In episode 281 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the time it takes to find a visual language, how simple things are complex and the connections between the history of art and photography.

Plus this week, photographer Ian Hill takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’

Ian Hill is based in Cumbria, in the north-west of England, and works in black and white 35mm film.

His work is led by an attempt to respond to what he sees as environmental crisis in terms of what he photographs, where he photographs, and how he photographs. This has led to an increasing focus on the local, the small-scale, the un-noticed hedgerow plants, gate latches, abandoned walls and sheepfolds. It has also led to changes in his technical approach as he now uses environmentally benign chemicals. He states that his work has helped him to re-define his photography, as he works on projects which speak more about the local, the need for nurture, and about our connection with the land. He has published three books of his work The Fisher King, Alchemy and Lineage. https://printedland.weebly.com

Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts.

Scott’s next book Condé Nast Have Left The Building: Six Decades of Vogue House will be published by Orphans Publishing in the Spring of 2024.

© Grant Scott 2023