooted in the human experience, examining the story of the root causes of female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C). On episode 180, Pradip discusses, among other things:ResilienceHow boarding school in England changed his lifeScotlandSawanee and teachingHow loss serves as a catalyst for regenerationFrom Where Loss Comes and why it’s important for him that the book is not just about FGM/CHaitiHis love of platinum and other arcane printing processesGoing digital Website | Instagram

Featuring:James HymanEmma BlauBrett Rogers, The Photographer’s GalleryDeana LawsonMax MiechowskiDavid Campany (on the work of Anastasia Samoylova)Alys TomlinsonAletheia CaseyJillian EdelsteinMatt Stuart

Featuring attendees:Torry Brown - Website / InstagramTodd Rigos - Website / InstagramDena Eber - Website / InstagramHunter Lacey - Website / InstagramErinn Springer - Website / InstagramCaroline Suzman - Website / InstagramLori Ordover - Website / InstagramKyle Makrauer - Website / InstagramChanell Stone - Website / InstagramJessica Hays - Website / InstagramIssiah Winters - Website / InstagramHannah Kiviranta - Website / InstagramDebe Arlook - Website / InstagramMalika Ali Harding - Website / Instagram

Featuring attendees:Elijah Howe - Website / InstagramTracy L. Chandler - Website / InstagramAna Hop - Website / InstagramAndrea Koesters - Website / InstagramShannon Cavarocchi - Website / InstagramMyriam Abdelaziz - Website / InstagramMayita Mendez - Website / InstagramJono Terry - Website / InstagramLeslie Hakim-Dowek - Website / InstagramTrey Horvath - Website / InstagramEric Sung - Website / InstagramLiliana guzmán - Website / InstagramCody Bratt - Website / InstagramNick Haight - Website / InstagramAndrés de Varona - Website / InstagramCourtney Allen - Website / InstagramSabrina Giacomaggio - Website / Instagram

Alba Zari is a visual artist working with photography, video and sound. She was born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1987 where she lived until the age of eight. She later moved to Italy, first to Trieste and then to Bologna, where she graduated from university with a degree in film. She went on to study documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York city, and then continued her studies in photography and visual design at the NABA in Milan. Alba’s photographic practice explores social themes and includes a study of Italian mental health centres; eating disorders in the USA; Places (2015), a book and a photographic project which analyses the visual communication of ISIS propaganda; and Radici (2013), a documentary project on the vegetation of the Mesr desert in Iran. Her first book The Y - Research of Biological Father was released by Witty Books in 2019 and was born out of a journey in search of her origins through the father she never knew. Alba is currently working on an ongoing project called Occult, a visual study of the propaganda of the cult Children of God, into which both her grandmother and mother were indoctrinated and Alba herself was born. The project will be exhibited later in 2022 and is being developed into a feature length documentary film entitled White Lies. She released her first short documentary FreiKörperKultur recently.On episode 176, Alba discusses, among other things:Use of researchChildren of God cultThe documentary feature film she’s working onBelief in photography and truthThe Y - finding out the truth about her biological fatherWhy she ‘created him’Finding the man that signed her birth certificateGetting the strength to do the project, OccultEarning a livingNFTsWebsite | Instagram“Some things are private and you keep them to yourself and some others are the work itself and to be able to seperate these things is important.”

Patrick Brown has devoted himself to documenting critical issues around the world often ignored by the mainstream media. His groundbreaking project on the illegal trade in endangered animals won a World Press Photo Award in 2004 and a multimedia award from POYi in 2008. Patrick’s book Trading to Extinction was nominated in the ten best photo documentary books of 2014 by AmericanPhoto. In 2019 he published No Place On Earth which provides an intimate portrait of the survivors of the persecution of the Myanmar’s Rohingya population in 2017. Patrick has been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes including the 2019 FotoEvidence Book Award and two World Press Photo Awards. His work has been exhibited internationally at Centre of Photography in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, Visa pour l’Image in France and his work is also held in private collections.Patrick is a regular contributor to a wealth of publications, including, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, TIME, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, National Geographic and Mother Jones, and has worked with such organisations as UNICEF, UNHCR, Fortify Rights and Human Rights Watch. On episode 175, Patrick discusses, among other things:His peripatetic upbringingHow the surgeon that saved his young life also changed its trajectoryFinding it difficult to photograph people he knowsMoving to ThailandThe Thai/Burmese borderTrading to ExtinctionWhy the book was such a ‘painful’ experience he nearly quitNo Place On EarthWhy you have to go to editors and not wait for them to come to youThe ethical questions of documenting horrific situationsSuffering from ‘moral injury’Why he included images of tools in No Place On EarthHis involvement in the Alex Gibney film The Forever Prisoner Referenced:Josef KoudelkaJames NachtweySebastião SalgadoAdam FergusonEmphas.isStuart SmithDewi LewisAlex GibneySir Roger Deakins Website | Instagram“I’m always asking myself on these kind of stories, these kind of issues, ‘am I doing the right thing? Am I in the right position morally?’ If you stop asking those questions I think you will fall off into the precipice. You really need to be constantly re-evaluating yourself.”

