A Small Voice: Conversations with photographers and filmmakers (complete member-only archive)

Featuring: Lydia Goldblatt Website | InstagramKamiar Maleki Website | InstagramMichelle Sank Website | InstagramGered Mankowitz Website | InstagramAlys Tomlinson Website | Instagram | Mother Vera filmFariba Farshad Website | InstagramCharlotte Jansen Website | InstagramAndi Gáldi Vinkó Website | InstagramAnne-Marie Beckmann WebsiteRenée Mussai InstagramValérie Belin Website | InstagramMatt Stuart Website | InstagramChloé Jafé Website | Instagram   Photo London: Website | Instagram

Featuring: Silvia Rosi Website | InstagramArko Datto Website | InstagramYvonne Venegas Website | InstagramTim ClarkMarta Bogdanska Website | InstagramMichele Sibiloni Website | Instagram   Referenced: Walter GuadagniniLuce LebartBruno LatourTimothy MortonDaisy Hildyard    Festival: Website | Instagram / Collezione Maramotti: Website | Instagram

Julia Kochetova (b. 1993) is a Ukrainian photojournalist and documentary filmmaker based in Kyiv. Her work focuses on firsthand storytelling as a method, researching topics of the war generation, post-traumatic stress disorder, and feminism.  Julia studied journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University (UA) and Mohyla School of Journalism (UA), alongside participating in IDFAcademy (NL). As a freelancer, Julia has covered the Maidan revolution (2013-2014), the annexation of Crimea (2014), and the Russia-Ukraine war (2014-now). She is a regular contributor to Der Spiegel, Vice News, Zeit, Bloomberg, The Guardian, amongst others. In 2023, Julia won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Continuing News Coverage: Long Form with VICE News Tonight and in 2024, just a few weeks ago, was the global winner of the Open Format category in the World Press Photo awards for her multi-media project War Is Personal. In episode 230, Julia discusses, among other things: Viewing the war as a long-term project.Not choosing to be a war photoghrapher.Still photographs no longer ‘working’ - importance of text.How her WPP winning project was done ‘last minute’.Her love/hate relationship with Instagram.How all her plans changed in 2014 with the Maidan Revolution.Her documentary film project See You Later.What she means by ‘it’s about the photographs I haven’t taken’.A valuable lesson learned about behaving ethically.How war has deprived her of the capacity for joy. Referenced: Oleksandr KomiakhovDaria Kolomiec   Website | Instagram   “I’m really grateful that our story is being told by Ukrainian photographers, but it never was about career ambition. We Ukrainian storytellers were never in the position that we chose to become war photographers. I keep saying I’m not a war photographer. I’m photographing war because this is what’s happening in my country. I have zero wish to photograph any other wars. I’m doing this because this is my war. That’s the only accurate skill I have.”

Michael Ackerman was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1967. When he was seven years old his family emigrated to New York City, where he grew up and began photographing at the age of eighteen. Michael has exhibited internationally and published five books, including End Time City, by Robert Delpire, which won the Prix Nadar in 1999. His other books are Epilogue (Void, 2019) Half Life(Delpire, 2010) Fiction (Delpire, 2001) and Smoke (l'axolotl, 2023). His work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Brooklyn Museum, and The Biliothèque National, France among others, as well as in many private collections. “In Michael Ackerman’s work, documentary and autobiography conspire with fiction, and all of the above dissolve into hallucination. His photography explores time and timelessness, personal history and the history of places, immediate family and love, with all it’s complexities and contradictions. “ Jem Cohen.  Michael currently lives in Berlin and is represented by Galerie Camera Obscura, Paris, Spot Home Gallery, Naples and MC2 Gallery, Milan.   In episode 229, Michael discusses, among other things: A little family historyWhy he put that info on his websiteCollating family photos on becoming a fatherWhy he loves New YorkHow he started photography thereBeing ‘very, very slow’Why he uses cheap plastic camerasWhat he likes about photographing animalsMoodAnders PetersenLonging being the human conditionPhotographing ‘life’Text and contextTranscending the facts while keeping a strong hold on a deeper truthHis life in Berlin with an impossible ‘to do’ list   Referenced: Teru KuwayamaSylvia PlachyLorenzo CastoreAnders PetersenRobert FrankMasao YamamotoBoris MikhailovJem Cohen   Website | Instagram “For me photography is always a negotiation between confrontation and avoidance. And I think my pictures show that. I think my pictures are very intimate and they do get close to something and they are an attempt at getting close, but there’s also a lot of fear in them I see, because I know it in myself, and a lot of solitude.”

A student at the École Beaux-arts de Versailles (1983–1985), and then at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges (1985-1988), French artist Valerie Belin obtained the French higher national diploma in visual expression in 1988 and also holds a diploma in advanced studies (DEA) in the philosophy of art from the Université de Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne (1989).  Initially influenced by various minimalist and conceptual tendencies, Valérie became interested in the photographic medium in its own right; this is at once the subject of her work and her way of reflecting and creating. Light, matter and the “body” of things and beings in general, as well as their transformations and representations, constitute the terrain of her experiments and the world of her artistic ideas. Her work is articulated in photographic series, each one produced within the framework of a specific project.  Valérie’s work has been exhibited around the world and is held in numerous public and private collections. Winner of the Prix Pictet in 2015 (Disorder), she was made an officer of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2017. This same year, a touring exhibition was co-produced by the Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing, the SCôP in Shanghai and the Chengdu Museum. In 2019, Valérie unveiled a major new series at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and this year, 2024, she has been named as Master of Photography at Photo London where she will have a major career retrospective. Valerie lives and works in Paris.   In episode 228, Valerie discusses, among other things: Her father being an artist at heartThe influence of a particular teacherThe dual influence of American minimal art and Italian baroque artHow she discovered photography and was inspired by a misogynistic teacherNot photographing people initiallyPresence and absenceWhy she chose bodybuilders as her first foray into shooting peopleThe theme of beautyHow women are ‘attacked’ by stereotypesAI being paradoxical to what she wants to showThe importance of Photoshop to her practiceWhere the ideas come fromUse of comic booksMaking a livingRecent series’ ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lady Stardust’.   Referenced: Carl AndreRobert MorrisTony Smith (sculptor)Richard Serra   Website | Instagram “I think it’s still true to say I’m very close to my medium and to the hybridation, because if you think of it what is photography today when with the same camera you can make videos, you can make whatever you want? I think we are in a time when you always have a kind of superimposition in your mind, you have several channels on all the time in your mind and maybe my pictures are showing that way of thinking or way of living.”

Linda Troeller’s art projects focus on self-portraits, women's and social issues. For 20 year she lived in the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York City, curating an exhibition for the 125th Anniversary, “Chelsea Hotel Through the Eyes of Photographers”, and publishing a monograph of her own entitled Living in the Chelsea Hotel. Other publications include Healing Waters, The Erotic Lives of Women and her newest book of self-portraits taken over almost fifty years, Sex, Death, Transcendence, published earlier this year (2024) by TBW books. Linda was also the subject of a 2023 feature-length documentary film, also entitled Healing Waters, directed by Derek Johnson and Ali Scattergood. She has lectured at the School of Visual Arts, NYU, Parsons, Yale, Salzburg Summer Art Academy, New Orleans Photo Alliance, and Ryerson University, Toronto and was a professor of photography at Stockton College of New Jersey, Indiana University, and Bournemouth College, England. She has a MFA, School of Art, and MS, Newhouse School, Syracuse University and BS from Reed School of Journalism, West Virginia University. Linda lives in New York City and New Jersey.       In episode 227, Linda discusses, among other things: Modelling on an Ansel Adams book making workshopThe experience of being nude in front of strangersThe spirit of the 60s in the 70s + women’s libHealing watersSocieties expectations of women and ageingHer book, The Erotic Lives of WomenLiving in the Chelsea Hotel for 20 yearsHow Alexander MacQueen influenced her visual paletteHow she has earned a living over the yearsHer TB/Aids project   Referenced: Lucien ClergueEikoh HosoeGeorge TiceJudy DaterImogen CunninghamJack WelpottRobert HeineckenLee FriedlanderMelissa Shook   Website | Instagram “You have to do some work to build up your self confidence, to be your most youness. ‘You’. Youness, herness, hisness, theirness, whatever it is that you wanna to be your most of you can make some strides by looking at yourself and understanding yourself. And if you want to do some more in your presentation you can. And you should.”

Nicole Tung is a freelance photojournalist. She graduated from New York University, double majoring in history and journalism, and freelances for international publications and NGOs, working primarily in the Middle East and Asia. After covering the conflicts in Libya and Syria extensively from 2011, focusing on the plight of civilians, she spent 2014 documenting the lives of Native American war veterans in the US, as well as former child soldiers in the DR Congo, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and the refugee crisis in Europe. She is also a grantee of the IWMF Grant for Women’s Stories, and a fellow of the IWMF Great Lakes Reporting Initiative (D.R. Congo, Central African Republic).  She has received multiple awards for her work from the International Photo Awards, Society of Professional Journalists, PX3, and was named PDN's 30 Under 30 Emerging Photographers (2013), among others. Nicole was given the honorable mention for the IWMF 2017 Anja Niedringhaus Awards, and awarded the 2018 James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting from the Online News Association. Her work has been exhibited + screened at the Annenberg Space for Photography, Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, Visa Pour l'Image, and most recently at the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy award for war correspondents in France (2019), with Save the Children in Hong Kong (2019), and at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong (2020). Nicole has also given keynote speeches and contributed to panels on photojournalism and journalist safety, at events including the International Journalism Festival (Perugia, 2019), TEDx in Sweden, the Adobe Make It Conference in Sydney, and Creative Mornings at the National Geographic Auditorium in Washington D.C., among others. She served on the board of the Frontline Freelance Register (2015) and is has undergone HEFAT training with Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC) and Global Journalist Security. She is based in Istanbul, Turkey.   In episode 226, Nicole discusses, among other things: Notable differences between the war in Ukraine and previous conflicts she has coveredThe modern use of drones in warfareStories she has covered in UkraineThe way she works with publicationsManaging and thinking about riskThe question of whether journalists in conflict zones are more likely to be targeted now than in the pastReactions to her from ordinary people in conflictsThe question of whether photojournalism is an ‘important’ jobThe impacts of social media both negative and positiveApproaching photojournalistic stories in a different wayPotential ways to earn a living other than from commissions   Referenced: Chris HondrosTim HetheringtonMarie ColvinRemi OchlickJames Foley   Website | Instagram “If you don’t become trappe

