The United Nations of Photography

In this monthly conversation series Grant Scott speaks with art director, lecturer and creative director Fiona Hayes. In an informal conversation each month Grant and Fiona comment on the photographic environment as they see it through the exhibitions, magazines, talks and events that Fiona has seen over the previous weeks.

Mentioned in this episode:
Don Mcullin https://holburne.org/opening-in-january-don-mccullin-broken-beauty/ and https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/don-mccullin-90/
Gordon Parks https://alisonjacques.com/exhibitions/gordon-parks-we-shall-not-be-moved
Catherine Opie https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2026/catherine-opie-to-be-seen
Jack Davison https://www.cobgallery.com/exhibitions/131-portraits-1416-november-jack-davison/

Fiona Hayes
Fiona Hayes is an art director, designer, consultant and lecturer with over 30 years’ experience in publishing, fashion and the art world. She has been a magazine art director ten times: on Punch, Company, Eve, the British and Russian editions of Cosmopolitan, House & Garden,GQ India (based in Mumbai), MyselfGermany (in Munich), and Russian Vogue (twice). Between 2013 and 2019, as Art Director of New Markets and Brand Development for Condé Nast International, based in London and Paris, she oversaw all the company’s launches – 14 magazines, including seven editions of Vogue. She still consults as Design Director at Large for Vogue Hong Kong. In 2002 she founded independent photography magazine DayFour, publishing it continuously until 2012. She is Co-Author and Art Director of The Fashion Yearbook, and creative director of books for South African media consultancy Legacy Creates. Outside the publishing world, she has been Art Director of contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury in London and New York, and Consultant Art Director of Russian luxury retail group Mercury/TSUM. (Fiona would like to point out she is not Russian: she is proudly Irish and studied Visual Communication and History of Art and Design at NCAD Dublin.) She currently divides her time between design consultancy for commercial clients, and lecturing at Oxford Brookes University, the Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design, London, Nottingham Trent University, Ravensbourne University, and Leeds University. She lives in West London. @theartdictator

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is 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), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

Scott’s next book is Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is on sale now wherever you buy your books.

© Grant Scott 2026

Image: Martin Parr from the Last Resort

In episode 409 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is reflecting on the big and small things that impact on the everyday engagement we all have with photography.

Mentioned in this episode:
W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance – The Life and Work of an American Photographer: Jim Hughes, 1989.
Gene Smith’s Sink: A Wide-Angle View – Sam Stephenson, 2017.
Minamata (2020) theatrical trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOXN6zgNwfk
W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult (1989) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3nNDOrJWjA
W.Eugene Smith: The Camera as Conscience (1998) Thames & Hudson

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is 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), What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020) and Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, (Orphans Publishing 2024). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

© Grant Scott 2026

Image: A portrait of Smith against bulletin boards pinned with prints from his Pittsburgh Project, Croton-on-Hudson, New York, 1956. Photograph: Harold Feinstein Trust

In this monthly conversation series Grant Scott speaks with editor, writer and curator of photography Bill Shapiro. In an informal conversation each month Grant and Bill comment on the photographic environment as they see it. This month Bill and Grant rigorously respond to listeners questions and comments concerning Instagram for photographers.

Mentioned in this episode:
Ezra Klein podcast https://overcast.fm/+AAoiPULZ3V4

Bill Shapiro
Bill Shapiro served as the Editor-in-Chief of LIFE, the legendary photo magazine; LIFE’s relaunch in 2004 was the largest in Time Inc. history. Later, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of LIFE.com, which won the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital photography. Shapiro is the author of several books, among them Gus & Me, a children’s book he co-wrote with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and, What We Keep, which looks at the objects in our life that hold the most emotional significance. A fine-art photography curator for New York galleries and a consultant to photographers, Shapiro is also a Contributing Editor to the Leica Conversations series. He has written about photography for the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, Vogue, and Esquire, among others. Every Friday — more or less — he posts about under-the-radar photographers on his Instagram feed, where he’s @billshapiro.

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is 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), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

©Grant Scott 2026

In this week’s episode photographer Pete Souza takes on our ‘Proust Photo Quiz’…

The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust. Proust answered the questionnaire in a confession album, a form of parlour game popular at the end of the 1890s. The album, titled An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc. was found in 1924 and published in the French literary journal Les Cahiers du Mois. Our ‘Proust Photo Quiz’ is an adaption of the original text.

