PODCAST: A Photographic Life, Episode 300: Special Episode “What Have We Learnt?”

Audio, Opinions, Podcasts: A Photographic Life

PODCAST: A Photographic Life, Episode 300: Special Episode “What Have We Learnt?”

31/01/2024

In this special 300th Episode UNP Founder and Curator Grant Scott reflects upon the contributors to the podcast over the past five years who have attempted to answer the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to Me?’ He identifies themes, and attitudes that have been addressed in those contributions and what the majority of photographers find most important to them in making work.

Grant began the podcast with the simple intention of providing an arm around the shoulder of photographers who felt isolated or lonely but as time has gone by its format and content has evolved into a unique platform for multiple perspectives on the photographic medium.

‘What Does Photography Mean to Me?’
A simple question but its simplicity of language is deceptive. I have discovered that the reality of such an enquiry is that it forces the photographer to whom it has been addressed to question the very essence of their relationship with a medium that provides them with a creative outlet that is a visual representation of what they think, believe, experience, and wish to convey. It also introduces reflections concerning outcome versus intent, success versus failure and recognition versus anonymity. It is a question that goes deep.

My decision to approach photographers and ask them to answer such a question was based upon a personal desire to explore my relationship with the medium of photography and visual storytelling. It seemed to be omnipresent throughout my life, but I had never questioned that reality. I had never considered what it meant to me. Where had it come from and how had I sustained my passion for photography? I decided that to help me answer my own questions I would reach out to photographers and those associated with photography to see if they could help me reach some understanding through their reflections and experience.

The responses were generous, illuminating, and honest. Often raw in their passion, considered in their introspection. Most importantly, themes began to develop, themes of approach, intention, and desire. The consistency of these themes surprised me, but also reassured me that my understanding of photography had synchronicities with the people whose images I admired and was interested in.

Storytelling is a constant foundation for many photographers as is the importance of collaboration. Many reveal a love/hate relationship with the medium, detailing the torment they often feel as part of their photographic process. Others felt the need to place their practice today into the context of their journey, reflecting on those photographers whose words, and images informed their own understanding of the medium. Some are up-beat others more melancholic in their presentation, but all are passionate, informed and engaged. Their words force the listener to stop and take stock, they force self-questioning, reconsidering pre-conceived understanding. They make you think.

Super Edit Contributors in order of appearance.
Tom Stoddart
Daniel Meadows
Alys Tomlinson
Ilona Langbroek
Ashleigh Coleman
David Rothenberg
The Guzman
Harry Borden
Fabio Ponzio
Jason Langer
Kenneth Jarecke
Katherine MacDaid
Jill Hannes
Mark Klett
Greg Marinovich
Paul Lowe
Anna Boyiazis
Andrew Jackson
Jeremy Nicholl
Simon Roberts
Yukari Chikura
Polly Alderton
Seamus Murphy
Sirrka Konttinen
Yael Martinez
Venetia Dearden
Derek Ridgers
Dan Burn Forti
David Eustace
Julia Fullerton Batten
JM Golding
Stephen Dupont
Tim Davis
Robert Trachtenberg
Ruth Lauer Manetti
Richard Ansett
Reuben Wu
Pixy Liao
Paul Russell
Mona Kuhn
Melissa Breyer
Buku Sarker
Chris Floyd
Alys Tomlinson
Aaron Turner
AD Coleman
Brian Griffin
Claire Thomas
Cathal McNaughton
Craig Easton
Dafydd Jones
Danna Singer
Ed Kashi
Jim Mortram
Daniel Meadows
David Eustace
Art Streiber
Tom Oldham
Clare Strand
Ross O’Donnell

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

Scott’s next book Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is now on pre-sale.

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2 responses to “PODCAST: A Photographic Life, Episode 300: Special Episode “What Have We Learnt?””

Rob Campbell

April 14, 2025 at 6:17 pm

I think it’s an age thing, or more likely an era thing, a 60s and 70s thing.

The overarching sense I derived from the series (I listened to them all), was that people who went through some kind of formal art school education had all developed a sense of self that requires the “artist’s statement” approach when answering your question. There is almost never a simple, clear-cut reply, but a heap of self-analysis that I find quite alien to my experience or to that of any others of my generation that I know personally.

Of my lot, there were, basically, three kinds: those who were obsessed through exposure to magazines; those who did it simply because it seemed to be just another way to start their working life and, with luck, leave home, and all that mattered was paying the rent; those who went into it because they had already failed at several other things, and photography looked easy.

One can only ever really know the truth about one person: the self. I can’t recall any early questioning of myself and my career motives; motivation to work, on the other hand, was always there along with tons of frustration born of the reality of trying to succeed in a provincial Big Smoke. I never thought of my “career” as such, as some journey. Hell no, it was all about the immediate, the landing of gigs, getting the cashflow to work in my favour, hating the advertising agency strategy of paying their bills at the end of the third month following the date of invoice.

Of all the the words of wisdom I received, the best came when I set up shop: the bank manager, literally, told me this: remember, when the Sun shines we will lend you an umbrella, and when it rains we’ll want it back.

Other people I knew well were also happy to offer advice: my father-in-law, a successful FRICS (who in fact had introduced me to that bank manager), couldn’t understand my reluctance to do weddings: he told me that surveying a brick toilet or a palace was all the same thing: the bank would make no distinctions on the money lodged. How little understanding civilians have of people with photographic obsessions! Actually, of the very few I did, I remember my last wedding shoot: I was standing on the steps of a church on a miserable, spitting day, waiting for the poor bride to drive up with her father, when that setting suddenly hit me with my Damascene moment: I imagined Bailey drive up in his Roller, slow down, grin at me and drive briskly away. I swore to myself at that moment, that I would never touch a wedding again and that if I could not make it in fashion, then I’d do the honourable thing and close the studio. Thank you God for listening!

Even today, career but memory, I find it hard to think of it as journey. Journey, in my mind, implies some expected destination. I never had that. All I had was the desire to do what I did, and to keep on doing it. I very much doubt that Bailey, Donovan or Duffy had any great amount of self-questioning going down in their heads; they were in the right place at the right time and carped that friggin’ diem when it was around! They probably had no idea how fortunate they were to live in the London area.

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1. gscott2012
  
  April 15, 2025 at 8:30 am
  
  Thanks for your feedback. As I worked with Bailey and Donovan and knew Duffy I can confirm that they where complex characters living in an age when speaking out about your feelings was not considered appropriate evne if it may have been helpful.
  
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