A Photographic Life

In episode 190 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on creative freedom, preparing digital images for print and this year's Christmas for photographers.

Plus this week photographer Jefferey Stockbridge take 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?’

Jeffrey Stockbridge was born in 1982 and is a Philadelphia-based photographer and fine art printer. Stockbridge graduated from Drexel University in 2005 and opened a premier fine-art printing business, Stockbridge Fine Art Print in 2009. He is known for his large-format colour photographs that document and humanize the elusive underbelly of inner-city life and his work has been featured in group exhibitions at The National Portrait Gallery in London, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Delaware Art Museum, The Woodmere Art Museum, The Fleisher Art Memorial and the DCCA. His body of work, Kensington Blues, documents the trials and tribulations of those affected by drug addiction and prostitution along Kensington Avenue in North Philadelphia. Audio interviews, journal entries and photographs, made over a period of five years, come together to tell the stories of those struggling to survive the neighbourhood and themselves. www.jeffreystockbridge.com

Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 189 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the basics of photography, smartphone photography, documenting the personal and the noise surrounding NFTs.

Plus this week photographers Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen and Juan Aballe take on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which they answer the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’

Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and is now based between Bilbao, Spain and Venezuela. After studying political science, she graduated from the ETPA, a French photography school in Toulouse, in 2014. She is driven by the ambition to shed light on the effects of the current economic crisis inside the Venezuelan society and her work has an empathic, environmentally and socially critical focus based on long-term stories formed from in-depth investigations. Her project Días Eternos, about the conditions of women in Venezuelan prisons, is the recipient of the Women Photograph + Nikon Grant 2018. In January 2020 she was the winner of the Lucas Dolega International Price and in May 2020 she was a finalist in the International Women in Photography  Association awards. Also in 2020, Arevalo Gosen became a National Geographic Explorer. Her project Dias Eternos revealing the conditions of women in pretrial detention and prisons in Venezuela, won the 2020 Lucas Dolega International Award as well as the Lumix Photo Award 2020. https://anamariaarevalogosen.com

Juan Aballe started printing his photographs whilst studying chemistry at University in Madrid and Berlin. After graduating as a chemist, he decided to devote himself to photography and visual media. He studied at the school of the International Center of Photography, New York, and later obtained his Masters in Photography at the EFTI School, Madrid. Juan’s work has been exhibited and published internationally and he has been awarded grants from institutions such as the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and the Fundación Botín. He has lived in Germany and the U.S.A. and is currently based in a small town in the mountains near Madrid. His first self-published photobook, Nachbar (neighbour in German), consists of 36 photographs from the same view of the building in front of his flat in East Berlin, photographed for over a year. In 2014 the independent publisher Fuego Books published his project Country Fictions, photographed in rural areas of the Iberian Peninsula between 2011 and 2013, in the aftermath of a profound economic crisis in Spain. In 2021 his work Last Best Hope, developed in the city of Oakland, California, will be published by Another Place Press. www.juanaballe.com

Dr.Grant Scott is the the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 188 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on learning and teaching, the lack of rules in photography and why there is no quick and easy solution to success.

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

Polly Alderton is a British documentary and portrait photographer, who studied Fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art and Central St. Martins, and whose work is centred around the documentation of family and examining the class system in the UK. Her work concentrates on her immediate surroundings, with her family often being in the spotlight. ​Alderton's images have been published in The Sunday Times, The Observer, Invisible Britain: Portraits of Hope and Resilience, Portrait of Britain vol.1 & vol.3., and ID magazine, amongst others. In 2017 she produced a short film titled 12 Hours in North Essex for VSCO and in 2019 she was awarded the Firstsite Project Bursary to build on her independent project, Burning House. In 2021 Setanta Books, published Alderton's work in a monograph titled Polly Alderton. She also works as a stills photographer with the BBC, notably photographing David Attenborough in Climate Change: The Facts and working with Martin Parr on a series of idents for BBC One. http://www.dollyandfife.com

ecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 187 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the potential need for a new name for digital capture, how to educate a client and when to turn down a commission and why to do it. He also marks the death of photographer Tom Stoddart.