Pete Souza 
Souza is a native of South Dartmouth, Mass. and a best-selling author, speaker and freelance photographer who received his master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from a University in Kansas and graduated cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in public communication from Boston University. He started his career working for two small newspapers in Kansas. From there, he worked as a staff photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times;  an Official Photographer for President Reagan; a freelancer for National Geographic  and other publications; the national photographer for the Chicago Tribune based in their Washington, D.C. bureau; and an assistant professor of photojournalism at Ohio University. While at the Tribune, Souza was part of the staff awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. After 9/11, he was among the first journalists to cover the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan, after crossing the Hindu Kush mountains by horseback in three feet of snow. In 1992, Souza produced and published, Unguarded Moments: Behind-the-Scenes Photographs of President Reagan, based on his 5 1/2 years in the Reagan White House. Souza was also the official photographer for the 2004 funeral of President Reagan. His 2008 book, The Rise of Barack Obama, includes exclusive photographs of Senator Obama’s rise to power. For all eight years of the Obama administration, Souza was the Chief Official White House Photographer and the Director of the White House photo office. His book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, was published in 2017. His 2018 book, Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents, is a portrait in Presidential contrasts, telling the tale of the Obama and Trump administrations through a series of visual juxtapositions.It is one of the best-selling photography books of all time. In 2021, Souza was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame. In 2022, Souza was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Photographers of America. Based on his best-selling books, Souza became the subject of a documentary film in November 2020, The Way I See It.  Directed by Dawn Porter–and produced by Porter, Laura Dern, Evan Hayes and Jayme Lemons. The film was nominated for an Emmy, and became the highest rated non-news, non-live programme ever. Souza’s most recent photography book, The West Wing and Beyond: What I Saw Inside the Presidency, was published in 2022. He has won numerous photojournalism awards and had solo exhibits of his photographs at numerous galleries. He currently has two traveling exhibits,  Obama: An Intimate Portrait and Two Presidents: Obama and Reagan. He is also Professor Emeritus of Visual Communication at Ohio University. www.petesouza.com

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is 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), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018. Scott continues to work as a photographer, writer and filmmaker and is the Subject Coordinator for both undergraduate and post graduate study of photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England.

Scott’s book Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is now on sale.

© Grant Scott 2026

For many months we asked photographers to send us a piece of audio no longer than five minutes in length to include on our A Photographic Life podcast. These became a book which is now out of print but remain in audio form within the podcast archive, available wherever you get your podcasts . However, we are responding to listener requests and offering transcriptions of some of our favourite contributions. Enjoy!

Vinca Petersen got her first camera at the age of seven or eight. In 1990, age 17, she moved to London, moved into a squat, and got involved in alternative politics as well as the rave/free party scene. She adopted a nomadic lifestyle travelling Europe, living in trucks until her son was born in 2005. Throughout, this time she took photographs, eventually collecting them into a book, No System published in 1999 and reissued in 2019, when it was included in one of the first ever displays of photo books at Tate Modern, London. In 2010, Petersen created Future Youth Project, working with children, where provision for children with learning difficulties has been limited. Recent photo books include Future Fantasy examining her earliest years during the second summer of love and Deuce and a Quarter, created during a road trip across the American South. Vinca has participated in multiple group exhibitions and solo exhibitions of images and has never worked to commission. 

“The simplest way of explaining what photography means to me is it is a way of recording, recording what is unfolding in front of me. How I’m feeling and who is important to me. I don’t set up my photos or influence the scenes in them, it’s more personal than a lot of photographers work. I suppose in the sense that I don’t really see myself as a photographer in the same way that a photographer that will set up a scene or set out to photograph a particular subject. To me, that has never been important. The camera is one of a few different ways that I record what is going on and where I have put myself. I take my life in particular directions then record it, partly photographically. 

I’ve also always written diaries and collected small totems, mementos, along the way, not many objects, mainly photographs. Photography is an essential tool for me and always a very honest one. A very direct way of capturing a huge amount of information. Not only the image itself but what that image then triggers in my mind as secondary memories such as smells and relationships now and then. Whether they are even still here anymore. I always used to laugh about the photographs I took when I was living in a live-in vehicle on the road and that I could remember a series of important things from the time the photograph was taken. For example, what truck I was living in out of the five I’ve had over the years, which dog I had, which boyfriend I had. Those things could not be in the photo but the photo would trigger the memory. 

I don’t have a very good memory and I often think I remember things because of the photographs. They are the catalyst for remembering the whole of a moment. I have always struggled with being called a photographer, I think photography is part of what I am, but I feel less of a pure photographer and more someone, maybe there is not a word for it, that records things and preserves them.” 

https://vincapetersen.com

© Grant Scott 2026

For many months we asked photographers to send us a piece of audio no longer than five minutes in length to include on our A Photographic Life podcast. These became a book which is now out of print but remain in audio form within the podcast archive, available wherever you get your podcasts . However, we are responding to listener requests and offering transcriptions of some of our favourite contributions. Enjoy!

