009 - Adam Hinton

Adam Hinton is a photographer who for 25 years has managed to combine a successful career shooting advertising campaigns for a diverse range of clients including huge global brands such as Adidas, Nike, BMW and Sony, with his own personal documentary projects. Although he always had his eye on an advertising career, he began his photographic odyssey as a photojournalist when in the early 90’s his interest in politics took him to the Ukraine in the wake of the collapse of the soviet union, where he focussed his attention on the coal mining community in Donetsk. Since then he has travelled all over the world including to Gaza, Egypt, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Venezuela, Brazil and all over Africa. Much of his personal work over the past decade has focused on the slums of the developing world, and it was as part of that project that, in 2013, he ended up in El Salvador where he ended up in a prison shooting portraits of members of the notorious Mara Salvatucha gang, the results of which have now been published in a book, MS-13 published by Paul Belford (link below). In episode 009 Adam discusses: the 'MS-13' gang project; getting his first SLR aged 12; adifficult childhood; the need for security; a change of direction; the pleasures of advertising photography and the advantages of getting stabbed aged 15.