Born in Bristol in 1950, Jem Southam is one of the UK's most renowned landscape photographers, working predominately in the South West of England where he lives. Jem’s richly detailed works document subtle changes and transitions within the landscape, allowing him to explore cycles of life and death, decay and renewal, through spring and winter, and also to reveal the subtlest of human interventions in the natural landscape. His work is characterised by its balance of poetry and lyricism within a documentary practice and combines topographical observation with other references: personal, cultural, political, scientific, literary and psychological. Jem's working method combines the predetermined and the intuitive. Seen together, his series suggest the forging of pathways towards visual and intellectual resolution.Jem has had solo exhibitions at The Photographers Gallery, London, Tate St Ives, Cornwall and The Victoria & Albert Museum, London and his work is held in many important collections, both in the UK and internationally.Until his retirement from teaching three years ago, Jem was Professor of Photography at the University of Plymouth and he is represented by the Huxley Parlour Gallery in London. On episode 174, Jem discusses, among other things:His student experience.Changes to the photographic culture.The importance of negative film.The gallery he ran in Bristol with friend Adrian Lovelace.Myths and stories.Bodies of water and Winter.What is a river?The influence of land art.The Pond at Upton Pyne.His switch to digital and how a broken elbow contributed to it. Referenced:Martin ParrPaul StrandBill BrandtPaul GrahamTony Ray JonesThe BechersRobert AdamsSusan ButlerAdrian LovelaceBruegelRichard HamlynBarbara BosworthJosef SudekSigma DP2 Instagram“I made a still life picture of an apple when I was a student, with a plate camera. I still remember now that I stood back took the cloth off the top of my head and I said ‘this is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life’... This apple stood in for the colour of the English landscape. It was a sort of metaphorical kind of emblem.”— Jem Southam

Eva Voutsaki is a Greek photographer and educator based in Brighton, England. She spent her early childhood in Drakona, a small village in Crete, before moving to Chania aged 15 to attend a better school.Eva holds a degree in Law, an MA in Photography, a foundation in Art Therapy and a PGCE in Further Education.Mythology, memory, fantasy and the unconscious form the basis for her creativity. Her project Traces Within, self published as a handstitched book in 2020, has been awarded honourable mentions at the 2008 and 2009 PX3 Paris Photography Prize competition and has been internationally recognized and exhibited at the 2009 Arles juried festival Voies Off, 2010 Rome Fotografia Festival at the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Arts, BOM gallery in Seoul, Menier and HOST gallery in London, among other places. Since 2008, Eva has been working collaboratively and intergenerationally on the family archives of her village Drakona in Crete. Her book dummy Family Photo Sketch Book: The Drakona Block was selected as a finalist for the 2014 Kassel International Photobook Dummy Award and in 2015 Eva was selected for the Magnum Professional Practice Masterclass in London. On episode 173, Eva discusses, among other things:BurnoutAcademiaThe importance of walkingSubjective photographyHer childhoom in CreteHow she ended up studying law and becoming a SolicitorThe importance of therapyHer book, Traces WithinHer interest in mathsImposter syndromePoetryAdventures in self-publishingThe pretentiousness of the photo industryHer father and grandfather and transgenerational traumaHer brother, who survived a climbing accidentForthcoming projects A Human’s Tale and DrakoniansReferenced:Emily Macaulay at Stanley James PressVanessa WinshipRamon Reverte at Editorial RMDaisuke Yokota - Back YardOlof Palme Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter“I’m a farmer’s daughter and I know how to grow my own food, and I feel confident in the field or under trees. But then when I go in a gallery and there's an opening and it’s loud and there’s alcohol and this pretentiousness… I don’t get it. I don’t get it. It’s just disgusting, seriously.”