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

Ilona Langbroek graduated with honours from the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam in 2019 and is now based in Hilversum, The Netherlands. Langbroek invites the viewer to become part of a memory, through metaphorical representations of memories and fantasies. Utilizing a strong contrast between light and dark, she creates a twilight zone aesthetic as a metaphor for the disappearing past. To achieve this, she uses the soft lighting used by painters of the 17th century Dutch Golden Age, such as Vermeer, Rembrandt or the Italian painter Caravaggio. This approach has led to numerous bodies of work including the series Silent Loss, a personal series based on her family history in the former Dutch East Indies. Langbroek has been presented with numerous awards for her work and has been exhibited internationally. www.ilonalangbroek.com

Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 186 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on commitment to photography and photographers, never getting old, questioning funded photographic institutions, supporting good causes and more Dutch photo comedy.

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

Ashleigh Coleman was born in 1983 in Virginia and is a self-taught photographer working with an inherited Hasselblad. Her photographs have been exhibited across the United States, including solo shows at the Fischer Galleries in Jackson, MS, the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and the Claire Elizabeth Gallery in New Orleans. Coleman's work has also been shown at the Ogden Museum, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the University of West Virginia, the University of Southern Mississippi, the Bo Bartlett Center, and it is currently part of the traveling exhibitions for Looking for Appalachia and A Yellow Rose Project. She is a founding member of the Due South Co and lives on the land of her husband’s family in rural Mississippi. www.ashleighcoleman.com

Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 185 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on keeping things simple, the return of humanist photography and listening to photographers speaking.

Plus this week photographer Richard Ansett 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?’

Richard Ansett is a social documentary portrait photographer based in London whose heavily stylised individual studies and essays revolve around an empathy with disenfranchised communities informed by his own relationship to his sexuality and adoption from birth. His individual portraits have been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Smithsonian, USA and the Canadian Library and Archive and his portrait of the artist Grayson Perry Mother & Child won first prize at the Sony World Photography Awards 2019. Ansett’s series of portraits exploring the complex mental health of women prisoners and a series exploring a disappearing community in South London, Behind The Brutal Facade, 2020 were both shortlisted subsequently for the same awards. The portrait of an autistic boy in a flower garden from the series Boys in a City Park, Ukraine, 2011 won the Arte Laguna Prize 2013 and his project Mother and Child, Donbas, Ukraine 2011 was exhibited at the UNICEF What is Your Name? exhibition in Kiev in 2016 as a metaphor for the trauma of enforced internal dislocation and migration due to conflict. His portrait Danel, 9from his seriesChildren of Grenfell taken six months after the Grenfell Tower fire was selected as the People’s Choice at the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2018. His images have been selected 13 times for the National Portrait Gallery, London portrait prize exhibition. http://richardansett.com

Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 184 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on humility, 'awesomeness' and pride, stealing other peoples work and recommends some comedy that pricks the pompous photography bubble.

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

David Rothenberg is a photographer and educator who lives in New York and who has over recent years, made his home borough of Queens the subject of several major projects. He has produced two books of his work Roosevelt Station and Landing Lights Park, which TIME magazine named one of the best photography books of 2018. Rothenberg was the recipient of the PHOTO 2021 x Perimeter International Photobook Prize for Roosevelt Station and in 2019, and he was awarded the Peters S. Reed Foundation Grant for photography. Rothenberg’s photographs have been published in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Libération, Die Zeit and The New Yorker and are held in the permanent collection of the Museum of the City of New York, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Rothenberg received an MFA from Bard College and a BFA from Parsons School of Design. https://davidrothenberg.com

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).https://davidrothenberg.com

Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 183 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the reasons for photo books to exist, European box sets, and the importance of cinematography to the still image.

Plus this week photographer Sean Gallagher 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?’

