PODCAST · arts
The Photowalk
by Neale James
The Photowalk is a mailbag-driven podcast where we walk and make pictures together, and meet with special guests along the trail. For anyone who likes to take pictures. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
Episodes
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#552 THE MONGOLIAN ADVENTURE SPECIAL Pt.1
This week, we're taking you to Mongolia, travelling across the vast open steppe in Russian UAZ vans, meeting nomadic families, and discovering a way of life shaped by the land, the seasons, and the animals that depend on it. Along the way, you'll find traditional Mongolian hospitality, yoghurt...
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#551 The courage to be afraid
This week, my guest is Kim Frank, an American writer, editor, photographer, filmmaker and explorer who set off for The Himalaya in 2018, determined to find a story worthy of National Geographic, despite knowing very little about the region. She discovered a growing conflict between people and...
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#550 What have we become?
Marc Asnin joins me to talk about ACT 1: A Century in the Making, an ambitious book and exhibition looking at the first twenty-five years of this century through photography. More than 100 photographers, six continents, nine major themes and work by names including Eugene Richards, Platon, David...
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#549 "I admit my addiction! and..."
My guest today is documentary photographer Ed Kashi, who returns to The Photowalk. Across a career spanning more than four decades, Ed has photographed some of the most powerful and major social and political stories of our time. We talk about the power of mature storytelling eyes, returning to...
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#548 "Photography is a powerful microphone!"
My mother kept an old biscuit tin in the larder. Inside this tin was the sort of collection that somehow accumulates over a lifetime: old coins, buttons, nuts and bolts, stamps that were no longer worth whatever was printed on them, keys that probably opened something once, and assorted little...
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#547 Twenty-five years
Twenty-five years after September 11th, a generation has grown up knowing that day through photographs, television footage and the recollections of those who were there. In this special edition, I walk with my friend, photojournalist Jason Florio, who at the time of recording, was preparing to...
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#546 Honesty, vulnerability and inspiration
There have been some extraordinary photographers walking with me on The Photowalk over the years, sharing their work, their lives, what they've learned and the reasons they continue to pick up a camera. But this programme has always belonged to you as well. Every week, photographs and stories...
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#545 Standing in the Cauldron of Passion
Passion is perhaps an overused word in photography and sport, but this week it earns its place within the show. German photographer and journalist Kai Behrmann joins me to talk about his long-term project exploring Argentina's extraordinary relationship with football and why the game runs so deep...
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#544 Being resilient in a new world
Australian travel photographer Ewen Bell has spent more than 25 years making pictures across the world, from the Himalayas and the Australian Outback to the Arctic. But what remains after all those journeys and all those photographs? Ewen joins me to talk about the why of travel. We also talk…
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#543 The day we chased the moon
Following this week's solar eclipse, which brought a partial eclipse to the UK, much of Europe and parts of North America, we return to The Photowalk archive for one of the most extraordinary stories ever told on the show. Photographer Jon Carmichael wanted to photograph a total solar eclipse…
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#542 Discovering your why
What is your why? It seems like the simplest question, and it's one I ask every guest, yet it's almost always the one that reveals the most. Why? Not just why do you make photographs, but why do you create, why do you keep going, why does any of it matter? In this special edition of The…
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#541 Stories from beside the road
We pass roadside memorials every day. A cross, a handful of fading flowers, a photograph weathered by the sun. Most of us glance at them for a moment before driving on. Photographer Miranda Remington did something different. She stopped. What began as a simple act of curiosity became a deeply...
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#540 The biggest street story in London
This week, The Photowalk explores the story of Notting Hill Carnival through the people who have lived it, photographed it and helped shape it over the decades. My lead guest is photographer Wayne Crichlow, co-author of Carnival of Resistance, a remarkable new book documenting Carnival through…
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#539 "A life worth living"
This week, the conversation with Harry Borden moves beyond the portraits that made his name and into the ideas that continue to drive him. We talk about his "why", his growing YouTube channel and the deeply personal 4 Hugs Wide project. Harry also reflects on the detached retina that changed his...
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#538 Heard. Seen. Believed.
Harry Borden has spent more than four decades photographing some of the world's most recognisable faces. His portraits of actors, musicians, business leaders and every UK Prime Minister from Margaret Thatcher onwards have appeared in publications including The Observer, The Guardian, The Sunday...
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#537 A field full of stories: SPECIAL
What makes someone spend years restoring a traction engine, collecting children's bicycles, or keeping an old British car on the road when most of us would have given up long ago? This week, The Photowalk heads to the Dene Rally, where members of our community join me for a weekend of…
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#536 The Scottish Retreat Special 2026
This week, The Photowalk returns to the Scottish Highlands for a special show recorded during our latest 2026 retreat in Scotland. Together, we follow the Black Water as it gathers pace through the woodland gorge at Rogie Falls, find historic scenes in Cromarty, explore the wartime shoreline of...