Born 1953 in Cardiff, Wales, Peter Fraser acquired his first camera at the age of 7 and after a false start studying Civil Engineering, at 18, began studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic the following year. In the summer of 1974 he lived in New York and worked at the Laurel Photography Bookstore at 32nd St and 6th Avenue which significantly expanded his sense of photography’s expressive possibilities. He graduated in 1976 after repeating his 3rd year due to major illness crossing the Sahara, while photographing in West Africa.Peter lived in Holland and Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, before moving back to Manchester in 1981. He then began working with a Plaubel Makina camera in 1982 which led to an exhibition with William Eggleston at the Anolfini, Bristol in 1984, and a move to that city. In summer 1984 Peter travelled to Memphis, USA to spend nearly two months with Eggleston, which confirmed for him the desire to commit his life to working with colour photography.He then worked on several series of photographs, leading to a first publication, Two Blue Buckets which won the Bill BrandtPrize in London (the precursor of the CitiBank International Photography Prize), in 1988.He moved to London in 1990, subsequently publishing several new bodies of work,  including Ice and Water1993, Deep Blue 1997,Material 2002, and Peter Fraser (Nazraeli Press) 2006.In 2002, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, staged a 20 year survey exhibition of Peter’s work, and he was shortlisted for the Citigroup International Photography Prize in 2004. In 2006 he was invited to be an Artist in Residence at Oxford University, England and produced new work for permanent installation in their new Biochemistry building in 2008.In 2009 Peter was given a major commission by The Ffotogallery, Wales, to return to his country of birth, to make new work for a solo exhibition at the gallery, which opened in March 2010, with a new publication, Lost For Words.In 2008 Fraser began working on A City In The Mind a new series of photographs in London, which was shown at Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery, London in May 2012 accompanied by a Steidl Publication.From January to May 2013, Tate St Ives held a retrospective of Fraser’s career, the first Tate Retrospective for a living British Photographer working in colour, and Tate published a major monograph on the whole of Fraser’s career with a text by David Chandler. Tate purchased 10 works for their permanent collection from theTwo Blue Buckets series in 2014.In 2014 Peter was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society, UK.In spring 2017 Peperoni Books, Berlin, published a new ‘Director’s Cut’ of Fraser’s 1988 publication Two Blue Bucketswith 19 missing images from the original, and a new essay by Gerry Badger and a discussion between Fraser and David Campany.In 2017 Peter’s exhibition Mathematics was exhibited at the Real Jardin de Botanico, Madrid, part of PhotoEspana 17 and Skinnerboox, Italy, published Mathematics with 52 colour plates, and essays by Mark Durden, David Campany and an afterword by Peter. The first UK exhibition of Mathematicsopened at Camden Arts Centre, London on the 5th July, and ran to 16th September 2018. The accompanying File Note no 120 published by the gallery, featured a specially commissioned essay The Things That Count by Amy Sherlock, Deputy Editor of Frieze.In March 2021 Peter received a Pollock Krasner Foundation Award, to support the production of new work in the UK and across Europe in the time of Covid-19 ‘paying subtle attention to atmosphere and nuance, quietly reflecting on manifestations of our responses to the enormous changes taking place across the human landscape’. On episode 172, Peter discusses, among other things:The Pollock Krasner Foundation Award.Responses to Covid and his approach.Poetic truth vs. documentary truth.How he came to live in Hebden Bridge, Manchester.Seeing in colour, having made a B&W darkroom.His epiphany in the sahara desert.The influence of the film, Powers of Ten, which he saw at 15.His love of mathematics and how he came to explore it photographically.His Two Blue Buckets image and why it’s significant.Staying with William Eggleston in the 80s and what he took away from it.His ‘lost decade’, broke in London, printing for Martin Parr and other photographers. Referenced:Jackson PollackTed HughesAlbert Street Workshop - Ray Elliott and Jenny Beavan Martin ParrCharlie MeechamBrian GriffinPaul GrahamCharles and Ray Eames - Powers of TenMax TegmarkThe New Colour Photography by Sally EuclaireJem SouthamWilliam Eggleston Flannery O’connorVolker HelnzMarcus HansenChris Dorley BrownDafna TalmorWolfgang TillmansNick SerotaWilliam ScottDavid ChandlerWebsite | Instagram“I’m absolutely awestruck by the almost incomprehensible beauty and strangeness of everything that is around us. And that goes to the very heart of what I’ve spent 40 years trying to investigate.”

171 - Mimi PlumbBorn in Berkeley, California and raised in the suburbs of San Francisco, Mimi Plumb has served on the faculties of the San Francisco Art Institute, San Jose State University, Stanford University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives in Berkeley, California.Since the 1970s, Mimi has explored subjects ranging from her suburban roots to the United Farmworkers movement in the fields as they organized for union elections. Her first book, Landfall, published by TBW Books in 2018, is a collection of her images from the 1980s, a dreamlike vision of an American dystopia encapsulating the anxieties of a world spinning out of balance. Landfall was shortlisted for the Paris Photo/Aperture Foundation First Photobook Award 2019, and the Lucie Photo Book Prize 2019. Her second book, The White Sky, a memoir of her childhood growing up in suburbia, was published by Stanley/Barker in September, 2020. The Golden City, her third book, due to be published by Stanley/Barker in early 2022, focuses on her many years living in San Francisco.Mimi received her MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1986, and her BFA in Photography from SFAI in 1976. Her photographs are in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Art Collection Deutsche Börse in Germany, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Pier 24, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery. She is a 2017 recipient of the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, and has received grants and fellowships from the California Humanities, the California Arts Council, the James D. Phelan Art Award in Photography, and the Marin Arts Council. On episode 171, Mimi discusses, among other things:Memories of her suburban childhood in California.Her book, The White Sky.Why her it took decades for her work to be published.Memories of the dustbowl drought and the theme of climate change.Chernobyl and her childhood insomnia triggered by a fear of nuclear war.Her first book, Landfall, about the 80s.Her tendancy to shoot people’s backs.Her 70s project on the United Farmworkers Union, Pictures from the Valley.The enthusiastic critical reception that both Landfall and The White Sky were met with.Her soon to be pulished book The Golden City.Working with publisher Stanley Barker.Having no idea what to do with her colour work on women and girls.Referenced:Diane ArbusFarm Security AdministrationJohn Collier Jnr.The Crass song (not The Cure!) Nagasaki NightmarePaul Schiek and Lester Rosso - TBW BooksRachel and Gregory Barker - Stanley Barker publishingWebsite | Instagram“When I picked up the camera it was like, ‘oh my God’, I could just play... I took to it like a fish to water. That element of photography being fun is always something that I think is really important to making work. And I still hold on to that… I want it to be a fun process.”