Mitch Epstein helped pioneer fine-art color photography in the 1970s. His photographs are in numerous major museum collections, including New York's Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art; The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Tate Modern in London. In October 2024, Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, Italy will present a major multi-media exhibition of Mitch’s project, Old Growth; and in September 2024, Old Growth will be shown in NYC at Yancey Richardson Gallery. Mitch’s Indian photographs and films (Salaam Bombay! and India Cabaret) were exhibited in 2022 at Les Rencontres d'Arles festival in France. Mitch has had numerous other major solo exhibitions in the USA and worldwide. Mitch’s seventeen books, all published by Steidl Verlag, include Recreation (2022); Property Rights(2021); In India (2021); Rocks and Clouds (2017); New York Arbor (2013); Berlin (Steidl/The American Academy in Berlin 2011); American Power (2009); and Family Business (2003), which was winner of the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. In 2020, Mitch was inducted into the National Academy of Design. In 2011, he won the Prix Pictet for American Power. Among his other awards are the Berlin Prize in Arts and Letters from the American Academy in Berlin (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003). Mitch has worked as a director, cinematographer, and production designer on several films, including Dad, Mississippi Masala, and Salaam Bombay!. He lives with his family in New York City.   In episode 225, Mitch discusses, among other things: New YorkJohn Szarkowski at MOMAEditingIndiaGarry Winogrand and his influenceGoing to LA in ‘74Working on the films of his then wife Mira NairTrial and errorFamily BusinessAmerican PowerOld Growth   Referenced: John SzarkowskiEugene AtgetDiane ArbusWilliam EgglestonTodd PapageorgeRaghubir SinghJonas MekasHollis Frampton Website | Instagram “Through disorientation, through not knowing, through being uncomfortable, things happen. And I think some of the most important periods for me in my life as an artist have been those periods where I have ultimately not known what I was doing or where I was going next. Now I’m a little bit better at just listening to the signals that come along, even though they may not give me the full-fledged answer they’ll just point in a direction. And I’m a little bit more patient with the process.”

Edward Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world's most accomplished contemporary photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes represent over 40 years of his dedication to bearing witness to the impact of human industry on the planet. Edward's photographs are included in the collections of over 80 major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid; the Tate Modern in London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. Edward was born in 1955 of Ukrainian heritage in St. Catharines, Ontario. He received his BAA in Photography/Media Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) in 1982, and has since received both an Alumni Achievement Award (2004) and an Honorary Doctorate (2007) from his alma mater. He is still actively involved in the university community, and sits on the board of directors for The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre). In 1985, Edward founded Toronto Image Works, a darkroom rental facility, custom photo laboratory, digital imaging, and new media computer-training centre catering to all levels of Toronto's art community. Early exposure to the General Motors plant and watching ships go by in the Welland Canal in Edward’s hometown helped capture his imagination for the scale of human creation, and to formulate the development of his photographic work. His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet — an inspection of the human systems we've imposed onto natural landscapes. Exhibitions include: Anthropocene (2018) at the Art Gallery of Ontario and National Gallery of Canada(international touring exhibition); Water (2013) at the New Orleans Museum of Art and Contemporary Art Center in Louisiana (international touring exhibition); Oil (2009) at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (five-year international touring show), China (toured internationally from 2005 - 2008); Manufactured Landscapes at the National Gallery of Canada (toured from 2003 - 2005); and Breaking Ground produced by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (toured from 1988 - 1992). Edward's visually compelling works are currently being exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the globe, including at London’s Saatchi Gallery where his largest solo exhibition to-date, entitled Extraction/Abstraction, is currently on show until 6th May 2024. Edward’s distinctions include the inaugural TED Prize (which he shared with Bono and Robert Fischell), the title of Officer of the Order of Canada, and the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award for Art. In 2018 Edward was named Photo London's Master of Photography and the Mosaic Institute's Peace Patron. In 2019 he was the recipient of the Arts & Letters Award at the Canadian Association of New York’s annual Maple Leaf Ball and the 2019 Lucie Award for Achievement in Documentary Photography. In 2020 he was awarded a Royal Photographic Society Honorary Fellowship and in 2022 was honoured with the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award by the World Photography Organization.

Italian photographer Lorenzo Castore’s work is characterised by long term projects focusing on his personal experience, memory and the relationship between individual stories, history and the present time. In 1992 at the age of 19 Lorenzo moved from Rome to New York where he began to photograph in the streets. After a formative trip to India in 1997, he had a brief foray into photojournalism, covering the conflicts in Albania and Kosovo in 1999, afte which he decided to quit photojournalism and deepen his personal research. Since then has worked extensively in Poland, Cuba and Sardinia among other places and has produced several photobooks and a short film entitled No Peace Without War. In 2019 his lifelong work Time Maze began to be published by L’artiere in progressive chronological volumes. The first entitled A Beginning, 1994-2001 and the second Lack and Locking, 2001-2007. The next two volumes are already in the works or planned. Lorenzo’s is represented by Galerie S. in Paris, Galerie Anne Clergue in Arles, Alessia Paladini Gallery in Milan, Spot Home Gallery in Naples and Guido Costa Projects in Turin. In episode 223, Lorenzo discusses, among other things: His formative yearsHis journey into photographyHis time in New York……and the photograph that changed everythingThe importance of finding stories and making life an adventureHis project Time Maze - first book A BeginningHis brief foray into photojournalism in KosovoWhy he went to shoot in PolandHIs interest in minersThe forthcoming sequels to A Beginning Referenced: Michael AckermanAnders PetersenRamon PezJosef KoudelkaSaverio CostanzoHenri Cartier BressonGeorgio MortariEloi GimenoChristain Cajoule Website | Instagram “I was postponing because of this embarrassment that I have when we say you talk about your personal life. It’s a really strange feeling, I really want to do it and at the same time I feel I have to do it very carefully.”

Natalie Keyssar is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work focuses on the personal effects of political turmoil and conflict, youth culture, and migration.  She has a BFA in Painting and Illustration from The Pratt Institute. Natalie has contributed to publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Time, Bloomberg Business Week, National Geographic and The New Yorker, and been awarded by organizations including the Philip Jones Griffith Award, the Aaron Siskind Foundation, PDN 30, Magenta Flash Forward, and American Photography. She has taught New Media at the International Center of Photography in New York, and  has instructed at various workshops across the US and Latin America with organizations such as Foundry, Women Photograph, The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the IWMF. Her work has been supported by The Pulitzer Center, The Magnum Foundation, The National Geographic Society, and the IWMF among many others, and she is the winner of the 2018 ICP Infinity Emerging Photographer Award, the 2019 PH Museum Women Photographer's Grant, and is a winner of the 2023 Aperture Creator Labs Photo Fund. She is a Canon Explorer of Light and Co-Founder of the NDA Workshops series with Daniella Zalcman. She speaks fluent Spanish and is available for assignments internationally, as well as teaching and speaking engagements.    In episode 222, Natalie discusses, among other things: The conflict in GazaHow the internet and social media is clumsily creating a hive mindHer Jewish identity and how it shapes her perspectiveHer Ukrainian roots and covering the war in UkraineWanting her work to tell you what it feels likeHer first trip to Venezuela and how it was love at first sight   Referenced: Daniella ZalcmanAnastasia Taylor LindYelena YemchukBen MakuchStephanie SinclairChristina PiaiaScout TufankjianKatie OrlinskyAmie Ferris-RotmanCarlos RawlinsAna Maria ArevaloAndrea Hernandez BriceñoLexi Grace ParraIWMF   Website | Instagram “There’s this psychological cocktail of rage and grief and desire to act, and since I don’t have any actual useful skills, I’m not a doctor or psychologist or aid worker or fighter, or any of the things I sometimes wish I was, I felt the need to do something. And then there is also a totally selfish need to see it for myself. It feels compulsive. And not like in ‘this is my calling and I’m gonna save the world’, but like it’s compulsive enough to make you get on a plane to go t

Ambiguity is at the forefront of Richard Kalvar’s photography. Richard, who describes context as the “enemy”, seeks mystery and multiple meanings through surprising framing and meticulous timing. He describes his approach as “more like poetry than photojournalism – it attacks on the emotional level.” Richard has done extensive personal, assignment and commercial work in the United States, France, Italy, England, and Japan, among others, has published a number of solo books including Earthlings (Terriens) in 2007 and his most recent title, Selected Writings, published in 2023 by Damiani, and he has had important exhibitions in the US, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. His work has appeared in Geo, The Paris Review, Creative Camera, Aperture, Zoom, Newsweek, and Photo, among many others. Editorial assignments and even commercial work have given Richard an additional opportunity to do personal photography. He did many documentary stories that allowed him to disengage from documentary mode when the occasion arose. Richard joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1975, and became a full member two years later. He subsequently served several times as vice president, and once as president of the agency.   In episode 221, Richard discusses, among other things: How he ended up settling in ParisHis introduction to photographyHow humour is an intrinsic element of his photographshow he is playing with things he has trouble dealing withWhy he called up Robert DelpireVU agency becoming VivaHow he ended up in MagnumHis favourite cities to shoot inThe legal restrictions on shooting in public in different placesPublic attitudes towards taking photographs of strangers in publicHis new book, Selected WritingsWhy his interest is in single images that stand alone   Referenced: Jérôme DucrotAndré KerteszHCBRobert FrankLee FriedlanderElliott ErwittRobert DelpireViva AgencyGuy LeQuerecGilles PeressMary Ellen MarkAlex MajoliJonas BendiksenPaolo PellegrinOlivia Arthur Website | Instagram “I’m most interested in having pictures stand alone, and each one is something you can get into and is a story in itself and is also an imaginary story. I’m working with reality, that’s what’s really interesting to me and it’s also what’s interesting about photography in general, that you’re doing something that looks like real life but obviously isn’t. that’s the edge I like to work on. Where you have the impression that things are going on and not necessarily going on. If I have to tell a story, I feel a certain moral obligation to respect the truth or respect the feelings of the people that are in it. I think that’s a noble thing but for my kind of work it’s a break.”

