I remember the first time I heard of a photographer being given this title and my response is in the title of this article. The photographer in question was Mark Power. The Brighton based Magnum member, a highly considered, much published social documentary photographer who was at the time teaching at the University of Brighton. I remember his time there and seeing his much acclaimed The Shipping Forecast (www.markpower.co.uk/projects/THE-SHIPPING-FORECAST) work exhibited in the university gallery. I just didn’t understand how he could be a doctor. I was not working within academia at the time.

Within academia there is a simple progression route outlined by management and academic tradition. To teach you need certain qualifications or equivalent industry experience but in my experience that is hard to prove and the formal qualifications hold more weight. Today most UK based institutions require a PHD or doctorate as it is known as a basic qualification for employment. You may argue with this but it is what it is. Therefore if you are going to teach photography you are going to need to be a doctor or be able to evidence a high level of experience or academic research.

Academia loves research. Research that appears in journals, papers and conferences. Deep dives into often esoteric areas of history, culture or social impact. The sharing of knowledge for others to reflect upon and analyze. Information that provides a baton to be carried on by another academic for further investigation. Photographers often struggle to understand or engage with such research within their practice, especially if writing is not a natural friend. If you are a working photographer you may also see it as being irrelevant to teaching the medium. I have been told this many times. However, academia does not agree.

You can teach photography at university as a visiting lecturer or part-time-hourly-paid teacher but if you want to fully enter the belly of the academic beast you will have to accept that a progression from BA to MA to PHD and then potentially Reader, Associate Professor and Professor will be suggested and possibly expected. A teaching qualification such as a PGCE is useful.

Such progression can be based on a successful photographic practice. Exhibitions, books, bursaries, funding and awards can all be recognized as reasons for academic titles but this takes time and an understanding of the game. There are many photographers currently working within UK universities who are doctors and professors. They just don’t shout about it.

I occasionally get attacked online by those offended by my use of ‘the Dr’. I can use it as I received my PHD from Oxford Brookes University based on fourteen years of writing in photography, an essay and a particularly rigorous interrogation by three academics on my work. However, the reason I use it is that coming from my background it’s something I am proud to have achieved. I am the only person to continue with education past the age of eighteen in my family ever. My daughters have gone on to university but I was the first.

It was the photographer Daniel Meadows (www.danielmeadows.co.uk) who suggested that my work on Bill Jay constituted a PHD. It was not something I had ever considered but I took his advice. It was not something I did to show off, to feel superior or appear superior. I did it for my parents to say thank you for all they had done for me. To show that they had succeeded as parents. I’ll admit that It is useful within academia but it is not essential if you are lucky enough to meet people who respect experience within the commercial world. I have to admit, however, that this is not an expectation you should have. It may happen, but my experience has shown that it is less likely than you may hope. I was lucky.

Today, I am a doctor, but I am not a doctor of photography or medicine. I am a doctor of philosophy (That is what a PHD is!) and that is a level of education I am proud to have reached. I am also a photographer, writer, lecturer and podcaster. I’m not confined by labels, just informed by descriptions and I no longer dismiss the accomplisments of others as I once did through ignorance. Maybe that is a good message for the online warriors to take on board. Today Mark Power is Professor of Photography in The Faculty of Arts and Architecture at the University of Brighton. He’s also a very successful photographer. You can be both.

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 foto8 magazine, 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: Under and Post Graduate 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 book Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is now on sale.

© Grant Scott 2025