EP17 - Conversation with Paddy Summerfield

THIS IS AN EDITED VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL PODCAST - MUCH REDUCED IN LENGTH BY CUTTING OUT ALL THE EXTRANEOUS CONTENT. NOW ITS JUST THOUGHTFUL CONVERSATION... On July 8th 2016 I travelled to Oxford to meet Paddy Summerfield in the house he has lived in since he was 18 months old and, more particularly, the house that served as backdrop to his 2014 masterpiece 'Mother and Father' (published by Dewi Lewis). Paddy and his partner Patricia Baker-Cassidy live in an Edwardian villa in Oxford's Summertown where they work together to bring a lifetime of photography to the surface. This year Dewi Lewis has published another collection of Paddy's work, 'The Oxford Pictures 1968-1978' which are a languorous and sexually charged examination of loneliness and self discovery. Paddy has always shot on 35mm and the images in this book are exquisitely reproduced from scans and printed at the legendary EBS printers in Italy which were also the printers of my book, 'Want More' in 2015. This conversation is easily the longest I have published but it is necessarily so because Paddy is engaging on the subject of photography and candid when he talks about life in general. He is a true photographer in that his life is defined by the images he makes. His energy and ambition to keep publishing his extensive work comes from a desire to represent his world and not, as is often the case, from the ego. Please take time to listen to the piece; listen to it win tranches if necessary, as it really is worth the effort. Alex Schneideman July 2016 All images © Alex Schneideman, 2016 Links New York Times T Magazine Photomonitor CPM Conscientious Photography Magazine