Featuring: Aaron SchumannEugene RichardsMartin ParrGregory CrewdsonNick BrandtEmma HardyAntoine D’AgataIgor PosnerStacy KranitzIvor PrickettBertrand MeunierCurran HatlebergTrish MorrisseyMoises SamanYelena YemchukBenjamin RassmussenIan BerryLuca LocatelliCorinne DufkaMax PamLeonard Pongo

Leonard Pongo is a Belgian-Congolese photographer and visual artist. His long-term project The Uncanny, shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has earned him several international awards and world-wide recognition and was published as a book by GOSTearlier this year (2023) as a result of Leonard receiving the ICP GOST First Photo Book Award in 2020. Leonard’s work has been published worldwide and featured in numerous exhibitions including the recent IncarNations at the Bozar Center for Fine Arts and the The 3rd Beijing Photo Biennial at CAFA Art Museum. He was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2016, is a recipient of the Visura Grant 2017, the Getty Reportage Grant 2018 and was shortlisted for the Leica Oskar Barnack award in 2022. Leonard’s latest project, Primordial Earth, was shown at the Lubumbashi Biennial and at the Rencontres de Bamako where it was awarded the “Prix de l’OIF”. It was exhibited at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts for Leonard’s first institutional solo show in Belgium in 2021, at the Oostende Museum of Modern Art and is currently feartured as part of a group show entitled A World in Common: Contemporary African Photographyat Tate Modern until January 14th 2024. Leonard divides his time between pursuing long term projects in Congo DR, teaching and assignment work and is also a member of The Photographic Collective. His work is part of institutional and private collections. In episode 219 Leornard discusses, among other things: Early creativity encouraged by his architect fatherHis first experience with photographyHis early desire to go to the DRCHis first trip in 2011 against the backdrop of an electionSensory overwhelmPlaying with mood and ambiguityWinning the Unseen-Gost Books Publishing AwardEditing down from 70,000 imagesHis Primordial Earth projectHis short film The Necessary Evil Website | Instagram “I think behind all the constructions and expectations, right or wrong, that I might have had, there was behind it at the core a very intense need for experience... the only way I could create relations to the land and the environment itself - not the people because that was easy, that was natural - but to the rest, the context, was through experiencing it. It felt to me that was the only way I could ever have anything to say about it.”

Featuring: Andrea ModicaJesse LenzMelissa DeWittTodd HidoKristen Joy EmackAnastasia SamoylovaMimi MollicaMimi PlumbJane Evelyn AtwoodChristopher AndersonTim CarpenterSofia KrysiakNelson ChanTom Booth WoodgerSilvana TrevaleGianluca GamberiniGregory BarkerDewi Lewis

Max Pam is an Australian photographer born in 1949 in suburban Melbourne, which as a teenager he found to be grim, oppressive and culturally isolated. He found refuge in the counter-culture of surfing and the imagery of National Geographic and Surfer Magazineand became determined to travel overseas. Max left Australia at 20, after accepting a job as a photographer assisting an astrophysicist. Together, the pair drove a VW Beetle from Calcutta to London. This adventure proved inspirational, and travel has remained a crucial and continuous link to his creative and personal development. As Gary Dufour noted in his essay in Indian Ocean Journals (Steidl, 2000): “Each photograph is shaped by incidents experienced as a traveller. His photographs extend upon the tradition of the gazetteer; each photograph a record of an experience, a personal account of an encounter somewhere in the world. Each glimpse is part of an unfolding story rather than simply a record of a place observed. While travel underscores his production Pam’s photographs are not the accidental evidence of a tourist.” Max’s work takes the viewer on compelling journeys around the globe, recording observations with an often surrealist intensity, matching the heightened sensory awareness of foreign travel. The work frequently implies an interior, psychic journey, corresponding with the physical journey of travel. His work in Asian counties is well represented in publications as are his travels in Europe, Australia, and the Indian Ocean Rim cultures including India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Yemen, The Republic of Tanzania, Mauritius, Madagascar, the Cocos and Christmas Islands. The images leave the viewer, as Tim Winton said in Going East (Marval 1992), “grateful for having been taken so mysteriously by surprise and so far and sweetly abroad.” Max’s first survey show was held at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1986, and was followed by a mid-career retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1991. He was also the subject of a major exhibition at the Comptoir de la Photographie, Paris in 1990, which covered the work of three decades. He has published several highly acclaimed photographic monographs and 'carnets de voyage', including Going East: Twenty Years of Asian Photography (1992), Max Pam (1999), Ethiopia (1999) and Indian Ocean Journals (2000). Going East won Europe’s major photo book award the Grand Prix du Livre Photographique in 1992. In the same year Max held his largest solo show to date at the Sogo Nara Museum of Art, Nara. He has published work in the leading international journals and is represented in major public and private collections in Australia, Great Britain, France and Japan. In episode 217 Max discusses, among other things: How he adopted the visual diary as his photographic approach.The influence of Diane Arbus.Why he chose such a specific period of his life to explore in his new memoir.How Arbus inspired him to shoot 6x6.How surfing in Australia introduced him travelling.How he ended up in India and why it fascinates him.The magic of film vs. digital.Working with book designers… or not.The time he failed to get into Magnum Photos.Surviving financially, teaching, and the importance of ‘marrying up’.Travel and family.Returning to Australia in a poor mental state, post typhoid.His wife’s Alzheimer’s and eventual death. Referenced: Philip Jones-GriffithDon McCullenLarry BurrowsDavid BaileyDiane ArbusEdward WestonTina ModottiRoger BallenGeorge OrwellBernard PlossuRamon PezSarah MoonOne Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest<

Corinne Dufka is an American photojournalist, human rights researcher, criminal investigator, and psychiatric social worker. Following completion of her master's degree in social work, Corinne worked as a humanitarian volunteer and social worker in Latin America. She volunteered with Nicaraguan refugees during the country's revolution, and with victims of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. She then moved to El Salvador as a social worker with the Lutheran church. While in El Salvador, Corinne became close with local photojournalists, and was asked by the director of a local human rights organization to launch a program to document human rights abuses through photography. Over the course of her subsequent twelve year career as a photojournalist she covered more than a dozen of the world’s bloodiest armed conflicts across three continents and was honored with the Robert Capa gold medal; a World Press Club Award; a Pulitzer nomination; and the Courage in Journalism Award. In 1998 Corinne went to Nairobi, Kenya to cover the bombing of the American Embassy. She arrived hours after the blast, and was deeply frustrated by 'missing the scoop.' Later, upon watching the news coverage of the attack, Corinne realized that she had lost “compassion” for the subjects of her work, and resolved to end her career as a photojournalist. After leaving photojournalism, Corinne joined Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization. In 2003, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, alternatively known as a ‘genius grant’, for her journalistic and documentary work documenting the 'devastation' of Sierra Leone and the conflict's toll on human rights. Corinne left HRW in 2022 and is now an independent researcher and advisor, focusing on helping countries mitigate the risk of armed conflict. Corinne has a daughter and a foster son and lives in Maryland with her four dogs. Corinne’s new book This Is War: Photographs from a Decade of Conflict is out now, published by G Editions.   In episode 216 Corinne discusses, among other things: Her reasons for publishing a book of her photograhsThe experience of revisiting her archiveHer transition from psychiatric social worker to photojournalistHow she learnt the basics of photography in El SalvadorHow her family history and a challenges in childhood formed her independenceGetting badly injured in BosniaThe relative dangers of different types of conflictHer experiences of violence in LiberiaThe epiphany that led her to walk away from photojournalismHer work with Human Rights Watch‘Curiosity and compassion’Making an impact “I just don’t do ‘hopeless’. I constantly try to find a way of having impact. And photography has so much impact. Using people’s voices through testimony has so much impact. And one has to believe that people are inherently good and they inherently care and that they can be moved when presented with these images. People in positions of influence. So that is a given in everything I’ve done. That this work will have an impact. It may have to be repeated again and again and again, multiplied by other practitioners in photography or human rights, but it will have an impact.”

Italian photographer Luca Locatelli describes himself as an environmental visual storyteller.  For more than a decade Luca has aimed to open a debate about the environment and our future with his work by synergizing art, science, and journalism to explore the world’s most promising solutions to the climate crisis. As an artist, Luca is concerned with trying to translate complex scientific data into visually engaging images and distribute them on social networks, in publications and at events.  His work has been published in international media such as National Geographic, The New York Times, and TIME. It has also been displayed in prominent global venues, including the Guggenheim Museum of New York, the Shangai Center of Photography, and others.  In addition, for over two years, Luca has been working on a significant and immersive cultural project about the Circular Economy with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which is now an exhibition entitled The Circle at Gallerie D’Italia Museum of Turin, Italy, until February 2024.  Since 2004 Luca has been a founding partner of a non-governmental association that contributes to protect 600 thousand hectares of tropical forest in the Amazon.  In episode 215 Luca discusses, among other things: How it started with a trip up the AmazonTrying to do 2 things and failingHow he discovered a talent for generating good story ideasExploring his interest in ways that technology can help solve the environmental crisisHis project about food, Hunger SolutionsHow he became interested in the circular economyThe End of Trash - Circular Economy SolutionsStealing the idea of ‘Think Week’ from Bill GatesHow he thinks about his own carbon footprintThe problem of fast fashionDeveloping economiesFuture generationsHopes that his work can have an impactCreating ‘disorientation’ in the viewerThe hope of nature-based solutions Referenced: Kathy RyanChe GuevaraBill Gates   Website | Instagram “When we think about photography and changing the world we always think in one direction… we think that photography is about the last flood, about the last fire, the last tremendous things happening in the world with climate change. It’s not the only perspective. What if we can give to young people pictures that can show them solutions and a way of imagining and opening a debate about the future?”

In episode 214: An audio clip from each of the top 10 most downloaded episodes of all time (as of September 2023). 10 - Tom Craig (Episode 130)09 - Martin Parr #2 (Episode 197)08 - Tom Wood (Episode 160)07 - Todd Hido (Episode 103)06 - Chris Killip (Episode 094)05 - Paul Graham (Episode 149)04 - Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb (Episode 105)03 - Stephen Shore (Episode 192)02 - Mark Steinmetz (Episode 112)01 - Martin Parr (Episode 091) And a swift tour of the Bonus Questions which all guests now answer for the member-only podcast: What has photography taught you about yourself or life in general?What is your greatest strength and your main weakness as a photographer?If you could meet your 20 year-old self now, what advice would you give to her/him?What’s the one most essential lesson you would pass on to someone considering a photography ‘career’ today?How has a failure, or what seemed like a failure at the time, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favourite failure” of yours?Can you think of any ideas or beliefs - whether about photography or anything else in life - that you have now reversed or totally changed your position on?Is there a photobook that has a special place in your heart or a particular significance, or that has been especially influential or inspiring to you?Do you have a favourite photographer, if you absolutely had to pick someone? Why them?Are there any notable photobooks or photographers that you have only just discovered for the first time in recent years?If and when you feel creatively exhausted, uninspired or blocked what do you do to get yourself moving forward again?How do you deal with self doubt if and when it arises? Do you have any strategies or habits that you come back to?What other artforms or cultural output, either highbrow or popular, do you consume, enjoy or take inspiration from?What is the thing you like most about photography or about being a photographer? What is the thing you like the least?How do you deal with juggling the need to make a living with finding time to pursue personal projects that don’t necessarily earn you any money?How do you manage a work/life balance and deal with juggling career with relationship/home/family life?What do you think you might have ended up doing if you hadn’t become a photographer and would you have been good at it?What are you hopes for the future?