Tom Stoddart began his photographic career on a local newspaper in his native North-East of England. In 1978, he moved to London and began working freelance for publications such as The Sunday Times. During a long and varied career he has witnessed such international events as the war in Lebanon, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of President Nelson Mandela, the bloody siege of Sarajevo, and the wars against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Over the years, Stoddart has worked with charities and NGO’s such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, and Sightsavers. His extensive work on the AIDS pandemic blighting Africa has been widely published and exhibited. In 2012, his Perspectives retrospective outdoor exhibition was displayed at London’s South Bank. His book Extraordinary Women was published in 2020. Stoddart died in 2021 aged 68.

“Henri Cartier Bresson once said, “To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart, it’s a way of life.” It’s been my way of life for almost fifty years. In November 1970, aged seventeen, I walked through the doors of the Berwick Advertiser in Northumberland to begin work as a trainee photographer earning six pounds per week. My parents were poor and we didn’t have a camera so, as a child, I had never been exposed to photography until, one day, the Daily Mirror sent a reporter and photographer to the small fishing village where we lived
to do a feature on the demise of the fishing industry. The photographer posed a group of fishermen and their young sons at the harbour to illustrate the point of the story. A couple of weeks later one of the boys in the picture showed me prints that the photographer had sent by way of thanks to everyone in the group. I was stunned; the black and white photographs were 16×12 and I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my young life. 

I enjoyed every minute on the Advertiser and learned how important the hatches, matches and dispatches coverage of a local newspaper is to the community. One day ‘Lady Luck’ smiled on me again when the Queen Mother made a royal visit to Berwick and I was sent to the town hall to photograph her signing the visitor’s book. As I nervously stepped forward to take the picture, I didn’t notice that the flash sync lead had dropped out of my ancient Yashica Mat.Click! Nothing. Panicking I struggled to reconnect the lead. Noticing my predicament, Her Majesty said, “Take your time, young man.” My next and only frame shows the Queen Mum beaming out at this hapless photographer. The image was seen by a picture agency boss who gave me a job shooting for the national papers. I was on my way to Fleet Street. 

Photography is everything to me, it has transported me from that small North East village and given me a ringside view of some of the most historic events of our times and form incredible relationships. I’ve photographed amazing people doing both unspeakably bad and wonderfully good things to each other. In 1992, I was badly injured in shelling in Sarajevo and spent three days lying on a stretcher in a dark hospital corridor with others who were wounded waiting for electricity so we could be x-rayed or scanned. When the power came on, the other wounded people insisted I went to the front of the queue. Alongside the horror, conflict and needless killing you see great acts of humanity, love and respect. It is a privilege to have a photographer’s way of life.”

http://www.tomstoddart.com

© Grant Scott 2026

In this monthly conversation series Grant Scott speaks with art director, lecturer and creative director Fiona Hayes. In an informal conversation each month Grant and Fiona comment on the photographic environment as they see it through the exhibitions, magazines, talks and events that Fiona has seen over the previous weeks.

Mentioned in this episode:
https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2026/nan-goldin-the-ballad-of-sexual-dependency
https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2026/richard-avedon-facing-west/
www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2025/taylor-wessing-photo-portrait-prize/
https://website-artlogicwebsite0087.artlogic.net/viewing-room/69/

Fiona Hayes
Fiona Hayes is an art director, designer, consultant and lecturer with over 30 years’ experience in publishing, fashion and the art world. She has been a magazine art director ten times: on Punch, Company, Eve, the British and Russian editions of Cosmopolitan, House & Garden,GQ India (based in Mumbai), MyselfGermany (in Munich), and Russian Vogue (twice). Between 2013 and 2019, as Art Director of New Markets and Brand Development for Condé Nast International, based in London and Paris, she oversaw all the company’s launches – 14 magazines, including seven editions of Vogue. She still consults as Design Director at Large for Vogue Hong Kong. In 2002 she founded independent photography magazine DayFour, publishing it continuously until 2012. She is Co-Author and Art Director of The Fashion Yearbook, and creative director of books for South African media consultancy Legacy Creates. Outside the publishing world, she has been Art Director of contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury in London and New York, and Consultant Art Director of Russian luxury retail group Mercury/TSUM. (Fiona would like to point out she is not Russian: she is proudly Irish and studied Visual Communication and History of Art and Design at NCAD Dublin.) She currently divides her time between design consultancy for commercial clients, and lecturing at Oxford Brookes University, the Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design, London, Nottingham Trent University, Ravensbourne University, and Leeds University. She lives in West London. @theartdictator

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is 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), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

Scott’s next book is Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is on sale now wherever you buy your books.