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#535 The art of absolute patience
This week, The Photowalk heads indoors to the Highland Print Studio in Inverness for an experience that's a world away from the instant gratification of modern photography. Over two days, we learn the centuries-old art of polymer photogravure, transforming digital photographs into richly textured...
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#534 Two Scots, Two Stories
While I'm away in Scotland leading the Scotland 2026 retreat, I thought it would be fitting to bring you a special edition from The Photowalk archive. So, it's an interview-only special where I'm revisiting two conversations with Scottish photographers whose work has left a lasting impression on...
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#533 Welcome aboard the TIME MACHINE
This week on The Photowalk podcast, I'm joined by photographer and collector Tim Rice, whose remarkable archive of cameras, lenses, film stocks and photographic memorabilia has become something of a museum dedicated to photography's past. From rare equipment to historically important oddities, we...
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#532 Finding solace in the symphony of sunrise
This week's guest is Paul Sanders, who returns after a long absence to talk about his latest move to seek 'still'. Paul spent years operating at the sharp end of British newspaper photography as Picture Editor of The Times, living among relentless deadlines, pressure, and the pursuit of…
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#531 "Failing is a big part of photography, I LOVE to fail!"
This week's guest is American photographer Tim Rice, whose career has covered everything from social photography and headshots to branding and commercial work, the sort of varied, real-world photography that has supported generations of working professionals behind the camera. Tim began his…
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#530 Sean Tucker on writing: What pictures cannot say
I'm joined by photographer, writer and philosophical YouTuber Sean Tucker for a conversation about writing as a creative act; a way of noticing, a way of understanding yourself, and perhaps even a way of staying awake to life. What began as a listener letter about creative block and photography…
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#529 "Don't ever lose these pictures"
Today I feature Fran May, a British photographer whose black-and-white work from the 1970s captures a version of Britain that has largely vanished: northern towns, street markets, pubs, kids playing out, and Brick Lane in London. What makes the photographs remarkable is how unforced they feel....
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#528 Mike Tyson and the pigeon
This week's guest is Paul Mobley, one of America's most accomplished portrait photographers, a man who has spent his career looking people in the eye to tell their stories through photography. He trained under Annie Leibovitz in New York, went on to shoot for some of the biggest names in...
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#527 A society of the Endless Image
This week's guest is Ruth Guest, a photographer and cyberpsychologist who's spent a lot of time thinking about what's really going on when we make pictures in a world that never seems to stop producing them. We explore the topics of losing your spark with photography, the pressure of everything…
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#526 The India Photowalk Special 2026
India is not a country that eases you in gently. It doesn't really do gentle. It's a place of somewhere between 1.4 and 1.5 billion people, the most populous nation on earth, having overtaken China in 2023, and it carries that scale in everything: the noise, the colour, the traffic, the sheer…
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#525 How to change your life profoundly
After a handful of specials, four weeks away from the studio, and a journey that took me from Austria to Bangladesh and on into India, it feels a little overdue, and very welcome, to make this a mailbag week, walking one of my favourite photowalk paths with camera and Sir Barkalot, spending a…
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#524 The Bangladesh Photowalk Special
Today, the show travels to Bangladesh. It's the first of two specials, as we visit India too in the coming weeks. Bangladesh is roughly the size of England, with a population of between 170 and 200 million people. Dhaka is one of the busiest, loudest, most relentlessly alive cities you are ever...
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#523 Long live your photo blog!
David duChemin is back for his third visit, and this time we're tackling a surprising topic: the enduring power of photography blogs. In an age of algorithms and fleeting posts, David makes a compelling case that blogs aren't dead and are thriving as vital spaces for deeper storytelling and…
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#522 Seeing slowly at the end of The Earth
David Wright returns from Antarctica with the story he promised to share with us at the start of the year. He talks of the deep stillness he encountered on his expedition as a guide, and the practicalities of photographing this vast beautiful land and seascape. David is known worldwide as an...
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#521 Just one shot, part 2
In this second part, former professional documentary photographer Giles Penfound and I are back at Penwood in Berkshire, England, to make one special single picture using 5x4, paying homage to the late Dennis Lee, an American community member who passed at the start of 2026. In this episode, you...
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#520 Just one shot, part 1
Sometimes the most profound photographs aren't made in an instant, they're cultivated over days, even weeks. In this special two-part episode, I walk with photographer Giles Penfound in Penwood in Berkshire, as he slows down to make a single large-format image of a giant tree, a portrait created…
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#519 Milestones in your life
This week, I speak with Gary Williams, a professional singer who's performed at Buckingham Palace and Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, where the late Martin Parr once photographed him. Over the last two years, Gary has built a thriving business photographing micro weddings at London's iconic town halls,...