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&WHow the project came aboutHow he got into photographyHow he came to be the only photographer at the Sharpeville MassacreThe importance of luckGetting into Magnum after a tea with HCB and a disasterous first meetingChanges in Magnum over the years - and photography in generalThe controversy over David Allan Harvey and the subsequent action by MagnumEverything being ‘too woke’Learining from other people and looking at contact sheets   Referenced: Stuart SmithAbbasRoger MaddenDrum MagazineTom HopkinsonThe Sharpeville MassacreMichele Chevalier (Visa)Marc RiboudReni BurriHenri Cartier BressonBurt GlinnPeter DenchDavid Allan Harvey<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McCurry

Benjamin Rasmussen is a Faroese/American photographer living in Denver, Colorado. After growing up in the Philippines and studying photography at Ateneo de Manila University, he moved to the United States to explore contemporary American identity. His practice is research and photography based and centers on the intersection of law, history and sociology. Benjamin works for magazines including Time, The New Yorker and The Atlantic. He is also the founder of Pattern, an exhibition and educational space in Denver, Colorado that works to spark dialogue and acts as a meeting place for the art and documentary worlds.  Benjamin’s debut photobook, The Good Citizen, which explores how American society came to be what it is today, was published last year by GOST books.   In episode 212, Benjamin discusses, among other things: His origin story growing up in the Philipines and then moving to the USA for collegeGrowing up amidst his family’s deeply religious rootsBy The Olive Trees projectFaroese hunting pilot whales - storyFaroe islands being too picturesqueThe dark side of his American familyThe origins of The Good Citizen projectThe five chapter structure of the bookBook banning in the USATrumpHis optimism re. photojournalismThe implications of AI   Referenced: Michael BrownDred ScottStuart SmithFrank H WuTa-Nehisi CoatesJuan Fuentes  “I’ve survived largely off editiorial commissions for the past 10-15 years. It’s been really interesting.You have a lot more complex voices who are involved even in my short history of it. The reality is that in my entire career rates haven’t changed. It’s getting increasingly difficult to survive financially, but I think in terms of the conversations that are happening it’s gotten so much more interesting. ”

Yelena Yemchuk's output as a visual artist is immediately recognizable, regardless of medium. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Yelena immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was eleven. She became interested in photography when her father gave her a 35mm Minolta camera for her fourteenth birthday. Yelena went on to study art at Parsons in New York and photography at Art Center in Pasadena. Yelena has exhibited paintings, films and photography at galleries and museums worldwide. She has shot for the New Yorker, New York Times, Another, ID, Vogue, and others. Yelena released her first book Gidropark, published by Damiani in April 2011, followed by Anna Maria, published by United Vagabonds in September 2017. Yelena had her first institutional debut with her project Mabel, Betty & Bette, a photography and video work at the Dallas Contemporary Museum. A monograph with the same title was released by Kominek Books in March 2021. Her newest book Odesa was released in May 2022, by Gost Books. In episode 211, Yelena discusses, among other things: The relevance of her book to the current warThe “immigrant parent bullshit story”Moving to New YorkThe influence of her uncle and her dad’s best friendDiscovering her calling at art school doing photographyHer early career success, including working with Smashing PumpkinsReturning to Ukraine in 1990Gidropark projectDeciding to focus on her personal workMabel, Betty & BetteYYY, published by Depart pour l’imageOdessa being “love at first sight”Deciding to focus on the youthForthcoming book, Milanka  “It was very clear to me that I needed to tell the story of these people. Not just the cadets, but the story of the people in Odesa. And it was like an urgency. I wanted to go back all the time. If i didn’t have kids I probably would have just stayed there. I couldn’t get enough… I was going back and forth. I couldn’t stop. I had to tell this story. I had to shoot these people. It was like a romance. It was like I had a lover over there.”

Moises Saman is widely considered to be one of the leading documentary and conflict photographers of his generation and has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 2014. His work has largely focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Moises was born in Lima, Peru, from a mixed Spanish and Peruvian family and grew up in Barcelona, Spain. He studied Communications and Sociology in the United States at California State University, graduating in 1998. It was during his last year in university that Moises first became interested in becoming a photographer, influenced by the work of a number of photojournalists that had been covering the wars in the Balkans. After graduating, Moises moved to New York City to complete a summer internship at New York Newsday and joined as a Staff Photographer, a position he held until 2007. During his 7 years at Newsday Moises' work focused on covering the fallout of the 9/11 attacks, spending most of his time traveling between Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries. In the Autumn of 2007 Moises left Newsday to become a freelance photographer represented by Panos Pictures. During that time he become a regular contributor for The New York Times, Human Rights Watch, Newsweek, and TIME Magazine, among other international publications. Over the years Moises' work has received awards from the World Press Photo, Pictures of the Yearand the Overseas Press Club and his photographs have been shown in a several exhibitions worldwide. In 2015 Moises received a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue his work. In 2011, Moises relocated to Cairo, Egypt, where he was based for three years while covering the Arab Spring for The New York Times and other publications, mainly The New Yorker. His first book, Discordia, on which he colloaborated with artist Daria Birang, documents the tumultuous transitions that have taken place in the region. The work featured in Discordia has received numerous awards, including the Eugene Smith Memorial Fund. Moises’s latest book, Glad Tidings of Benevolence, was published earlier this year by GOST books to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. It brings together Moises’s photographs taken in Iraq during this period and the following years, with documents and texts relating to the war. Exploring the construction—through image and language—of competing narratives of the war, the book represents the culmination of Moises’s twenty years of work across Iraq. Moises currently lives in Amman, Jordan with his wife and their young daughter.   In episode 210, Moises discusses, among other things: The catalyst that was 9/11NewsdayHis introduction to photography via his studie in sociologyThe Balkans conflictLearning the ropes in AfghanistanHow his attitude towards photojournalism evolved over timeThe impact of spending eight days in Abu Ghraib prisonSurviving a helicopter crashThe myth of objectivityTrying to show a more nuanced pictureEvery day life continuing amidst war“The framing of the frame”Covering The Arab SpringCollaborating with artist <a href="https://ww

Much of the work of Dublin-born Irish photographer Trish Morrissey is a study of the language of photography through still and moving images, using performance and wit as tools to investigate the boundaries of photographic meaning. Although most of Trish’s work features her as the protagonist, she does not consider the photographs to be self portraits per se, though they can be read that way. She uses humour as a tool to disarm the viewer, hoping it wil then evaporate, leaving a slow burning psychologically tense afterglow. Weaving fact and fiction, Trish plunges into the heart of such issues as family experiences and national identities, feminine and masculine roles, and relationships between strangers. Her work has been exhibited widely, including in the shows ‘Landscape, Portrait: Now and Then’ at the Hestercombe Gallery in 2021; ‘Who’s Looking at the family now?’ at the London Art Fair 2019 and in the solo show ‘Trish Morrissey: A certain slant of light’ at the Francesca Maffeo Gallery in 2018 and most recently in 2022 he exhibition Trish Morrissey, Autofictions; Twenty Years of Photography and Film, at Serlachius Museum Gustaf, Finland. Her work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The National Media Museum, Bradford and the Wilson Centre for Photography, London and was published in 2022 in the book Autofictions to coincide with the aforementioned exhibition in Finland. In episode 209, Trish discusses, among other things: Her recent retrospective and bookThe Front projectHer parents family albumReading pictures from body languageHer collaborative project with her daughterThe performative side of her practiceA Certain Slant of LightExploring the female experienceEarly lifeResidency in AustraliaWorking with video Referenced: Andy GrundbergZed NelsonNicholas Nixon, Brown SistersKate BestMark HarriottHilary MantelDiane Arbus “Everything I’ve done, when I’ve looked back on it I’ve realised is actually trying things on. It’s kind of like a way of rehearsing for the future…”

Curran Hatleberg is an American photographer based in Baltimore, MD. He attended Yale University and graduated in 2010 with an MFA. Influenced by the American tradition of road photography, Curran’s process entails driving throughout the United States and interacting with various strangers in different locales. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including shows at the Whitney Biennial, MASS MoCA, the International Center of Photography, Rencontres d’Arles, Higher Pictures and Fraenkel Gallery. He is the recipient of various grants, prizes and awards including a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. Curran’s work is held in various museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, SF MoMA, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His work has been published frequently in periodicals such as Harpers, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vice and The Paris Review. Lost Coast, his first monograph, was released by TBW Books in fall 2016. His second monograph, River's Dream, was published by TBW Books in 2022. Curran has taught photography at numerous institutions, including Yale University and Cooper Union. In episode 208, Curran discusses, among other things: Coming from a big familyHis background in paintingThe benefits of taking a break from education‘Stumbling’ into an MFA at YaleHis first book The Lost CoastHis process and saying yes to everythingBeing open and vulnerable to what might happenThe fascination with the USATrying to convey the ‘atmospheric intensity’ of Florida in SummerHow he decides where to stop and photographThe ‘origin story’ of lending his van and trailer to a strangerHis artist’s book, Double RainbowBeing guided by reading fiction Referenced: Peter MatthiessenGeorge Saunders  “I hate this idea that’s so grounded in the myth of road photographers, or American photography, where it’s this fallacy about the singular genius of the person bending the world to their will. It just seems so absurd to me. Chance is everything. I’m constantly levelled by how little control I have when I’m working. I feel insignificant and almost powerless a lot of the time.”

