A Small Voice: Conversations with photographers and filmmakers

By Ben SmithArts Visual Arts

Favorites
45
Followers
Typical duration
71 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

A Small Voice: Conversations with photographers and filmmakers episodes

October 07 292 - Reuben wu
Reuben Wu is a multidisciplinary artist who explores new ways of telling compelling stories about the world we inhabit.
His work with aerial lighting and long-exposure photography has defined a singular style in contemporary landscape photography and belongs in the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the MoMA.
His practice spans fine art and creative collaborations with brands.
Reuben was born in Liverpool to parents who had immigrated from Hong Kong. Following their guidance, he pursued Industrial Design at university, though his academic focus often took a backseat to DJing, collecting records and enjoying Sheffield’s vibrant music scene.
After graduating, his passion for music led him back to Liverpool’s creative community, and with Daniel Hunt, Mira Aroyo, and Helen Marnie, he formed the band Ladytron in 1999. Their first single earned Single of the Week in the NME. Soon they were signed to a label and invited on a world tour, at which point Reuben left his job at an industrial design consultancy to dedicate the next decade to music.
When Ladytron took a break, Reuben again faced the challenge of reinvention. Though uncertain, he committed to pursuing photography professionally. After years of persistence and occasional strokes of luck, he established himself in the field, bringing his own visual perspective shaped by his design and musical background.
Reuben works globally and lives in Chicago, USA.

Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 20 min
September 23291 - Iva Sidash
Iva Sidash is an independent documentary photographer and visual storyteller from Ukraine. Born in 1995, she focuses on deeply personal narratives shaped by the realities of war. Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, she has documented intimate stories of fragility, resistance, and memory that unfold behind the frontlines.
Her work merges artistic sensibility with documentary practice, revealing the human experience through a lens of emotion, nuance, and resilience.
A graduate of the International Center of Photography in New York, Iva is a member of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers and Women Photograph. She is the recipient of the 2024 Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant, a Women Photograph fellowship, and the Chris Hondros Award at the Eddie Adams Workshop.
Her photographs have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, INSIDER, Der Spiegel, and The Financial Times. Her exhibitions span both solo and group presentations across the United States and Europe, highlighting her growing
international recognition as a compelling voice in documentary photography.
On episode 291, Iva discusses, among other things:
Daily normality in Kyiv
How a car accident led her to street photography
How she transitioned from street photography to documenting the war
The power of trying to portray life during wartime
Ethical concerns
Her project What Is Unseen and what the title means
Winning the Ian Parry Grant (and being in that ‘family’)...
…And the Chris Hondras award
Going to the ICP in New York
Her story there about injured Ukrainian soldiers undergoing rehabilitation on Staten Island
Future plans for other projects she’s interested in, including diaristic work
Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
59 min
September 15213 - Ian Berry
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&W
How the project came about
How he got into photography
How he came to be the only photographer at the Sharpeville Massacre
The importance of luck
Getting into Magnum after a tea with HCB and a disasterous first meeting
Changes in Magnum over the years - and photography in general
The controversy over David Allan Harvey and the subsequent action by Magnum
Everything being ‘too woke’
Learining from other people and looking at contact sheets

Referenced:
Stuart Smith
Abbas
Roger Madden
Drum Magazine
Tom Hopkinson
The Sharpeville Massacre
Michele Chevalier (Visa)
Marc Riboud
Reni Burri
Henri Cartier Bresson
Burt Glinn
Peter Dench
David Allan Harvey
Steve McCurry
Bruce Davidson
Philip Jones Griffiths
Gilles Peress
Bruno Barbey
Werner Bischof