Robert Gumpert is a California-based photographer with extensive international experience, documenting social issues and institutions, including service and industrial work, jails and the criminal justice system, and emergency rooms and paramedics. His collaborative Take A Picture/Tell a Story project in the San Francisco County jails. exchanges inmates’ portraits for their stories. He has also created abstract art from the textures and colors of the bridges, walls, highway supports and fallen leaves of London and San Francisco. Robert’s forthcoming book, Division Street, will be released by Dewi Lewis Publishing early in 2022.On episode 170, Robert discusses, among other things:The Kyle Rittenhouse verdictThe geography of San FrancisoThe history of the tech financial boom in S.F.How he came to pursue the Division Street projectQuitting his long-term gig and having to relearn how to shootHow his prison project, Take A Picture/Tell a Story came aboutHis interest in recording audioSome of the stories he was toldInternet criticismReferenced:Day In The Life booksDewi LewisNeil Burgess Website | Twitter | Division Street book“It’s not that hard to get people’s trust. If you do what you say you’re gonna do, and you treat people like human beings, people are gonna trust you.”

Alison McCauley has a BA Hons in visual arts from the Winchester School of Art, a BA Hons in creative arts – photography, from the Open College of the Arts, UK and a postgraduate diploma in visual arts – painting, Haute école d'Art et de Design, Geneva. Her approach to the people and locations she photographs is instinctive, open-ended and subjective. She weaves her images together to create non-linear, intuitive narratives. Alison’s work often explores the idea of identity, belonging and memory and images are frequently infused with melancholy and feelings of restlessness and loss. Alison is especially interested in presenting her visual narratives in books that she makes by hand.Copies of Alison's books are in the Tate Library and Archive, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Cannes Library.  She is a member of UP Photographers and a selection of her work is represented by Millennium Images.  Alison's work has been featured widely in print and online. Alison is currently based in Geneva and her new book, Anywhere But Here was recently published by Photo Editions.On episode 169, Alison discusses, among other things:How she found a publisher for Anywhere But HereWorking on zines and limited edition booksThe feeling of restlessness and not belongingLiving in GenevaGrowing up in MalaysiaSome of her unorthodox methodsHer background in paintingThe physical pleasure of making booksHer work at the Cannes film festivalHer current project in the south of France, Shimmer Website | Instagram | Facebook | New Book“I kind of don’t want to get that beautiful feeling of being peaceful in a place and feeling great, because then I’d have no more impetus to keep searching and that’s what’s powering the work at the moment.”

FEATURING:Evgenia ArbugaevaNanna HeitmannJason EskanaziDavid YarrowAlejandro GartagenaTania Franco KleinChristian PattersonRon JudeCraig EastonMatthew GenitempoBryan SchutmaatLottie DaviesIgor PosnerBen BrodyKIrsty MackayHannah Reyes MoralesTom WoodAlys Tomlinson (Photo London Special)Naomi HarrisJonas BendiksenPaul ReasNick HannesAnna FoxAdam Ferguson

Adam Ferguson is an Australian freelance photographer. He was born and grew up in regional New South Wales, Australia, before studying photography at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. After graduating he travelled from port to port through the Caribbean and Mediterranean as crew on a sailboat to fund the start of his photographic career until, in 2008, he flew to New Delhi on a one-way ticket and spent the next eight years based in Asia.Adam first gained recognition for his work in 2009 when he embarked on a sustained survey of the US-led war in Afghanistan. Since that time he has worked internationally, contributing to The New York Times Magazine, TIME Magazine and National Geographic, among others. Much of his work focuses on conflict and on civilians caught amidst geopolitical forces. In recent years, it has also concentrated on climate change. Adam’s portraits of various heads of state have appeared on numerous Time Magazine covers and over the years he has been the recipient of awards from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International (POYI), Photo District News, National Portrait Gallery of Australia, and American Photography. His photographs have also been included in several solo and group exhibitions worldwide.Adam lives in Brooklyn, New York and is currently working on two monographs: a war diary of his time in Afghanistan and a survey of his home country’s sparsely populated interior and its colonial legacy.On episode 167, Adam discusses, among other things:His experience of hotel quarantine in Sydney, Australia.His substack newsletter / blog.His return to Australia to work on a story there.Reflections on climate change.Reflections on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the recent withdrawal.His idealism and naeivty going in.A shift towards portraiture.How he embraced a beginner’s mindset to brush up on his lighting and studio skills.The Afghans portrait series.The Bombs They Carried series.Being the equivalent of a film director.PTSD, Ayuaushca and a veterens on retreat story. Referenced:Philip Jones GriffithsTim PageMichael Borremans Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Substack Blog“Every time I light something I learn something about lighting."