French photographer Bertrand Meunier has spent most of the past three decades quietly working either editorially or on personal long-term documentary projects both internationally and, in more recent years, at home in France. He worked extensively in Pakistan and Afghanistan among other places, primarily for Newsweek magazine, but much of his time has been spent in China documenting the tumultuous social and economic changes that the population has been faced with, focussing in particular on the economic decline of the large industrial cities, and the consequences for the people living in them. In 2001 he won the Leica Oskar Barnack prize for the work from China and in 2005 published a book, The blood of China, When Silence Kills, in collaboration with Pierre Haski. In 2007, Bertrand won the annual Niépce prize. A more comprehensive and definitive collection of the work from China has just been published as a book by EXB Editions entitled Erased and a corresponding solo exhibition of the work is currently on show at theMusée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon sur Saône until September 17th 2023 and will subsequently be shown at the museum of photography Charleroi, Belgium from 30 September 2023 to 28 January 2024. Bertrand is currently finalizing the editing of his documentary film shot in a French prison and entitled Conversations. And he has recently obtained a creation grant in Luxembourg to work on a new documentary film about an open psychiatry centre. Bertrand lives in Paris with his partner Juliette and is a member of the Tendance Fleue collective. In episode 207, Bertrand discusses, among other things: Photography as a languageHis previous life as a professional climberHow he began his longstanding relationship with ChinaCurrent book and exhibition: ErasedHis biggest achievement in ChinaMemoryHis project on his dad and familyBeing ‘lost’ trying to shoot in FranceThe importance of teaching people to read photoographsThe ‘reverse angle’His forthcoming documentary about prisoners: ConversationsHis work on psychiatric facility in LuxembourgApplying for grantsPassion Referenced: HCBThe Provoke collectiveFor a Language to Come (Kitarubeki kotoba no tame ni), by Takuma Nakahira Website “Photography is like rock climbing, yeah, you have to focus, but if you do it to make a living? It’s a bad way to make a living. You do it because it’s a passion. It’s your life.”

Featuring: Brad ZellarChris CampbellBryan SchutmaatDena EberPradip MaldeJohnny AutryTania Franco KleinJustin HerfstTim CarpenterReed KlassTodd Hido  Website | Instagram

Special report from the annual Photo London fair. Featuring: Martin Parr (Ep. 91 & 197)Dr. Claire HymanTracy Marshall GrantChris Dorley Brown (Ep. 97)James HymanSimon Roberts (Ian Parry Photojournalsim Grant) (Ep. 43)Michael BensonJillian Edelstein (KIckstarter) (Ep. 87)Gideon Mendel (Ep. 40)Alex Schneiderman  Website | Instagram

After taking a degree in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Newport, Ivor Prickett began working in Europe and the Middle East, striving to convey and denounce the effects of war on the civilian population – on the people whose lives it ravages and uproots, whatever side they may be on. Initially focused on the private, domestic sphere of war’s long-term social and humanitarian consequences, Ivor’s gaze has shifted over the years towards places of forced migration and lands where people seek refuge, and then to the front lines of combat zones. His early projects focused on stories of displaced people throughout the Balkans and Caucasus. Based in the Middle East since 2009, Ivor documented the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt and Libya, working simultaneously on editorial assignments and his own long term projects. In 2012 he was selected for the World Press Photo Joop swart Masterclass, named as a FOAM Talent and selected by PDN for their 30 under 30 list.  Travelling to more than ten countries between 2012 and 2015 Ivor documented the Syrian refugee crisis in the region as well as Europe, working closely in collaboration with UNHCR to produce a comprehensive study of the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history.  Most recently Ivor’s work has focused on the fight to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Ultimately working exclusively for the The New York Times he spent months on the ground, particularly covering the Battle of Mosul, reporting in both words and pictures. His work in Iraq and Syria has earned him multiple World Press Photo Awards and in 2018 he was named as a Pulitzer finalist. The entire body of work titled End of the Caliphatewas released as a book by renowned German publisher Steidl in June 2019.  Ivor’s work has been recognised through a number of prestigious awards including The World Press Photo, The Pulitzer Prizes, The Overseas Press Club Awards, Pictures of the Year International, The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and The Ian Parry Scholarship. Most recently he was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet 2019 cycle and his work is currently touring the globe as part of the group exhibition.  His pictures have been exhibited widely at institutions such as The Victoria and Albert Museum, Sothebys, Foam Gallery and The National Portrait Gallery, London and he currently has a major solo show at Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy, In conjunction with the 2023 Fotografia Europea festival, for which the theme is Europe Matters: Visions of a Restless Identity. Ivor’s show and the corresponding book is entitled No Home from War: Tales of Survival and Loss and features over fifty photographs taken in conflict zones from 2006 to 2022. It is the the largest show of Ivor’s work to date, the first in italy, and it will be up until 30th July 2023. Ivor is represented by Panos Pictures in London and he is a European Canon Ambassador.   In episode 203, Ivor discusses, among other things: His route to Newport and what he got from going there.How he got started and his strategy to get his work seen.Arab Spring 2011 and the lessons learned from that.Branching out and needing to get closer to the source.Mosul.The NYT and being asked to write.Going through times of wanting to quit.What keeps him doing it.Is an art gallery the right place for pho

Working within the documentary tradition, Stacy Kranitz makes photographs that acknowledge the limits of photographic representation. Her images do not tell the “truth” but are honest about their inherent shortcomings, and thus reclaim these failures (exoticism, ambiguity, fetishization) as sympathetic equivalents in order to more forcefully convey the complexity and instability of the lives, places, and moments they depict. Stacy was born in Kentucky and currently lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee. She is a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. Additional awards include the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography (2017), a Southern Documentary Fund Research and Development grant (2020), a Puffin Foundation grant (2022), and a Center for Documentation Fellowship (2023). Her work was shortlisted for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award (2019). She has presented solo exhibitions of her photographs at the Diffusion Festival of Photography in Cardiff, Wales (2015), the Rencontres d’Arles in Arles, France, the Cortona on the Move festival in Cortona, Italy (2022) and the Tennessee Triennial (2023) Her photographs are in several public collections including the Harvard Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, and Duke Universities, Archive of Documentary Arts. Stacy works as an assignment photographer for such publications as Time, National Geographic, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic and Mother Jones. Her first monograph, As it Was Give(n) To Me, was published by Twin Palms in 2022 and was shortlisted for a Paris Photo - Aperture First Photobook Award.   In episode 202, Stacy discusses, among other things: Her ‘awful’ childhoodHer interest in the grey areasViolence as catharsisWhy she was dissatisfied with her early work……and what she did about itHow she ‘accidentally’ ended up living in her car for 3.5 yearsBlurring her professional and personal livesHow she came to work in AppalachiaThe title of her book, As it Was Give(n) To MeThe mythology of Daniel BooneWhy she included self-portraits in the bookPlaying with stereotypes and representation in her imagesHer grant writing endeavoursHer next project in AppalachiaThe challenges of editing the bookThe long term nature of her projects   Referenced: Harry CottleThe FSAJack Woody   Website | Instagram “The camera for me is a connector. It connects me to people. And I always knew that if I hadn’t been a photographer, especially an editorial photographer where you’re sent out to all these different places, that I would be a very unhealthy hermit and I would just wither away. (Which isn’t even logical, but that’s how I felt). So the camera is a lifeline for me.”

Igor Posner was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). After the fall of the Soviet Union, he moved to California in the early 90s. He studied molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he first started to take pictures and experiment in the darkroom. Initial infatuation with picture-taking led Igor to explore the silent and haunting experience of walking after dark on the streets of Los Angeles and Tijuana. In a collision between social and typical with personal and psychological, this first series of images “Nonesuch Records” savors the strange solitude of the enigmatic region between California and Mexico; amid the streets, bars, night shelter hotels, and disappearing nocturnal figures. After 14 years, Igor returned to St. Petersburg in 2006, taking up photography full time, which led to his first book Past Perfect Continuous, published by Red Hook Editions in 2017. In 2022, Igor published his second monograph, entitled, Cargó. The book is a visual exloration of psychological aspects of migration and the gradual disappearance of neighborhoods based on immigrant communities in North America. Igor is currently based in New York and in 2021 he joined Brooklyn-based independent publishing company Red Hook Editions as a managing partner.  Igor’s work has been shown in North America, Europe, Russia, and Southeast Asia and he has been a member of Prospekt Photographers since 2011. In episode 202, Igor discusses, among other things: Growing up in St. PetersburgMoving to the USABeing gifted a camera by his motherThe New York Photo LeagueShooting in LAThe ‘language’ he employs intuitivelyReturning to RussiaFirst attempts at editing being a ‘total failure’Brighton Beach and his second book, Cargo.The themes associated with the bookCommercial workSocial media Referenced: Anders PetersenMichael AckermanAntoine D’agataRobert FrankJason Eskenazi Website | Instagram “All I wanted to do was go out there and be on the street and just photograph. It was an incredible sense of freedom and liberation for the first time in my life of not going from point A to point B. That’s what photography gives you because you have to be open to everything that’s around you. All of a sudden I started just looking at things. That’s a very trivial thing to say, but to me it felt like something I’ve never experienced before or at least not since my early childhood.”

Antoine D'Agata is a French photographer and film director and a full member of Magnum Photos. His photographic subjects have mostly been those on the fringes of society and his work deals with topics often considered taboo, such as addiction, sex, personal obsessions, darkness, and prostitution. Born in Marseilles in 1961, Antoine left France in his early 20s and remained overseas for the next ten years. Finding himself in New York in 1990, he pursued an interest in photography by taking courses at the International Center of Photography, where his teachers included Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. During his time in New York, Antoine worked as an intern in the editorial department of Magnum Photos, but after his return to France in 1993, he took a four-year break from photography. His first books of photographs, De Mala Muerte, and Mala Noche, were published in 1998, and the following year Galerie Vu began distributing his work. In 2001, he published Hometown and won the Niépce Prize for young photographers. He continued to publish regularly: Vortex and Insomnia appeared in 2003, accompanying his exhibition 1001 Nuits, which opened in Paris in September; Stigma was published in 2004, and Manifeste in 2005. Since 2005 Antoine d’Agata has had no settled place of residence but has worked around the world. He is currently based in Paris. In episode 201, Antoine discusses, among other things: Wanting to become a priest at 15SacrificeMoving to LondonSituationismHis intro to photography before he took picturesBeing accepted into the ICP as a ’social experiment’Being ‘ashamed’ of having left the streetCritics not having the full factsMoments of ParoxsysmThe question for morality and ethicsQuitting photography for 4-5 yearsCambodia, his book Ice, Crystal Meth and the consequences of using itHow he manages to endure the banality of the real worldContaminationHis Covid project with a heat sensitive cameraHis commitment to and passion for teaching workshops Referenced: Luc DelahayeMoises Saman Instagram  “I didn’t want to betray in any way what I was or what I was doing, so I needed to find different ways to keep going without negating what I believed in, and photography seemed to be the only considerable way to do it…”