Website | Instgram
“I brought along my contact sheets which Henri spent ages going through. And he said ‘great, good to have you’. And I went back upstairs afterwards and they said ‘fine, you’re in Magnum.’ And that was it…”
Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 11 min
September 09290 - Richard Sharum
Richard Sharum is an editorial and documentary photographer based in upstate New York. Mainly focusing on socio-economic or social justice dilemmas concerning the human condition, his work has been regarded as in-depth, up-close and personal.
Selected exhibitions have occurred in Kyoto, Japan, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Reggio Emilia, Italy, New York City, Boston, Chicago and Dallas, and his work has been added to the permanent collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and The Wittliff Collection, as well as others.
Richard's commissions include those by The Meadows Foundation, Centers for Community Cooperation, Harvard Law School, Student Conservation Association, Children's Medical Center (Oncology), Children's Cancer Fund.
His publications include those by LFI (Leica International), British Journal of Photography, LensCulture, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Publico (Portugal), El Pais (Spain), Observer (UK), The Wall Street Journal, B+W Photo Magazine, Huck Magazine, Glasstire, PATRON, Creative Review, among others.
Richard has published two photobooks, Campesina Cuba and Spina Americana, both with GOST. His third, American Homicide, will be released early in 2027, also by GOST. The last two of these titles will be joined in 2028 by American Avenue, to form a trilogy of books entitled Of Thee I Sing.
He is represented by The Hulett Collection, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

On episode 290, Richard discusses, among other things:
His goal of reaching a wider audience among the general public.
Team window vs. team mirror
His new book American Homocide
The fascination for true crime among the public
How murder affects all the groups involved
Getting access to the detective squad he embedded with
The portrayal of violence on screen
His obsession with time
The need to be empathetic and open
The impact of being exposed so many murder victims
The murder detectives he got to know and photograph
Corresponding with the perpetrators
Part three of his planned trilogy, American Avenue
The state of the photobook industry and the unfairness of the current system
Referenced:
W Eugene Smith
Sebastião Salgado
James Nachtwey
Larry Towell
Leonard Freed
Susan Meiselas
Gordon Parks
Website | Instagram | Lecture at Columbia
Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 23 min
August 26289 - Clémentine Schneidermann
Clémentine Schneidermann is a French photographer living and working between Paris and South Wales. She recently completed a practice-based PhD at the University of South Wales, Cardiff entitled Photographing Children in a Social Context: Narratives and Strategies (2021). Clémentine works on long term projects & commissions and is interested in new creative practices in social documentary photography. Her approach is collaborative and playful, with an interest in communities and childhood, as well as our relationship to identity and culture. She is a co-founder of Bleak Fabulous with Charlotte James, a photography-based creative studio working across different disciplines with an emphasis on communities and collaboration.
On episode 289, Clémentine discusses, among other things:
How having a camera made it acceptable to stare at people

Studying in Switzerland… and then Newport, Wales

Falling in love with Wales immediately

Her book project, I Call Her Lisa Marie

Her project Ffasiwn

Collaborating with kids… and Charlotte James

Getting involved with Alexander MacQueen

Her forthcoming book marking ten year of Ffasiwn

Bleak Fabulous - trying to create stable income

Winning the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize

Work she has done in Greenland

Her other collaboration: The Emmas
Referenced:
Mary Ellen Mark

Sebastian Bruno

Bruce Davidson

David Barnes

Ken Grant

Paul Reas

Lina Hashim

Jacob Aue Sobol
Website | Instagram

Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 9 min
August 12288 - Aria Shahrokhshahi
Aria Shahrokhshahi (b. 1996) is a British-Iranian multi-disciplinary artist, whose practice has been shaped by a deep fascination with the intricate dynamics of diverse communities and the complexities of the human condition. With a focus on social structures and the human experience, Shahrokhshahi's work serves as a critical exploration of the relationships and power dynamics that inform everyday life.
Aria’s debut photobook, Wet Ground, featuring images from Ukraine shot over a period of several years both before and after the Russian invasion in Feburary 2022, was published in April 2026 by Loose Joints.
He is currently putting the finishing touches to a feature documentary film entitled While We Heal, which also focusses on the war in Ukraine and explores the themes of healing, loss, and resilience.