Born in 1961 and completing her degree in Audio Visual studies at The Surrey Institute, Farnham in 1986, Anna Fox began her career as a documentary photographer. Influenced by the British documentary tradition and the USA’s ‘New Colourists’, she chronicled new town life in Basingstoke (locally known as ‘Doughnut City’) and went on to publish the monograph Work Stations (1988), a study of London Office life in Thatcher’s Britain. These works were exhibited extensively as far a field as Brazil and Estonia and in Through the Looking Glass, at the Barbican Art Gallery in 1989 curated by David Mellor and Ian Jeffrey, establishing Anna as a significant figure within the field of new colour documentary.In later projects, made in the 1990’s, In Pursuit (1990), The Village (1991-1992 Cross Channel Photographic Mission commission), Friendly Fire (1992) and Zwarte Piet (the Netherlands 1994-1999) Anna created a new direction inventing innovative approaches and raising questions regarding the problems of documentary practice. These projects were exhibited in a number of solo exhibitions including The Photographers Gallery, London and The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.By early 2000 Anna produced two autobiographical works: Cockroach Diary and My Mothers Cupboards and my Father’s Words which completely turned on its head the notion of the documentary photographer as outsider. These new works investigated the personal and difficult world of domestic households and relationships bringing together a mix of image and text in two miniature book works. Later in 2003 the series Made in Europe questioned further the power relation between subject and photographer by handing over power to the subject in whork that portrayed a vision of contemporary Europe through the eyes and voices of teenagers. The projects Country Girls (1996-2001) and Pictures of Linda (1983-ongoing) introduced a collaborative element to Anna’s practice: by working in partnership with the singer/songwriters Alison Goldfrapp and Linda Lunus the relationship between subject and photographer was being explored from a new perspective.Anna was shortlisted for the 2010 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize and the 2012 Pilar Citoler Prize. Her later projects, Resort 1 and Resort 2 are published by Shilt, Amsterdam, Loisirs is published by Diaphane and an new book, BLINK, will be published by Central St Martins.Anna is Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham and leads the Fast Forward Women in Photography research project.On episode 166, Anna discusses, among other things:Reflections on the past 18 monthsWhat she’s been working on during that periodHaving a lot of ideasMoving away from a ‘project based mentality’The influences of people who taught her: Graham, Parr and KnorrThe exploration of the every day41 Hewitt Road and the transition to focusing on domestic photographyHer use of text in conjunction with imagesMoving to and working in an English country villageHer project Zwarte PietMy Mothers Cupboards and my Father’s WordsFast Forward Women in Photography Referenced:John DillwynMary DillwynPaul ReasPaul SearightAnthony HaugheyTessa BunneyDavid MoorePaul GrahamMartin ParrKaren KnorVal WilliamsJane AustenGilbert WhiteWilliam CobbettRaymond WilliamsMieke BalMark Sealy - AutographNaomi Rosenblaum Website | Instagram | Facebook“It’s the discovery of the personal voice, I suppose, and the personal stories that you want to tell, that you can’t articulate. That’s why someone becomes a photographer or a filmmaker… you use photography because you can’t speak it.”

Nick Hannes was born in Antwerp in 1974. Based in Ranst, Belgium, he graduated from the Royal Acadehis of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent in 1997 and for the next eight years worked as a photojournalist before quitting press assignments in 2006 to fully concentrate on his own documentary projects, most of which have a strong political and social component.His first trip was a year-long journey by bus and train through the former Soviet Union, which resulted in his first book. Red Journey (Lannoo Publishers, 2009). The book deals with the transitional phase in post-communist society and laid the foundation of Nick’s photographic approach in which irony, ambiguity and visual metaphors play prominent roles.In 2010 Nick started Mediterranean. The Continuity of Man., an epic project that involved twenty trips to twenty one Mediterranean countries over a four year period. Published in 2014 by Hannibal Publishers (Belgium), this series juxtaposes parallel realities and paradoxes of the Mediterranean region, focusing on various contemporary issues such as mass-tourism, urbanization, migration, conflict and crisis. Mediterranean. The Continuity of Man. was launched at the Museum of Photography (FoMu) in Antwerp in 2014, before travelling to several international photography festivals and museums.HIs third book, Garden Of Delight (Hannibal / Editions André Frère, 2018), showcases Dubai in the UAE as the ultimate playground of globalization and capitalism, and raises questions about authenticity and sustainability. This series was awarded the Magnum photography Award in 2017 and the Zeiss Photography Award in 2018.During the outbreak of Covid-19 in the spring of 2020 Nick started to photograph his family in lockdown and the resulting visual diary, An Unexpected Lesson In Joy, was his first self-published book.Nick has exhibited internationally and since 2008 has taught documentary photography at KASK/The School of Arts in Ghent. He is represented by Panos Pictures (London) and Black Eye Gallery (Sydney).On episode 165, Nick discusses, among other things:His lockdown project, An Unexpected Lesson In Joy.His photographic origin story.Early years in Kurdistan as an ‘activist with a camera’.His first book project Red Journey, documenting his travels in the former Soviet Union.How the project triggered his interest in urbanisation.Mediterranean. The Continuity of Man.The strangeness of Dubai, the most excessive example of market driven urban development.How he got access to shoot the images in Garden Of DelightHow he manages to fund his trips.How being able to travel again post lockdown made him feel ‘reborn’.His next project focussing on new capital cities. Referenced:Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea, Ernle BradfordThe Capsular Civilisation: On The City in the Age of Fear, Lieven De Cauter Website | Instagram | Facebook “I was in Kazakstan in August, shooting every day from morning til evening. I was walking again, chasingpictures again. I felt… reborn. ”