Based in London, Emma Hardy is well practiced in capturing the nuances of everyday life. Her images reflect an often unnoticed drama behind the scenes. Coming from a theatrical background and having worked as an actress herself before focusing on photography, Emma cites her fascination with people’s behaviour, the tensions, interactions and quirky humour, as a driving energy in her work. Mainly self-taught, Emma photographs on film, simply, with natural or available light, stating “I try not to impose much technique or too much of myself on my subjects.” As such, there’s a hallmark honesty to her work. Her images are infused with a believable sense of being, her portraits are intimate and unselfconscious. Tilda Swinton, Natalia Vodianova, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Stella McCartney have sat for her, among others. She started photographing portraits, documents and fashion for British Vogue, The Telegraph magazine, Vanity Fair, The Fader, The New York Times and Rolling Stone, among many others, and had her first solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2006 with a project titled Exceptional Youth.  Other exhibitions in London, New York and Milan followed, and she was invited to photograph a series of portraits for the London 2012 Olympics, again featured at the National Portrait Gallery. Thirty-nine of her portraits are in the permanent collection at the NPG London. In 2012 she was commissioned by Oxfam & The Economist to travel to Cambodia to document the citizens of Phnom Penh who were battling the governments land grabs—this series became an exhibition in London in 2013 titled Losing Ground, the exhibition travelled to Washington DC where the images were used as a lobbying tool to help the Cambodian situation onto the G8 summit list. Permissions, Emma’s first monograph, was published by Gost Books in November 2022.  Some of the images were exhibited at 1014 Gallery in Dalston, London, December 2022 - January 2023. Describing her aesthetic as raw but tender, Emma finds beauty in imperfection, and polish in the detail of everyday life. And through her lens, the most ordinary moments seem steeped in romance and intrigue, as if her subjects are characters in a movie playing in her head. On episode 200, Emma discusses, among other things: Is art more pure if it’s done for the joy of it?Beauty and lyricismChildhood feelings of being an outsiderTaking pictures of her children from an early ageTrying to transmit how she felt in her workThe inclusion of still lifes of flowersWhy she started to photograph her mumThe issue of permission and consentHow the way she shot changed over time Referenced: Nan GoldinRichard BillinghamNick WaplingtonVivian Maier4000 Weeks by Oliver BurkemanStuart SmithStephen Ledger-LomasNiall Sweeney  Website | Instagram “When things line up, when life or the u

Nick Brandt’s photographic series always relate to the devastating impact that humankind is having on both the rapidly disappearing natural world and now on itself, as a result of environmental destruction, climate change and human actions. In the East African trilogy, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across The Ravaged Land (2001-2012), Nick established a style of portrait photography of animals in the wild similar to that of humans in a studio setting, shooting on medium format film, and attempting to portray animals as sentient creatures not so different from us. In Inherit the Dust (2016), Nick photographed in places in East Africa where the animals used to roam. In each location, life size panels of unreleased animal portrait photographs were erected, setting the panels within a world of explosive human development. It is not just the animals who are the victims in this out of control world, but also the humans. Photographed in color, This Empty World (2019) addresses the escalating destruction of the East African natural world at the hands of humans, showing a world where, overwhelmed by runaway development, there is no longer space for animals to survive. The people in the photos are also often helplessly swept along by the relentless tide of ‘progress’. Each image is a combination of two moments in time shot from the exact same camera position, once with wild animals that enter the frame, after which a set is built and a cast of people drawn from local communities. The Day May Break (2021) is the first part of a global series portraying people & animals impacted by environmental destruction. Photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya, the people in the photos have all been badly affected by climate change - displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, displaced & impoverished after years-long severe droughts. The photos were taken at 5 sanctuaries/conservancies. The animals are almost all long-term rescues, due to everything from poaching of their parents to habitat destruction & poisoning. These animals can never be released back into the wild. Now habituated, it was therefore safe for strangers to be photographed close to the animals in the same frame. Nick has had solo gallery and museum shows around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Paris and Los Angeles. All the series are published in book form. Born and raised in London, where he originally studied Painting and Film, Nick now lives in the southern Californian mountains. In 2010, Nick co-founded Big Life Foundation, a non-profit in Kenya/Tanzania employing more than 300 local rangers protecting 1.6 million acres of the Amboseli/Kilimanjaro ecosystem. On episode 199, Nick discusses, among other things: Why he moved to the USAHis 18 ‘wasted’ years making filmsHis first trilogy of projects: On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across The Ravaged Land Having a niche that enabled him to start making a livingOnly taking photographs to exist on printsInherit the DustGoing in to each project both ‘excited and scared shitless’This Empty WorldThe Day May BreakHow he was personally impacted by wild fires at home in CaliforniaThe story of Kuda and Sky II<li

Gregory Crewdson’s photographs have entered the American visual lexicon, taking their place alongside the paintings of Edward Hopper and the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch as indelible evocations of a silent psychological interzone between the everyday and the uncanny. Often working with a large team, Crewdson typically plans each image with meticulous attention to detail, orchestrating light, color, and production design to conjure dreamlike scenes infused with mystery and suspense. While the small-town settings of many of Crewdson’s images are broadly familiar, he is careful to avoid signifiers of identifiable sites and moments, establishing a world outside time. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Crewdson is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and the Yale University School of Art, where he is now director of graduate studies in photography. He lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. In a career spanning more than three decades, he has produced a succession of widely acclaimed bodies of work, from Natural Wonder (1992–97) to Cathedral of the Pines (2013–14). Beneath the Roses (2003–08), a series of pictures that took nearly ten years to complete—and which employed a crew of more than one hundred people—was the subject of the 2012 feature documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, by Ben Shapiro. Crewdson’s emblematic series Twilight (1998–2002) ushers the viewer into a nocturnal arena of alienation and desire that is at once forbidding and darkly magnetic. In these lush photographs, the elements intervene unexpectedly and alarmingly into suburban domestic space. Crewdson’s psychological realism is tempered in these images by their heightened theatricality, while themes of memory and imagination, the banal and the fantastic, function in concert with a narrative of pain and redemption that runs through American history and its picturing. Cathedral of the Pines, which was first exhibited at Gagosian in New York in 2016, depicts unnamed figures situated in the forests around the town of Becket, Massachusetts. In scenes that evoke nineteenth-century American and European history paintings, the works’ subjects appear traumatized by mysterious events or suspended in a fugue state. Working with a small crew to maintain an intimate and immediate atmosphere, the artist also used people close to him as models. But even once we know who “plays” the protagonists, their actions remain cryptic and their relationships unclear. “There are no answers here,” states the artist, “only questions.” The 2018–19 series An Eclipse of Moths is set amid down-at-heel postindustrial locations including an abandoned factory and a disused taxi depot. They serve as backdrops for Crewdson’s enigmatic dramas of decay and potential rebirth. Gregory’s most recent body of work, Eveningside (2021-2022), was shot in B&W and formed the centrepiece of a retrospective trilogy of work, alongside Cathedral of the Pines and An Eclipse of Moths, in a major exhibition at Galerie D’Italia in Turin from October 2022 until January 2023. A older series called Fireflies (1996) was also included as ‘both connective tissue and counterpoint…’. A book, also entitled Eveningside, was published to accompany the show. On episode 198, Gregory discusse

Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952), the man who the Daily Telegraph declared to be, “arguably Britain’s greatest living photographer” is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world. His major projects have been rural communities (1975–1982), The Last Resort (1983–1985), The Cost of Living (1987–1989), Small World (1987–1994) and Common Sense (1995–1999). Since 1994, Martin has been a member of Magnum Photos, where he scraped in by one vote and where between 2013 and 2017 he served as President. His work has been published in numerous photobooks, over 120 of his own, and he has exhibited prolifically throughout his career. In 2017 the Martin Parr Foundation was opened in Bristol. The MPF is as a gallery and archive and research resource dedicated to both preserving the Martin’s photographic legacy and to supporting emerging, established and overlooked photographers who have made and continue to make work focused on the British Isles. Since his first A Small Voice appearance on Episode 91 of the podcast in October 2018, Martin has had a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which opened in March 2019. Entitled Only Human, the show included portraits from around the world, with a special focus on Britishness, explored through a series of projects that investigated British identity. Also since that episode Martin was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in June, 2021. Martin’s latest book, A Year in the Life of Chew Stoke Village was released in September 2022 by RRB Books. On episode 197, Martin discusses, among other things: Influence of his methodist grandfather… and peers at ManchesterEarly experiences in Hebdon BridgeThe move to Ireland - From the Pope to a Flat WhiteLiverpool and the controversy around The Last Resort workBristol and Bath - The Cost of LivingBeing blown away by his first experience of ArlesJoining Magnum amidst disapproval from the old guardSmall WorldA Year in the Life of Chew Stoke VillageSigns of the TimesCommon SenseThe work of the Martin Parr FoundationGood work and bad work Referenced:Robert DoisneauBill BrandtRobert FrankGarry WinograndAlan MurgatroydBrian GriffinDaniel MeadowsAlbert Street WorkshopFintan O’ToolePeter FraserPeter MitchellTom WoodAnna FoxKen GrantDavid MooreJohn HindePhilip Jones GriffithsHenri Cartier-BressonBoris MikhailovKrass Clement Martin: Website | Instagram | Episode 91 | Chew Stoke book MPF: <a href="https:

Photographer, writer, and filmmaker, Eugene Richards,was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1944. After graduating from Northeastern University with a degree in English, he studied photography with Minor White. In 1968, he joined VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America, a government program established as an arm of the so-called” War on Poverty.”  Following a year and a half in eastern Arkansas, Eugene helped found a social service organization and a community newspaper, Many Voices, which reported on black political action as well as the Ku Klux Klan.  Photographs he made during these four years were published in his first monograph, Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta. Upon returning to Dorchester, Eugene began to document the changing, racially diverse neighborhood where he was born.  After being invited to join Magnum Photos in 1978, he worked increasingly as a freelance magazine photographer, undertaking assignments on such diverse topics as the American family, drug addiction, emergency medicine, pediatric AIDS, aging and death in America.  In 1992, he directed and shot Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, the first of seven short films he would eventually make. Eugene has authored sixteen books and his photographs have been collected into three comprehensive monographs. Exploding Into Life, which chronicles his first wife Dorothea Lynch’s struggle with breast cancer, received Nikon's Book of the Year award. For Below The Line: Living Poor in America, his documentation of urban and rural poverty, Eugene received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography. The Knife & Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room received an Award of Excellence from the American College of Emergency Physicians. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, an extensive reportorial on the effects of hardcore drug usage, received the Kraszna-Krausz Award for Photographic Innovation in Books. That same year, Americans We was the recipient of the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award for Best Photographic Book. In 2005, Pictures of the Year International choseThe Fat Baby, an anthology of fifteen photographic essays, Best Book of the year. Eugene’s most recent books include The Blue Room, a study of abandoned houses in rural America; War Is Personal, an assessment in words and pictures of the human consequences of the Iraq war; and Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down, a remembrance of life on the Arkansas Delta. Eugene has won just about every major award that exists for documentary photography including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, the Leica Medal of Excellence and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, among many others. His new self-published book, In This Brief Life, due for release in September 2023, features over fifty years of mostly unseen photographs, from his earliest pictures of sharecropper life in the Arkansas Delta throughout his lifetime as a photographer. On episode 196, Eugene discusses, among other things: The recent political landscape in the USA.<