On episode 288, Aria discusses, among other things:
Formative experiences (11 different schools!) growing up in Nottingham

How walking around the city with a camera was the start of his photography journey

Negative feedback Facebook group / YouTube channel

Early education at the Photo Parlour lab (later named Sequence) from Dan Wheelan

Using large format and why the decision to shoot B&W came out of the cost of film

Falling in love with Ukraine

It not being enough to just take pictures

Why ‘Ukraine, I guess?’ was an informal category of picture during editing

Having nothing to say about war but being interested in what happens around it

The way in which war rearranges the social hierarchy

Poem by Charlotte Shevchenko-Knight

How the title ‘Wet Ground’, and the book itself, came about

The importance of collaboration

The feature length doc he is making in Ukraine

The importance of having a commercial practice
Referenced:
Lee Friedlander

Laytoya Ruby Frazer

Don McCullin

Tim Hetherington (Which Way Is The Front Line From Here)

Shelby Lee Adams

Minor White

Alec Soth

Gregory Halpern

Nigel Shafran

Alessandra Sanguinetti

Myriam Boulos

Sohrab Hura

Lightwork

Website | Instagram

Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 13 min
July 29287 - Lorenzo Meloni
Lorenzo Meloni is an Italian photographer.
He has documented some of the defining conflicts of the 21st century across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. For more than a decade, he has worked in territories marked by wars, revolutions and profound political and social transformations, developing a visual practice that views conflict not merely as an event, but as a historical, material and cultural process.
In recent years, his work has expanded beyond the battlefield. Revelation, an ongoing project, explores how science and technology are changing our relationship to the material world.
In 2022, he published the monograph We Don’t Say Goodbye, a fragmented narrative on the rise, dominance and fall of the Islamic State as a territorial entity. TIME named it one of the 20 Best Photobooks of 2022.
On episode 287, Lorenzo discusses, among other things:
How he has changed his way of working

'Starting as a revolutionary and becoming a deserter'

How his photography journey began in Yemen

How the power of photography is metaphorical not descriptive

His interest in borders and history

His book, We Don’t Say Goodbye. The theme of repetition. And why the cover is orange

The caliphate and Islamic State

His now project, Revelation

Focussing on one thing at a time

Dealing with the instability of a freelance life and keeping some freedom

Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 8 min
July 15286 - Ximena Borrazás
Ximena Borrazás is a Uruguayan photographer and documentary filmmaker born in Montevideo in 1992. She focuses on armed conflicts, migration, and humanitarian crises. Her work combines visual sensitivity with a strong commitment to social justice, often addressing the experiences of women and displaced populations.
She has published with major international outlets, including National Geographic, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, DW, France 24, Al Jazeera, and the Associated Press, and has worked with institutions such as UNHCR, UNESCO, and IOM.
Ximena’s project in northern Ethiopia documents the devastating aftermath of the Tigray conflict, one of the deadliest wars of the 21st century. Her images portray survivors of sexual violence, displaced families, and the enduring effects of famine and trauma. This work earned her the 2024 Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence, the Gentex Corp Personal Safety Award from the Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant, and the Africa Mundi Award for best photographic publication in Planeta Futuro of El País.
Her long-term documentary project The Scars of War, which began in Tigray, combines photography, testimony, and documentation to investigate conflict-related sexual violence through a forensic lens. Rather than treating sexual violence as an isolated act, the project traces it as a weapon of war, examining physical, psychological, and social evidence left behind, and the systems, or lack thereof, that respond to it.
Ximena is currently based in Ukraine where, aside from continuing to photograph, she has a full-time job as a Liaison and Communications Officer with the United Nations.
On episode 286, Ximena discusses, among other things:
Working for the UN in Ukraine

Her first experience of visiting the Polish border

The nature of working amidst drone warfare

Challenges of being a freelancer in a conflict zone

Why she doesn’t really want to be a photographer

The experience of being in Kyiv on a daily basis

Her life before photography

Early forays into documentary work

Her project in Tigray, Ethiopia and the context of the conflict there

How she began The Scars of War, her work on conflict related sexual violence

How serendipity on a HEFAT course led to publication in The Guardian

How some X-rays changed everything and why they were so powerful

How she has extended her project to other areas, and focussed on male victims

How her job at the UN combines with her advocacy work
Website | Instagram

Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 9 min
July 01285 - Sam Faulkner
Sam Faulkner is a London-based photographer and the founder of Print Swap, an iOS app. where photographers and visual artists exchange gallery-quality physical prints directly. No buying, no selling, no follower counts.
Sam came to photography the hard way, travelling into Afghanistan in 1994 with a battered Canon, a few rolls of film and very little plan. His work has since moved between reportage, portraiture and long-form photographic projects, including Unseen Waterloo, his battlefield portrait series exhibited at Somerset House.
Print Swap began with a gap Sam’s own wall and a long-held habit among photographers: trading prints of each other's work. In a world of endless images and thin attention, it is built on a simple belief: a print on the wall changes the relationship.