Paul Reas is a British social documentary photographer and educator, born in Bradford in the north of England in 1955. Until he recent retirement, Paul was the Course Leader of the Documentary Photography course (established by Magnum photographer David Hurn) at the University of South Wales in Cardiff, UK. He has worked commercially and editorially for many years and publishes and exhibits work internationally.Paul is perhaps best known for photographing consumerism and various aspects of daily working class life in Britain, especially during the 1980s and 1990s and is a member of a group of hugely influential photographers commonly referred to as the second wave of British colour documentarists.Paul has produced the books I Can Help (1988), Flogging a Dead Horse: Heritage Culture and Its Role in Post-industrial Britain (1993) and Fables of Faubus (2018). He has had solo exhibitions at The Photographers' Gallery and London College of Communication, London; Cornerhouse, Manchester; and Impressions Gallery, Bradford. His work is held in the collection of the British Council and he is represented by the James Hyman Gallery in London.On episode 164, Paul discusses, among other things:Thoughts on retirement.Being politically motivated during the Thatcher years.Creativity sometimes being finite.How he has started to paint and why he paints photographs.Reflections on the future for documentary photography.His life-long lack of confidence.His father and learning about his WW2 trauma.How his love of Northern Soul sparked an interest in photography.Why from the start he photographed what he knew and what felt familiar.The Valleys Project.I Can Help.Criticism of the portrayal of working class life.Flogging A Dead Horse.Referenced:Andy SimpsonEileen Gibson CowanIan WalkerRon McCormickJohn DaviesPaul GrahamMartin ParrCharlie MeechamBob PhilipsJem SouthamWebsite | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook“Although I was photographing people, I never really think about my photographs as being totally about people. They’re about the systems that we’re all subjected to. Whether it’s consumerism or unempolyment or whatever, they try to be about those bigger themes. ”

Jonas Bendiksen’s sharply evocative images explore themes of community, faith and identity with unsparing honesty. He has made major bodies of work all over the world, at the same time as he always also photographs the daily rhythms of life at home. As well as many critically acclaimed long-form projects he has also produced significant work for many commercial and editorial clients.Bendiksen was born in Norway in 1977. He began his career at the age of 19 as an intern at Magnum’s London office, before leaving for Russia to pursue his own work as a photojournalist. Throughout the several years he spent there, Bendiksen photographed stories from the fringes of the former Soviet Union, a project that was published as the book Satellites (2006). His most recent book The Last Testament from 2017 told the story of seven men who all claimed to be the biblical Messiah returned to earth.His editorial clients include magazines such as National Geographic, Stern, TIME, Newsweek, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian Weekend. On the commercial side, he has done projects for HSBC, Canon, FUJI, BCG, Red Bull and Land Rover.Bendiksen became a nominee of Magnum Photos in 2004 and a member in 2008. He lives with his wife and three children outside Oslo, Norway.His most recent book, The Book of Veles, was published by GOST Books in April 2021.On episode 163, Jonas discusses, among other things:His prediction for a ‘tsunami’ of synthetic imagery.Not particularly enjoying the latter stage of his deception.Chloe Miskin, the social media avatar he created to attack him.The first time he became aware of Veles, the place.The added layer of discovering that Veles was also a god and the actual Book of Veles, which was probably a forgery.Seeing the project as his 'Frankenstein's monster'.Curiosity.Why he drew the line at allowing the story to be published in magazines.Seeing the experiment as a visual Turing Test.Why he allowed it to be screened at Visa Pour L’image in Perpignan.How he created an AI generated 5000 word essay for the book.The connection with previous project The Last Testament.The Content Authenticity Initiative and other possible counter-measures.What the future might look like. Website | Instagram | Facebook“It was like looking at my own little Frankenstein monster start coming to life. It’s ugly, it’s horrible, it’s frightening. And i was looking at this thing that I was creating and going ‘shit, we are in deep trouble here!’ And that’s what motivated me to do this.”