Aaron Schuman is an American photographer, writer, curator and educator based in the UK. He received a BFA in Photography and History of Art from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1999, and an MA in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the University of London: London Consortium at Birkbeck College in 2003. Aaron is the author of several critically-acclaimed monographs: Sonata, published by Mack in the summer of 2022; Slant, published by Mack, which was cited as one of 2019's "Best Photobooks" by numerous photographers, critics and publications, and Folk, published by NB Books, which also was cited as one of 2016's "Best Photobooks" by numerous people, and was long-listed for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2017. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in many public and private collections. In addition to to his own photographic work, Aaron has contributed essays, interviews, texts and photographs to many other books and monographs. He has also written and photographed for a wide variety of journals, magazines and publications, such as Aperture, Foam, ArtReview, Frieze, Magnum Online, Hotshoe, The British Journal of Photography and more. Aaron has curated several major international festivals and exhibitions, was the founder and editor of the online photography journal, SeeSaw Magazine (2004-2014) and is Associate Professor in Photography and Visual Culture, and the founder and Programme Leader of the MA/Masters in Photography programme, at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). On episode 195, Aaron discusses, among other things: SeeSaw MagazineHow he fell into curating……And then teachingEarly interest in documentary photographyWriting to Richard AvedonTakeaways from working for Annie LeibowitzImpact of Wolgang Tilmans Turner Prize show……And the experience of printing for himHow his writing had an important influence on his photographyGetting the balance backFirst book, FolkSlantSonata - trying to see the world through clear, fresh eyes Referenced: Richard AvedonAnnie LeibowitzWolgang TilmansCartier BressonBruce Davidson “I’m not interested in necessarily making explicitly autobiographical work in a kind of diaristic sense, but I am interested in infusing what I do with something that’s coming from me. It’s a question I ask my students all the time, you know, ‘this is a really good idea for a project but why are you the person to make this project? What do you have to bring to this?’ Because, yes, the subject matter itself might be compelling but if you’re just doing it in the way that I did with the Tibetan monks, that it’s been done a million times before, it’s not addding anything to the culture - we already have those pictures.”

The traditional year-end summary of all the brilliant photographers who had a chat with me on the podcast in 2022. Happy new year! Alison McCauleyRobert GumpertMimi PlumbPeter FraserEva VoutsakiJem SouthamPatrick BrownAlba ZariPradip MaldeLewis BushGreg WilliamsJoanne CoatesRich Joseph-FacunSam JonesBryan SchutmaatKavi PujaraBen BrodyAnastasia SamoylovaStephen ShorePaddy Summerfield

Paddy Summerfield (born 1947) is a British fine art photographer who has lived and worked in Oxford in the UK all his life. Paddy is known for his evocative series’ of black and white images, shot on 35mm film, which co-opt the traditional genre of documentary photography to realise a more personal and inward looking vision. He has said his photographs are exclusively about abandonment and loss. After taking an Art Foundation course at the Oxford Polytechnic, Summerfield attended Guildford School of Art, studying firstly in the Photography Department, then joining the Film department the following year. In 1967, when still a first-year student, he made photographs that appeared in 1970 in Bill Jay's magazine Album. Between 1968 and 1978, Paddy documented Oxford University students in the summer terms. His pictures published in Creative Camera, and on its cover in January 1974, were recognised as psychological and expressionist, unusual in an era of journalistic and documentary photography. Throughout his life, Paddy has focused on making photographic essays that are personal documents. From 1997 to 2007 he photographed his parents, his mother with Alzheimer's disease and his father caring for her. A book of the work entitled Mother and Father was published by Dewi Lewis, as have been all of Paddy’s other books: Empty Days, The Holiday Pictures, Home Movie and The Oxford Pictures. Next Spring there will be an exhibition at North Wall as part of the Photo Oxford Festival (April 18 - 7 May 2023) of Pictures From The Garden a project in which seven photographers - Vanessa Winship, Alys Tomlinson, Matthew Finn, Nik Roche, Sian Davey, Jem Southam and Alex Schneideman - have made work in response to Paddy’s Mother and Father project, with a corresponding book published by, of course, Dewi Lewis. On episode 193, Paddy discusses, among other things: The current Pictures From The Garden projectMother and Father ‘proper work’Early years: sister and boarding schoolAbandonment and loss but always ending on hopeAll his books being autobiograhicalOxford PicturesEmpty DaysDocumentary - personal documentSeaside photographs Referenced: Gerry BadgerAshmolean MuseumDewi LewisSamuel Palmer Sir Nick Serota Website | Instagram “You try and capture the world don’t you? You try and hold on to something. But it’s more than that - you want to capture an emotion, something that’s strong and lingering and grabbing hold of your interior life. I think that’s what I do, that’s what I WANT to do - create the emotion.”

Stephen Shore's work has been widely published and exhibited for the past forty-five years. He was the first living photographer to have a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since Alfred Stieglitz, forty years earlier. He has also had one-man shows at George Eastman House, Rochester; Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Jeu de Paume, Paris; and Art Institute of Chicago. In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art opened a major retrospective spanning Stephen Shore's entire career. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His series of exhibitions at Light Gallery in New York in the early 1970s sparked new interest in color photography and in the use of the view camera for documentary work. More than 25 books have been published of Stephen Shore's photographs including Uncommon Places: The Complete Works; American Surfaces; Stephen Shore, a retrospective monograph in Phaidon's Contemporary Artists series; Stephen Shore: Survey and most recently, Transparencies: Small Camera Works 1971-1979 and Stephen Shore: Elements. In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art published Stephen Shore in conjunction with their retrospective of his photographic career. Stephen also wrote The Nature of Photographs, published by Phaidon Press, which addresses how a photograph functions visually. His work is represented by 303 Gallery, New York; and Sprüth Magers, London and Berlin. Since 1982 he has been the director of the Photography Program at Bard College, NY, where he is the Susan Weber Professor in the Arts. His new book, Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography. A Memoir, was published by Mack Books in 2021. On episode 192, Stephen discusses, among other things: How the new book came aboutHow it differs from previous book, The Nature of Photographs.Artist’s superstition over discussing the creative processThe importance of experimentationShowing and not explainingPhotography as a ‘generous medium’Creating the book as an ‘experience’Structure vs. compositionInclusion vs. exclusionMastering the discipline - 3 phasesDoes he believe in The Muse?Being attentive in the midst of lifeWorking with a performance coachThe influence of paintings… and Walker EvansThe nature (and importance) of ambitionGetting a solo show at The Met, aged 23Sustaining driveHis interest in drone photography… and InstagramThe day he realised the 8x10 camera was for him Referenced: The Nature of PhotographsLee FriedlanderGarry WinograndBruno BettelheimRichard AvedonJerry GoldsmithGregory CrewdsonGeorge EliotWalker Evans Web

Anastasia Samoylova (b. 1984, USSR) is an American artist who moves between observational photography and studio practice. Her work explores notions of environmentalism, consumerism and the picturesque. Recent exhibitions include Eastman Museum; Chrysler Museum of Art; The Photographer's Gallery; Kunst Haus Wien; HistoryMiami Museum; and Museum of Fine Arts, Le Locle. In 2022 Anastasia was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Her work is in the collections at the Perez Art Museum Miami and Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, among others. Published monographs include Floridas (Steidl, 2022) and FloodZone (Steidl, 2019), with her latest work, Image Cities, forthcoming as a book and exhibition in 2023. On episode 191, Anastasia discusses, among other things: Recent hurricaneForthcoming book and exhibition project, Image CitiesHer abiding interest in collageAdding vs. reducing - abstracting the worldFlorida and her FloodZone bookHer perspective on the climate emergency: alarmist but not defeatistWhy she ended up living in MiamiHow she came to start making picturesThe distinctive Florida colour paletteThe Floridas bookClimate anxiety - and other typesHaving a strong work ethic Referenced: Stephen ShoreEugène AtgetJacques TatiMies van der RoheAnsel AdamsWalker EvansDavid CampanyAlec SothWilliam EgglestonAlexander RodchenkoVarvara Stepanova   Website | Instagram   “The key impulse here is the sense of gratitude for being able to do what I’ve always known I wanted to do, and feeling zero entitlement to this. It’s an immense privilege to be in this line of work.”

Featuring: Tom Booth WoodgerCraig EastonAaron SchumannRoger DeakinsKeith Cullen from Setanta BooksMartin Amis from photobookstore.co.uk and Photo EditionsTom Broadbent from The Photobook Club CollectiveAndi Galdi VinkoMartin ParrMatthew KillipChilli PowerSam BinyminAlys TomlinsonMatt Martin from Photobook Cafe   Instagram  | Martin Parr Foundation |  Royal Photographic Society

Ben Brody is an independent photographer, educator, and picture editor working on long-form projects related to the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their aftermath. He is the Director of Photography for The GroundTruth Project and Report for America, and a co-founder of Mass Books. His first book, Attention Servicemember, was shortlisted for the 2019 Aperture - Paris Photo First Book Award and is now in its second edition. Ben holds an MFA from Hartford Art School's International Low-Residency Photography program. He resides in western Massachusetts.   On episode 189, Ben discusses, among other things: How he got into photography.How 9/11 influenced his decision to join the army.The mandate he was given by his superiors.Reappropriating the reappropriated.How the media’s portrayal of war becomes a ‘feedback loop’.Vernacular vs. ‘professional’ images of war, as exemplified by Abu Ghraib.Why he went to Afghanistan as a civilian photographer.Circumventing the restrictions of the embed program.His new book 300M and how it came about. Referenced: Kurt Vonnergut, Slaughterhouse FiveEd ClarkJoe SaccoShabana Basij-Rasikh Website | Instagram | Books | 300m (video) “I felt like there was a space in culture to make a photobook that was narrated by a totally ordinary soldier, who was not some scary CAG operator or CIA spook. And also by a pretty ordinary photographer, not like a famous photographer with a storied history who’s really invested in a cult of personal celebrity. When I made Attention Service Member and now 300M, which is almost like an epilogue to Service Member, I had the luxury of having probably seventy five photobooks already about the global war on terror that had come out before me. So I was able to analyse those books and assess, ‘what hasn’t been done before?’”

