In episode 32 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the promise and marketing of ‘instant’ photography success and the importance of reading the terms and conditions when entering photo competitions.
Plus this week Grant re-visits a recorded conversation with legendary Los Angeles based photographer Michael Thompson in which he speaks about moving to New York from the West Coast, assisting Irving Penn and finding your own photographic voice.
Michael Thompson is an American photographer who began his career as an assistant to Irving Penn after training at the Brooks Institute of Photography in California. Thompson’s work has appeared in W, Details, Allure, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. His commercial photography includes campaigns for Gap, Elizabeth Arden, Chanel, and he was the PDN magazine Award winner for his project I Am African. His commercials include those for the fragrance Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker(winner of the 2006 FiFi Award for Best National Advertising Campaign -Television), the Frank Gehry Collection for Tiffany, and a PSA for his documentation of The American Ballet Theatre. Thompson was one of a small group of photographers who helped set a new agenda for editorial photography under the art direction of Fabian Baron in the early 90’s in the re-launched Harpers Bazaar magazine. A collection of his work was published in 2005 by Harry N. Abrams titled Images. Thompson lives and works in Los Angeles. www.michaelthompsonphotographer.com
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Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2019. He is currently work on his next documentary film project.
His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay has been screened across the UK and the US in 2018 and will be screened in the US and Canada in 2019.
© Grant Scott 2018