In episode 285, Sam discusses, among other things:
How his new app., Print Swap, came to fruition.

How he got into reportage photography in search of adventure.

Kashmir and Afghanistan - talkng your way in and talking your way out.

Coming back with the six rolls of film that won him the Ian Parry Award.

The influence of Nick Danziger’s book Danziger’s Adventures.

Changes in the industry.

His global story about ‘the war on drugs’.

Lessons learned from shooting Mario Testino.

The threat of AI and the issue of trusted brands within the news media.

His decision to step back from photojournalism.

His new working life directing commercials.

His Unseen Waterloo project.
Referenced:
David Hurn

Jonas Bendiksen

Ian Teh

Omar Ashtawy

Neil Burgess

Nick Danziger

Aidan Sullivan

Mario Testino

Stephen Dupont
Website | Instagram

Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 17 min
June 17284 - Harriet Logan
Harriet Logan is a multi-award winning photographer who spent the first half of her career working on international assignments in places such as Sudan, Angola, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and Somalia for a range of international newspapers and magazines.

She subsequently turned her attention to working commercially on advertising campaigns for various big brand clients, including The Pictet Group and Canon, alongside some of the worlds largest advertising agencies.
Today she curates the Incite Project, an issue driven collection of photographs broadly based around the subject of world events and conflict.
Harriet is also the executive director of The Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant which has run for over 30 years and which she won in 1992. The grant has a mission to support young and emerging Photojournalists.
She co-parents 4 boys with her husband Mark, an owl, a peregrine falcon, three dogs, a dressage horse, and a bunch of sheep, cows, chickens and pigs.
On episode 284, Harriet discusses, among other things:
Her journey into photojournalism from art college in the USA

Her early project on an Aids patient, with whom she became close

Beginners luck at the Poll tax riots in London in 1990

Ending up in southern Sudan…and then Somalia

Winning the The Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant and how it changed everything

The reality of being a female photojournalist in the 90’s

An example of the danger of inadvertantly fucking over your subject

He story about victims of rape in Kosovo during the Balkans conflict

Being sent to Afghanistan for the first time by The Sunday Times…

…And returning four years later to find the women and girls she had photographed there

A close call on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad

Motherhood, falling out of love with being a photographer, and the decision to quit photojournalism

Becoming the Executive Director of the The Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant

The new Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence

How The Incite Project came about and how she defines what it is

The fundamental strangeness of having graphic and disturbing photojounalism framed on your walls

Referenced:
Eugene Richards, Exploding Into Life

Don McCullin

Les Wilson

Len Greener

Josef Koudelka

Cartier Bresson

Robert Capa

W. Eugene Smith

Colorific

Aidan Sullivan

Tom Stoddart

Michael Rand

Jillian Edelstein

Simon Norfolk

Jenny Matthews

Jeremy Clarkson

AA Gill

Mark Hix

Tristran Lund

Giles Duley, Legacy of War Foundation

Laura Pannack

Omar Ashtawey

Trevor Paglen

Richard Mosse

Ed Burtynsky

Luke Delahey

Ed Clark

Network Photographers

Simon Roberts

Matt Black

Lorenzo Meloni

Chris Donovan

Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £4 per month.
Need a website? Or someone you know does? EXCLUSIVE LISTENER OFFER: 15% off when booked by Christmas 2026! Go here.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
1 hr 37 min

About A Small Voice: Conversations with photographers and filmmakers

From the publisher's feed

Fortnightly in-depth interviews featuring a diverse range of talented, innovative, world-class photographers from established, award-winning and internationally exhibited stars to young and emerging talents discussing their lives, work and process with fellow photographer, Ben Smith. The most recent 50 episodes are on this free feed, 200+ more are in the archive!