© Grant Scott 2026

Image: © Artwork The Richard Avedon Foundation. Photo Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

In episode 405 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is reflecting on the big and small things that impact on the everyday engagement we all have with photography.

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is 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), What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020) and Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, (Orphans Publishing 2024). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

© Grant Scott 2026

Image: 1962. The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

For many months we asked photographers to send us a piece of audio no longer than five minutes in length to include on our A Photographic Life podcast. These became a book which is now out of print but remain in audio form within the podcast archive, available wherever you get your podcasts . However, we are responding to listener requests and offering transcriptions of some of our favourite contributions. Enjoy!

Sebastian Meyer is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker, and a recipient of multiple grants from The Pulitzer Center on crisis reporting. His editorial photographs have been published in TIME, Fortune,The Sunday Times Magazine, The FT Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, among many others. Meyer has made films for National Geographic, PBS Newshour, Channel 4 News, CNN, VOA, and HBO. He produces still and video content for NGOs and charities such as UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA, and
Mercy Corps. In 2009 Meyer co-founded Metrography, the first Iraqi photo agency. His first book, Under Every Yard of Sky was published in 2019. 

“When I started, photography was a way for me to see the world. I never went anywhere without my camera and I was really influenced by the classic old school street photographers. I was caught up in that vagabond romanticism. I wanted to create those beautifully composed, layered black and white images. I started my career at the Manchester Evening News, which was classic local British journalism and a great, steep learning curve for me. Three, four, five, six jobs a day, sometimes driving around a city I didn’t initially know very well. I had to move very quickly and get the images on a deadline. But it was far from what I had fallen in love with, so on my days off I would roam around the city, with my Leica M6 and rolls of Tri-X stuffed in my pockets. I wanted to do good journalism but I would be lying if I said that I also didn’t want an adventure and my camera was a way to do that. It allowed me to scratch that curiosity itch. 

Looking back, I can see that my ego began to creep in – photography started to be about me. I was framing up three-dimensional people into two dimensional characters. That is something that stuck with me for a while, not the realisation of that, but the actuality of that. Then, in 2008, I got a long assignment to go to the Kurdish region of Iraq to create portraits of the survivors of Anfel, Saddam’s genocide against the Kurds. There I met an Iraqi photojournalist, Kamaran Najm, and I realised that up until that point, all the photos I had seen of Iraq were taken by non-Iraqi photographers. So we set up a photo agency to train Iraqi photojournalists and then represent them to the international press. We worked on it for many years and it did very well. I realised that photography had changed, it wasn’t about me and my world view, it was about seeing the world through many perspectives. It was no longer this European, American gaze that I had become so accustomed to. The technology changed. Digital made it easier for photographers to learn and take the pictures. As the internet became stronger it became a way to disseminate their images quickly.

In 2014 Kamaran was tragically kidnapped while covering the frontline fighting Isis. After years fighting the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan and taking so many photographs of people grieving over their dead or their missing, now I was one of those people and it changed my perspective on photography. I still love taking pictures but photography is no longer about creating perfectly composed images. I strive for that, I want to create layered, visually engaging images but photography for me is about the human side of the photograph. It is about the people in the picture, it is their lives, their joy, their pain. It is their story not mine.” 

www.sebmeyer.com

© Grant Scott 2026

In this monthly conversation series Grant Scott speaks with editor, writer and curator of photography Bill Shapiro. In an informal conversation each month Grant and Bill comment on the photographic environment as they see it. This month Bill and Grant talk about the past present and future of Instagram for photographers.

Mentioned in this episode:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DS7pz7-DuZG/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=7dce65f3-a428-4e8e-9c20-99bc26bb5cd8&img_index=1
Instagram algorithm reset: https://help.instagram.com/556617736965724/?

Bill Shapiro
Bill Shapiro served as the Editor-in-Chief of LIFE, the legendary photo magazine; LIFE’s relaunch in 2004 was the largest in Time Inc. history. Later, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of LIFE.com, which won the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital photography. Shapiro is the author of several books, among them Gus & Me, a children’s book he co-wrote with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and, What We Keep, which looks at the objects in our life that hold the most emotional significance. A fine-art photography curator for New York galleries and a consultant to photographers, Shapiro is also a Contributing Editor to the Leica Conversations series. He has written about photography for the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, Vogue, and Esquire, among others. Every Friday — more or less — he posts about under-the-radar photographers on his Instagram feed, where he’s @billshapiro.

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is 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), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

Image: Taken from Bill Shapiro’s Instagram page

©Grant Scott 2026