Naomi Harris is a Canadian photographer and artist who seeks out interesting cultural trends to document through her subjects. Personal projects include Haddon Hall in which she photographed the last remaining elderly residents of a hotel in South Beach, Miami, Florida. For this work she received the 2001 International Prize for Young Photojournalism from Agfa/Das Bildforum, an honorable mention for the Yann Geffroy Award, and was a W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography finalist. Twenty years later the work is about to be jointly published in a book, also entitled Haddon Hall, by MAS and Void.For her next project America Swings, Naomi documented the phenomenon of swinging over the course of 5 years (from 2003 to 2008) all over the United States, attending thirty eight swingers parties in the process. This project was realized in her first monograph released by Taschen in 2008 as a limited collectors edition. A trade edition was released in 2010. Artist Richard Prince interviewed Naomi for the book, which was edited by Dian Hanson.Naomi then completed EUSA, a reaction to the homogenization of European and American cultures through globalization for which she visited and photographed American-themed amusement parks in Europe and European themed towns in America. The project was shortlisted for the Luma Rencontres Dummy Book Award in 2016 and ultimately published as a book by Kehrer Books in 2018.Other accolades include being awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Photography in 2013, a Long-Term Career Advancement Grant from the Canada Council in 2012 and participating in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in 2004.For her most recent project, I Voyager, Naomi embarked on a 70-day canoe trip along the fur trader’s route in Ontario, Canada, accompanied by a guide and dressed in 19th century period costume inspired by the British painter Frances Anne Hopkins (1838 – 1919). The project includes self-portraiture and landscape photography and forms part of a much wider investigation into feminism, exploring the concepts of power, identity and sexuality.Naomi currently divides her time between Toronto and the USA where she is studying for an MFA in Studio Art at the graduate school of the University of Buffalo in New York state.On episode 162, Naomi discusses, among other things:Thoughts on social mediaDoing an MFA in Studio Arts and taking her practice in a new directionFacing the double whammy of gender disparity and ageismHaving a cloud over her head like Charlie BrownHer latest project, I Voyager.New book Haddon HallAmerica SwingsEUSA and the thorny topic of cultural appropriationExploring the theme of deathWebsite | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook“My timing is always off. I’m always one day and a dollar short.”

Hey people, Just a very short episode to officially announce the launch of the Small Voice podcast membership scheme, where for the less than the price of a cup of coffee you can get exclusive access to a whole additional fortnightly Small Voice episode not available to non-members, featuring bonus follow-up questions and super-useful advice and tips from the previous week's guest, all the occassional specials from events, festivals, openings and portfolio reviews, catch-ups with former guests, occassioal additional bonus content and more… All that for £5 per month or - $6 dollars and 50 cents - or the equivalent in your local currency. If you think that sounds like something you’d like to get go to pod.fan where you will see the A Small Voice artwork featured right there on the homepage (if it isn’t there just type it into the search box at the top) and sign-up as a member at which point you will receive a RSS feed address that you can add to your favourite podcast player app. where you can access the new feed.

Mark Steinmetz is an American photographer who makes black and white photographs "of ordinary people in the ordinary landscapes they inhabit” and "in the midst of activity”. His work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York Museum of Contemporary Photography, to name but a few. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and his work has been exhibited in too many major museums and art galleries to list. He has produced 15 photobooks, such as South Central (2007), The Players (2015), Fifteen Miles to K-Ville (2015) and the Angel City West trilogy. Mark was born in New York City and raised in the Boston-area suburbs until he was 12 at which point he moved to the midwest. At age 21 he moved to New England to study photography at Yale School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut. He left that MFA program after one semester and in mid 1983, aged 22, moved to Los Angeles in search of the photographer Garry Winogrand, whom he befriended. In 1999 he moved to Athens, Georgia where he still lives, with his wife, photographer Irina Rozovsky, and their young daughter. On episode 112, Mark discusses, among other things: Delving into the archive Angel City West First darkroom in Iowa Going to L.A. and meeting Winogrand Earning a living MOMA show Bring drawn to The South and shooting there Why he works in B&W His aesthetic and why he still prints his own work Meditation and avoiding distractions Referenced: Henry Wessel Garry Winogrand Robert Frank Walker Evans David M. Spear - The Neugents Robert Adams Lee Friedlander Todd Pagageorge André Kertesz Website “There’s this beautiful thing and it’s the main thing and it’s the important thing and sometimes perfectionism can just cripple that. You know, why is one picture alive and another dead? And often it’s just, who wants something perfect, you know? It doesn’t ring true really. So I do like some sloppiness but I try to be smart about it.”

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.”

