In this monthly conversation series Grant Scott speaks with editor, writer and curator of photography Bill Shapiro. In an informal conversation each month Grant and Bill comment on the photographic environment as they see it. This month they reflect on where the magazine industry and editorial photography are today from the photographer’s perspective.
Bill Shapiro
Bill Shapiro served as the Editor-in-Chief of LIFE, the legendary photo magazine; LIFE’s relaunch in 2004 was the largest in Time Inc. history. Later, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of LIFE.com, which won the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital photography. Shapiro is the author of several books, among them Gus & Me, a children’s book he co-wrote with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and, What We Keep, which looks at the objects in our life that hold the most emotional significance. A fine-art photography curator for New York galleries and a consultant to photographers, Shapiro is also a Contributing Editor to the Leica Conversations series. He has written about photography for the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, Vogue, and Esquire, among others. Every Friday — more or less — he posts about under-the-radar photographers on his Instagram feed, where he’s @billshapiro.
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 is Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is on sale February 2024.
Mentioned in this episode:
Jake Chessum: https://jakechessum.com www.farringdonprintshop.com
Instagram: @jakechessum
Erin Patrice O’Brien: www.erinpatriceobrien.com Instagram: @erinpatriceobrien
Chris Buck: www.chrisbuck.com Instagram: @the_Chris_Buck
Matt Weinberger: Instagram: @mweinbergerr
Arnold Newman: https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2022/12/04/bill-jay-archive-arnold-newman-a-personal-appreciation/
Elliott Erwitt created an alter ego, the beret-wearing and pretentious “André S. Solidor” (which abbreviates to “ass”), ” a contemporary artist, from one of the French colonies in the Caribbean, I forget which one” to “satirise the kooky excesses of contemporary photography.” The work was published in a book, The Art of André S. Solidor (2009), and exhibited in 2011 at the Paul Smith Gallery in London.
© Grant Scott 2024
Great and you’re 100% right about NGOs, this is how things function today.
So right now I’m in the process of registering an already existing NGO as a media because no one else will give me accreditation to go and shoot the people I like. We have to build our own infrastructure and the only way I get the money to do it is through this NGO and through funds and grants. It’s not entertainment anymore, it’s human rights. That’s one of the reasons why things look boring. But you can work your way around that.
I used to buy lots of magazines, they used to make me HAPPY, that was the main reason to buy them, because of the photographs of my favorite celebrities. The reason I don’t buy anything now is that the celebrities today don’t have in them what the camera loves and the photographs are sort of glum and depressing, overedited. I also enjoyed reading their interviews but today they all think the same. I’m happy when I discover someone new, but usually it’s someone old. Like Tommy Tune. I discovered him a week ago and I would buy a magazine with him in it. I guess I like people who shine. Yugoslavia had great magazines. When you read that now, a fashion article sounds like a dissertation. We should learn from old magazines. The writing has also been lost and you’re right, the magazines now are like websites, blogs. In fact, blogs are better than magazines. I would love to go back to print. So I started to hand paint and print my photographs. Or print and paint over them and manipulate the photo manually so that it looks good IN PRINT. I think paper is essential to photography, and in digital we almost never think about it, which is a shame because what I’ve noticed is that something that doesn’t look good on the screen can be made into something iconic in print. Of course, I print at the oldest photographic store in town, because who else would know how to do it good?
When it comes to traveling, people are surprised to see me hopping from one backyard to the next, scouting locations. Now they just want to put some horrific outfit on and take a picture of that ‘look’. Bad clothes make bad pictures. Also, too much contouring. Since all of this is in the magazines, I don’t want to look at it. Here’s what Grace Coddington has to say about editorials and magazines and her own editorial work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHZiwr8fAt4
So – best way to be a successful photographer in the 2020s is to have been a successful photographer in the 90s. Thanks.
I think you missed the point and the advice