Sean Gallagher is an independent photographer and filmmaker whose work focuses on creating photography and documentary film projects that highlight stories from the front line of the climate crisis and important and under-reported global environmental issues. Gallagher studied Zoology at university in the UK, an education that informs his work. From chasing timber poachers with armed policemen through the jungles of Cambodia, to photographing undercover in secretive North Korea, he had produced diverse stories for some of the world’s leading news outlets. He is an 8-time recipient of Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting travel grants, his images are represented by the National Geographic Image Collection and he is a Fellow of the UK Royal Geographical Society. Originally from the UK, he has lived and worked across Asia for over 15 years and is currently based just outside of Beijing. https://gallagher-photo.com

Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 182 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on commissioned smartphone remote photography, explaining usage fees to clients and being professional.

Plus this week photographer/filmmaker Ross McDonnell 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?’

You can read the interview with Ross mentioned in this episode here: https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2012/12/31/ross-mcdonnell-interview/

Ross McDonnell is a photographer and filmmaker born in Dublin, Ireland. Since graduating with a MFA in Film Production, Ross's work has evolved into a mature storytelling voice across a range of lens based disciplines. He was recently named as a Shortlisted Artist for the the Prix Pictet, the global award in photography and sustainability, and his photographs have been exhibited at the V&A Museum, the Gallery of Photography Dublin, the Shanghai Centre of Photography and the Grand Palais at Paris Photo. Often working on self-initiated photography projects, Ross has lived and worked in Mexico, Afghanistan, Ukraine and the US and published his work in the New York Times Magazine, Time and The Sunday Times Magazine. An Emmy Award winning filmmaker for The Trade in 2021, Ross' first film Colony premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for an Irish Academy Award. His following film as a director, Elián was filmed in Cuba and premiered at the Tribeca film festival was nominated for an EMMY Award. McDonnell's work has screened at the Sundance Film Festival, the London BFI Film Festival and IDFA. His forthcoming film projects include Love Yourself Today as Executive Producer and The First Wave for National Geographic Documentaries on which he served as a Cinematographer & Co-Producer. His first book Joyrider, published by Thirty Nine Books and the Charcoal book club has just been released and is available now. He lives in New York. https://rossmcdonnell.com

Grant Scott is the Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

© Grant Scott 2021

In episode 181 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the photographic long game, supporting established photographers and the importance of having a website.

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

Marketa Luskačová was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and graduated from Charles University, Prague with a Degree in Sociology with a thesis on religion in Slovakia. During her stay in Slovakia, she became familiar with old Christian rites and decided to return with a camera to document the surviving traditions. Luskačová then studied photography at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, and from 1970 to 1972, she photographed stage performances of the Za branou theatre, however, the theatre was banned by the communists in the spring of 1972. The same year, she showed her body of work titled Pilgrims in the Gallery of Visual Arts in Roudnice nad Labem. In 1971, she had married the poet Franz H. Wurm but terrified by the 'Normalization' programme in Czechoslovakia at the time, Wurm left the country and Luskačová asked the state authorities for permission to visit her husband abroad. After several short visits she emigrated to England in 1975. Her work was banned in Czechoslovakia, and she started photographing London's markets in 1974 and as a Magnum nominee, the Chiswick Women's Aid Group. She first visited the North East of England in 1976 when visiting Chris Killip, who lived there and whom she had a son with. She fell in love with Whitley Bay, and with the people there, so when the Newcastle based Amber collective invited her in 1978 to photograph the North East of England alongside Martine Franck, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Paul Caponigro, she was drawn back to photograph the seaside. In 2016 she self-published a collection of photographs of street musicians, mostly taken in the markets of east London, under the title To Remember: London Street Musicians 1975–1990, with an introduction by John Berger. Cafe Royal Books have published two of her bodies of work Chiswick Women's Aid 1976–77 and Ireland 1972–73. Her work created for the Amber collective By the Sea: Photographs from the North East, 1976–1980 was published in 2019. In the same year a major exhibition of her work was shown at Tate Britain. www.marketaluskacova.com

Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019).

Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/

© Grant Scott 2021