Born in Douglas, Isle of Man in 1946, Chris Killip left school at sixteen and joined the isle’s only four star hotel as a trainee manager. In June 1964 he realised that a future in hotel management was not on the cards and instead decided to pursue photography full time. He duly became a beach photographer in order to earn enough money to leave the Isle of Man. In October 1964 Chris was hired as the third assistant to the leading London advertising photographer Adrian Flowers. He then worked as a freelance assistant for various photographers in London from 1966-69. In 1969, after seeing his very first exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he had an epiphany: photography was something that could be pursued for its own sake. Chris decided to return to the Isle of Man to make his own work where he made ends meet by working in his father's pub at night, returning to London on occasion to print his work. On a return visit to the USA in 1971, Lee Witkin, the New York gallery owner, commissioned a limited edition portfolio of the Isle of Man work, paying for it in advance so that Chris could continue to photograph. In 1972 he received a commission from The Arts Council of Great Britain to photograph Huddersfield and Bury St Edmunds for the exhibition Two Views - Two Cities. In 1975, he moved to live in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on a two year fellowship as the Northern Arts Photography Fellow. He was a founding member, exhibition curator and advisor of Side Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as well as its director, from 1977-9. He continued to live in Newcastle and photographed throughout the North East of England, and from 1980-85 made occasional cover portraits for The London Review of Books. In 1989 he was commissioned by Pirelli UK to photograph the workforce at their tyre factory in Burton-on-Trent. In 1989 he received the Henri Cartier Bresson Award and in 1991 was invited to be a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University. In 1994 he was made a tenured professor and was department chair from 1994-98. He retired from Harvard in December 2017 and continues to live in the USA. His work is featured in the permanent collections of numerous major institutions worldwide and his seminal photobook In Flagrante is included in volume II of Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s influential three part series The Photobook: A History. In episode 094, Chris discusses, among other things: Living in the ‘ivory tower’ of Harvard University The four zines he produced with Pony Ltd - The Station, The Last Ships, Skinningrove and Portraits. How persistence and a chance encounter in a pub opened the door to his Seacoal project The complexities of making a portrait Making In Flagrante and the differences in the recent version How he narrowly avoided a career in hotel management Assisting Adrian Flowers in London during the swinging sixties Why he’s never had the desire to photograph in America Referenced: Koudelka Paul Strand Manuel Alvarez Bravo Mark Neville Henri Cartier Bresson David Bailey Brian Duffy Terence Donavon Art Tatum Daniel Barenboim and Jaqueline Du Pre Clement Freud Bill Jay Graham Smith Martin Parr Paul Graham Algerian/L’Algerié by Dirk Alvermann One Time, One Place by Eudora Welty | Website | “What you’re trying not to do is over-simplify. Your trying to have some sort of cool in there somehow, so that people looking at your pictures are not constrained by you. Meaning you haven’t predetermined everything, that you can embrace ambiguity.”

The man who the Daily Telegraph declared to be, “arguably Britain’s greatest living photographer” had a suburban childhood in the provincial county of Surrey, England, where his budding interest in the medium of photography was encouraged by his grandfather George Parr, himself a keen amateur photographer.Martin went on to study photography at Manchester Polytechnic in the early 70s and since that time has worked on many, many photographic projects, publishing over 100 books of his own work and editing another 30. He has developed an international reputation for his innovative imagery, his oblique approach to social documentary, and his input to photographic culture within the UK and abroad.In 1994 Martin became a full member of Magnum Photos, scraping in by a single vote, in the face of strong opposition to his inclusion from some of the old guard, including Philip Jones Griffiths and Henri Cartier Bresson himself. He has since become an important and influential Magnum Member where he served as President between 2013 and 2017.Martin has also developed an interest in filmmaking, and has started to use his photography within different genres, such as fashion and advertising. In 2002 the Barbican Art Gallery and the National Media Museum initiated a large retrospective of Martin’s work and this exhibition toured Europe for the next 5 years.Martin was Professor of Photography at The University of Wales Newport campus from 2004 to 2012 and Guest Artistic Director for the Arles photo festival in 2004. In 2006 he was awarded the Erich Salomon Prize and the resulting Assorted Cocktail show opened at Photokina and in 2008 was guest curator at New York Photo Festival.Parrworld opened at Haus de Kunst, Munich, in 2008. The show exhibited Martin’s own collection of objects, postcards, photography prints by both British and International photographers, photo books and a new project from Parr entitled Luxury. The exhibition toured Europe for the following 2 years.At PhotoEspana in 2008, Martin won the Baume et Mercier Award in recognition of his professional career and contributions to contemporary photography. He is co-author with Gerry Badger of the exhuastive three volume series The Photobook: A History. In March 2016 Strange and Familiar, curated by Parr, opened at the Barbican, London. The show examines how international photographers from 1930s onwards have photographed in the UK.Martin was awarded the Sony World Photography Award for Outstanding Contribution to Photography in April 2017. In Autumn 2017 the Martin Parr Foundation - which is a gallery and archive dedicated to supporting and preserving the photographic legacy of not only Martin himself but also of photographers who made, and continue to make, important work focused on the British Isles - opened in Bristol.Martin is currently working on an exhibition for the National Portrait Gallery which opens in March 2019.In episode 091, Martin discusses, among other things:The FoundationThe UK’s attitude towards photographyHow his suburban childhood influenced his photographyTony Ray JonesDeveloping his distinctive colour styleThe Last ResortBeing described as ‘an alien’ by Heni Cartier BressonPassing on 12,000 photobooks to Tate ModernThe health and future of Magnum PhotosReferenced:Roger MayneDavid HoffmanHans BellmerDon McCullinPaul TrevorTony Ray JonesPeter MitchellChris KillipDaido MoriyamaSimon RobertsNiall McDiarmidChloe Dewe MatthewsClementine SchneidermannJohn MyersSergio LarrainRobert FrankPaul GrahamTom WoodJohn HindeMartin: Website | Facebook | Instagram | TwitterMPF: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter“I’m pretty happy with the way it’s turned out, to be honest. I have to kick myself sometimes to realise I’m still earning a living from my hobby.”

Photographer, Ben Smith introduces a new weekly photography podcast: 'A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers' and answers a few 'frequently anticipated questions.'