PODCAST: A Photographic Life, Episode 304: Plus Master Printer Bob Tursack

In episode 304 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed speaking with master printer Bob Tursack about all aspects of photographic printing including photo books, fine art printing, digital, analogue and lithographic. They also discuss photographer expectations, good practice and the photographer/printer relationship.

Bob Tursack, is the CEO of the high-end printing company Brilliant Graphics. He is a third-generation printer who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs who became interested in photography when he was in junior high. He had his first darkroom in sixth grade and attended the Ansel Adams workshops in Carmel, the Maine Photography Workshops, and other photography courses. Tursack’s father founded Tursack Printing, commercial printers, in 1959, and Bob began training on the small press as a teenager. But his real passion was for fine art prints, and he ultimately sold the company in 1998. Tursack started Brilliant Studio in 2000, in his basement, planning to make prints for artists and photographers as a one-man band. But the business quickly grew, and he soon founded Brilliant Graphics, to produce brochures, catalogues, posters, and books. The company now has 72 employees. Tusack has worked with photographers including Sally Mann, Ralph Gibson, George Tice, Steve McCurry, Emmett Gowin, Mark Seliger and institutions including The National Gallery, Washington, DC, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, The Hermitage Museum, Princeton University Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania Press, Yale University Press, and The Andy Warhol Foundation. https://brilliant-graphics.com

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.

© Grant Scott 2024