Kavi Pujara (born Leicester, 1972) is a self-taught photographer. He has a BSc in Software Engineering and an MA in Screenwriting and he works as a film editor for the BBC alongside independently making personal, long-term documentary photo projects. His work has been included in the touring group exhibition Facing Britain, he was also one of the winners in the British Journal of Photography, Portrait of Britain 2020 and was the recipient of a Martin Parr Foundation photographic bursary in 2020. Two of his portraits have also this year been selected for the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition and will be on display in London from 27 October - 18 December 2022. His first book project, published by Setanta Books, is This Golden Mile. Photographed against the backdrop of Brexit, the Windrush scandal, and a government intent on reducing net migration, Kavi documents Indian migration to Leicester, where he was born, exploring themes of identity, home and Britishness. An exhibition of the work will open next weekend at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol.   On episode 188, Kavi discusses, among other things: His family historyGrowing up in LeicesterExperiences of racism growing up and on TVEscaping Leicester to do a degree and discover music and booksDiscovering cinema and film editingHis experience of screenwritingWinning the MPF bursaryHow moving back and the Brexit vote inspired This Golden MilePatriotism towards the UK amongst his parent’s generation of immigrantsThe process of making the pictures for This Golden MileThe Nationality and Borders ActThe value of having the mentorship of Martin Parr……and the two most important nuggets he imparted. Referenced: Joel MeyorwitzMike MuschampTony Ray-JonesGarry WinograndDario MitidieriAsif KapadiaSmoking In Bed: Conversations with Bruce RobinsonKalpesh LathigraSathnam SangheraSian DaveyKeith CullenJason Taylor   Website | Instagram “The spark [for the project] came from that moment of relocating back to Leicester and within two weeks of that was the EU referendum result. Both of those moments, the personal and the political were in the space of a few weeks and I wanted to use photography to reconnect with the community I grew up in…but it was impossible to ignore t

Bryan Schutmaat is an American photographer based in Austin, Texas whose work has been widely exhibited and published. He has won numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the Aperture Portfolio Prize, and an Aaron Siskind Fellowship. Bryan’s prints are held in many collections, such as Baltimore Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Pier 24 Photography, Rijksmuseum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. With his friend and fellow photographer Matthew Genitempo, he co-founded the imprint, Trespasser. On episode 187, Bryan discusses, among other things: How Grays The Mountain Sends was influenced by poet Richard Hugo and the landscape of Montana and the American west.The connection between the state a person is from and the sterotype of what that meansWhy the American west ‘breaks his heart’How his dad shaped his view of the working classFinding the commonalities between people and placeGood Goddamn and the freedom of switching to 35mm from large formatThe close relationship between photography and poetryPunk rock ethos as applied to TrespasserHis experience of the Hertford MFA programThe pros and cons of talking about your work as an artistVesselsNFTs Referenced: Richard HugoWallace StegnaGeoff DyerThe 25th HourTownes van ZandtWillie NelsonNelson ChanMike MillsSpike JonzeMinor ThreatSalad Days (documentary)Matthew GenitempoJohn CassavettesFive Easy PiecesJ CarrierTim CarpenterCarl WooleyRobert LyonsMary FryAlec SothJustine KurlandLois ConnorRobert AdamsIngmar BergmanNomadlandThe Thin Red LineSaving Private RyanThe Grapes of WrathPablo CabadoLeon BridgesAbigail Varney Website | Instagram “I think in this new space of iPhones and NFTs - I’m looking down at my iPhone right now - that’s just an undignied way to look at photographs you’ve put a lot of time and effort into. So the pictures on my website of installation shots or of books are just to remind people that what you’re looking at on screen is a very compromised version of what these pictures oughta be… it’s basically telling the viewer that, if you can, I would like this website to be a stepping stone to experience the book or the exhibition. It’s just sort of attempting to remind people that prints and physical tactile things matter in this digital age. So I don’t want to see that lost.”

Sam Jones is an acclaimed American photographer and director whose portraits of President Obama, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Bob Dylan, Kristin Stewart, Robert Downey Jr, Amy Adams, Jack Nicholson, and many others have appeared on the covers of Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, Time, Entertainment Weekly and Men’s Journal. His collection of candid celebrity portraiture, The Here And Now: The Photographs of Sam Jones, was published by Harper Collins. Other published works include Non-Fiction, a collection of cinematic portraiture, and Some Where Else, a photographic book and musical collaboration with musician Blake Mills. Sam is also an acclaimed director, creating numerous national commercials for Skype, Sonos, Canon, Target, Dove and many others. He is a sought after music video director who won MTV’s music video of the year for Foo Fighters Walk. He has directed videos for Mumford and Sons, Tom Petty, John Mayer, and many others. He also directed the multi-award winning interactive video for Cold War Kids’ I’ve Seen Enough. In 2013 Sam launched Off Camera with Sam Jones on Directv’s Audience Network. Off Camera is an hour long show created out of his passion for long form conversational interviews. Via worldwide broadcast, online magazine, and podcast, Jones shares his conversations with the artists, actors, and musicians who fascinate and inspire him most. Robert Downey Jr., Sarah Silverman, Dave Grohl, Laura Dern, Tony Hawk, Matt Damon and Will Ferrell have all appeared on the show. Sam directed the feature length Showtime Documentary Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued, a film that reexamines Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes and documents new recordings of lost Dylan lyrics by Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford and others in Capitol Records Studios. The film features Bob Dylan as narrator, and documents the exciting collaboration between some of the most successful current artists in music and a 26-year-old Bob Dylan. The film premiered on Showtime Networks. In 2002, Sam started his feature-length documentary career with I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, which chronicles beloved indie-rock band Wilco’s tumultuous recording of their acclaimed fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and his most recent feature length documentary, Until The Wheels Fall Off, a portrait of the life and career of legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk, was released earlier this year. Sam lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters.   On episode 186, Sam discusses, among other things: The unholy trinity of skateboarding, bands and zines.Finishing what you started.The amazing saga of his documentary about the band Wilco, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.How the town he grew up in, Fullerton, California, influenced his path in unexpected ways.Photography seeming like the safe choice.Confidence.The shift that occurred as he gained experience.His TV show / podcast, Off Camera and what he learned from doing it.The societal change in the way we see famous people.His documentary about skateboarder Tony Hawk, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt

Rich Joseph-Facun is a photographer of Indigenous Mexican and Filipino descent. His work aims to offer an authentic look into endangered, bygone, and fringe cultures—those transitions in time where places fade but people persist. The exploration of place, community and cultural identity present themselves as a common denominator in both his life and photographic endeavors. Before finding “home” in the Appalachian Foothills of southeast Ohio, Rich roamed the globe for 15 years working as a photojournalist. During that time he was sent on assignment to over a dozen countries, and for three of those years he was based in the United Arab Emirates. His photography has been commissioned by various publications, including NPR, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian (UK), among others. Additionally, Rich’s work has been recognized by Photolucida’s Critical Mass, CNN, Juxtapoz, British Journal of Photography, The Washington Post and Pictures of the Year International.  In 2021 his first monograph Black Diamonds was released by Fall Line Press. The work is a visual exploration of the former coal mining boom towns of SE Ohio, Appalachia. Subsequently, it was highlighted by Charcoal Book Club as their “Book-Of-The-Month.” Black Diamonds is also part of the permanent collection at the Frederick and Kazuko Harris Fine Arts Library and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s Research Library. Having successfully run a kickstarter campaign which met the target funding, Rich is currently in the process of producing his next monograph Little Cities, slated to be released in Autumn 2022 by Little Oak Press. The work examines how both Indigenous peoples and descendants of settler colonialists inhabited and utilized the land around them.  On episode 185, Rich discusses, among other things: Where he lives in Millfield, ohioBecoming a dad at 17His journey into photographyLiving in the UAEHow he ended up living in rural OhioThe origins of the project Black DiamondsBeing a person of colour in the U.S. during the Trump yearsAppalachia and its attendent photographic clichésHis latest book Little CitiesWhy doing a book without people in it is ‘scary’.The Bubble - a possible 3rd part of a trilogy “I was feeling great about the community. I was super excited about it, every day going out and making images. Everything was resonating with me. It was like being in a Disney movie and all the birds were chirping…”

Joanne Coates is an English, working class documentary photographer based in North Yorkshire, interested in rurality, hidden histories and class. She was born in the rural North of England, educated first in working class alternative communities, then at The Sir John Cass School of Fine Art and The London College of Communication from where she has a Ba Hons in Photography. Her practice is as much about process, participation and working with communities as the still image. Joanne’s work has been exhibited both in the UK and internationally. Joanne is Director of the Arts organisation Lens Think, a Social Enterprise based in Yorkshire and the North East, dedicated to making opportunities and gaining access for marginalised groups & developing photography in the North of England. Its aim is to fight for class equality and a more creative industries through participation and radical community arts. The organisation works with schools, and provides mentorships to 3 artists per year. In 2021 Joanne was a joint awardee of the Jerwood / Photoworks prize. The resulting work, The Lie of the Land, explores the social history of the land and narrates a story of gender and class in relation to the countryside of the North East of England, and will be exhibited at The Jerwood Space in London from 23 September – 10 December 2022. Her project Daughters of the Soil, about role of women in agriculture in Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, was published as a book, in a small, limited-edition print run, and is now more or less sold out. The work will be exhibited at the Vane Gallery, Gateshead from 11 August – 3 September 2022, where there will be a few remaining copies of the book available.   On episode 184, Joanne discusses, among other things: How her practice has shiftedThe Lie of The Land and Daughters of the SoilClass and why it’s important to her identity and workSocial mobilityNorthern culture and the North / South divideTall poppy syndrome and being yourselfThe importance of communityEngaging with her subjectsWhy everyone is a political photographerLens ThinkAdvantages vs. disadvantages of being based up northHer recent autism diagnosis Referenced: Nathalie OlahJo SpenceNan GoldinGregory CrewsdonThe Girls NetworkMolly DineenBecky BeasleyDisability Visibility   Website | Instagram | Twitter “I’m never gonna be that person who walks up to someone at a private view and says ‘

Featuring: Susan MeiselasKristine PotterVanessa WinshipCurran HatlebergKlavdij Sluban