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#518 What is a photograph?
This week, Steven Seidenberg is my guest, a photographer, philosopher, and writer whose work focuses on empty spaces, ordinary places, and the things most people pass by. His photographic books include The Architecture of Silence and Pipevalve: Berlin, and his work has been shown internationally,...
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#517 Dreaming in Photos
This week, I speak with Cathal McNaughton, a well-respected international photojournalist and Pulitzer Prize winner. We discuss his biographical film I Dream in Photos, his recent photography in Ukraine that focuses on ordinary life continuing alongside the war brought to their country, and the...
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#516 Standing where Orwell stood
This week, I talk with Craig Easton, and the conversation embraces AI, trust in photojournalism, and how a still photograph can still hold its own. But the heart of this chat sits on a Scottish island. Picture a house at the end of a single-track road, miles from anywhere, no shop, no pub, just...
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#515 Strangers when we meet
Strangers When We Meet is a street portrait project built as much on conversation as photography. In it, Tim Allen approaches people he has never met, talks with them, and then makes their portrait. Beneath that simple exchange sits a longer story about family influence and a decision to move his...
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#514 THE ONE, big pictures from 2025 Part 2
Late last Autumn, I asked you to send me one photograph you made in 2025. Not a greatest hit and not something that had done well online, just the one you kept coming back to when nobody else was watching. The one you might show a friend and say, "Yeah, this really means something." What arrived...
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#513 THE ONE, big pictures from 2025 Part 1
Before Christmas, I asked you to send me one photograph from 2025. Not necessarily what you consider to be your best, not your most liked, and not something measured against anyone else in either competition or social media terms. Just the picture that said to you, "This was my 2025." The one you...
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#512 The time it takes to be truly seen
Today's guest is Phil Sharp, a portrait photographer whose work has been on my radar for a while, and who was brought back into focus for me through a couple of prompts and a short film made by Sean Tucker. Phil's approach is considered, patient and personal. He creates a setting where people are...
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Reflections: Should I know you?
REFLECTIONS is a short-form feature within The Photowalk podcast, offering thoughtful observations on a creative life and the themes that we often discuss on Fridays, including perfectionism, impostor syndrome, comparison, confidence, and more. It's a pause at the start of the week to…
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#511 Stories hidden behind locked doors
Robert Gumpert joins me on the show from San Francisco, where he's spent decades photographing the parts of life most of us never see unless we work there, live there, or get pulled into the system. Hiring halls on the docks and the interview rooms inside the county jails have all been part of…
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Reflections: Farewell Martin Parr
REFLECTIONS is a short-form feature within The Photowalk podcast, offering thoughtful observations on a creative life and the themes that we often discuss on Fridays, including perfectionism, impostor syndrome, comparison, confidence, and more. It's a pause at the start of the week to…
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#510 The Beautiful Game
In between the letters and features, my guest today is Laura Gates, a fast-rising documentary sports photographer. We talk about the pitches where stories begin, the momentum behind the women's game, and the moments on and off the field that meet Laura's curious lens. She self-published her first...
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Reflections: Marsha
REFLECTIONS is a short-form feature within The Photowalk podcast, offering thoughtful observations on a creative life and the themes that we often discuss on Fridays, including perfectionism, impostor syndrome, comparison, confidence, and more. It's a pause at the start of the week to…
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#509 The world went completely dark
This week's edition is guest-focused. Paul Berriff OBE, has lived a life few could imagine. A filmmaker and photographer whose work spans more than 180 prime-time documentaries, he has survived a helicopter crash, escaped a sinking ship in a North Sea storm, crawled from the wreckage of a downed...
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Reflections: Who needs a professional anyway?
REFLECTIONS is a short-form feature within The Photowalk podcast, offering thoughtful observations on a creative life and the themes that we often discuss on Fridays, including perfectionism, impostor syndrome, comparison, confidence, and more. It's a pause at the start of the week to…
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#508 Silence, solitude and sanctuary
Artist, writer and thinker Gael Hillyard joins me to talk about her creative life, from painting, writing and photography, to the deep-winter months she spent as artist-in-residence on Fair Isle, to the ten silent days she lived inside a retreat with no conversation at all. We explore how her…
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Reflections: Toxic Voyeurism
REFLECTIONS is a short-form feature within The Photowalk podcast, offering thoughtful observations on a creative life and the themes that we often discuss on Fridays, including perfectionism, impostor syndrome, comparison, confidence, and more. It's a pause at the start of the week to…
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