A Photographic Life

In episode 175 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the negative aspect of work looking the same and coming from the same intellectual space, accepting new opportunities, the importance or not of the digital print and the risks and etiquette of social media. Plus this week photographer Kristina Varaksina on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Russian born Kristina Varaksina divides her time between New York, San Francisco and London. Before gaining her MFA in Photography at Academy of Art University, San Francisco, she worked as an Art Director at various advertising agencies in Moscow. Her work has been recognised with awards such as the Lens Culture Portrait Awards 2021, Portrait of Britain Winner 2020, Lens Culture Critics Choice 2020 Winner, BJP Portrait of Humanity 2020, AOP Open Awards 2020 Silver, IPA 2020, the PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Communications Arts, Int’l Photography Awards, and APA National Award. Whilst her clients include Harper's Bazaar, L'Officiel , The Telegraph, BBC, Fabric, Bonobos, and Ugg. She has taught photography at NYFA, New York and California Art Institute, San Francisco. https://kristinavaraksina.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/ © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 174 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on how big business impacts on the photographic commission, who photography festival's are aimed at and the courage of conflict photographers. Plus this week photographer Claire Thomas on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Claire Thomas is a photojournalist and fine art photographer from Wales, currently based between London and New York. A graduate in Politics from the University of the West of England, her photojournalism work is focused on issues surrounding political and military conflicts, human rights, and humanitarian and environmental crises. From within the camps that emerged from the refugee crisis in Europe to the frontlines in the battle against ISIS in Iraq, Thomas has covered a range of stories in various countries, contributing images and photo essays to leading newspapers, magazines and news agencies worldwide. Her editorial clients include The New York Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, National Geographic Magazine, and Al Jazeera among others. She works regularly with United Nations agencies and international non-governmental organisations including UNDP, UNHCR, Amnesty International, OXFAM and Save the Children. Thomas's work has been shortlisted for a number of awards including Photojournalist of the Year at the 2017 Press Gazette British Journalism Awards, Photo Essay of the Year in the 2018 UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, the 2018 Amnesty International UK Media Awards Photojournalism category, and Women Photograph 2019 Year in Pictures. A keen horse rider, motorcyclist, adventurer and nature enthusiast, she has undertaken several independent photography projects in diverse and remote corners of the world, including Alaska, Wyoming, Lesotho, Mozambique and more recently Mongolia where she photographed the iconic Kazakh eagle hunters of the Altai mountains. Claire is trained in battlefield first aid and surviving hostile environments. www.clairethomasphotography.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/ © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 173 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the importance of respect and authenticity in documenting tragedy, explaining best practice to clients and finding connections when finding and creating new work. Plus this week photographer Steve Reeves on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Steve Reeves was born in Ilford, Essex but has lived for most of his life in South London. He studied for a year at art school in the East End of London before securing a job at a large American Advertising agency as a copywriter where he worked for several years before moving into film directing.  He has directed several short films, commercials and a feature film titled Keeping Rosy starring the British actor Maxine Peake. Steve continues to work as a director but has become interested in photography and documenting the diverse community around his home in South London, with street portraits and accompanying interviews that celebrate the spirit and humanity of the strangers that he meets. His images are spontaneous, taken as soon as he meets the person he wishes to photograph, with the accompanying interviews written from brief notes taken while talking to and photographing the subject. Reeves says that these interviews are as important as the images themselves, and he hopes to produce and publish a book of these street portraits and the accompanying interviews. https://stevereevesphotographer.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/ © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 172 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on emotions and memory within photography, the importance of the family album and how life informs who we are and what we photograph. Plus this week photographer Yukari Chikura on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Yukari Chikura was born in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating from Music University, she became a music composer, computer programmer, designer and photographer. As a young photographer Chikura has already won many prizes, among others the Photolucida Critical Mass Top50 Winner in 2016 and 2015, the International Photography Award and the Sony World Photography Awards. She has held solo exhibitions in Japan, and group exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide. Her work is collected by the Griffin Photography Museum in US, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and K*MoPA (the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts). Chikura is the winner of Steidl Book Award 2016 and her work from her series ZAIDO was published by STEIDL, in 2020.  Her work has been published in the New York Times and is held in collections including the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts. Chikura has been honored at the LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards, the International Photography Awards, Critical Mass and the Sony World Photography Awards, among others. In 2015 she was artist in residence at the Mt. Rokko International Photo Festival. http://yukari.chikura.me Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 171 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on mentorship, teaching and the passing on of information. He also provides his final found rules for life. Plus this week photographer Peter Fraser on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Peter Fraser bought his first camera at the age of 7 and went to school in Wales until 1971, when he left to study Civil Engineering for three months at Hatfield Polytechnic, before deciding to study photography at Manchester Polytechnic between 1972 and 1976, repeating his final year due to becoming seriously ill crossing the Sahara Desert in early 1975. Fraserwas an early adopter of colour photography in the UK, and began exhibiting colour photographs in 1982. In 1984, he travelled to Memphis, USA to spend two months with William Eggleston, after meeting him at Eggleston's first UK exhibition opening the previous year. Between 1983 and 1986, Fraser made the exhibitions, Twelve Day Journey, The Valleys Project, Everyday Icons and Towards an Absolute Zero which led to his first publication Two Blue Buckets in 1988. This book won the Bill Brandt Award hosted by the Photographers' Gallery in 1989. In 1990 Fraser was invited to be the British Artist in Residence in Marseilles, which led to the subsequent exhibition and publication Ice and Water. He travelled widely in the early 1990s to scientific research establishments photographing machines at the cutting edge of technology, proposing a series of ‘Portraits’ of machines shown and published as Deep Blue. While visiting nearly 60 scientific sites, he frequently photographed in scientific ‘Clean Rooms’ where particles of dust above a certain size were not admitted. Subsequently, he decided to start photographing ‘dirt and other low status’ material. Simultaneous to this work was a University of Strathclyde commission to make new Art in their Applied Physics Department. This led to two series being combined into a single new series of photographs, Material published in 2002. The same year The Photographers' Gallery showed a 20-year overview of Fraser’s work, and in 2004 he was shortlisted alongside Robert Adams, David Goldblatt and Joel Sternfeld for the Citigroup International Photography Prize. In 2006 Fraser was invited to be an Artist in Residence at Oxford University to make photography for the Biochemistry Department. In 2009 he was commissioned by Ffotogallery, Wales, to make work across the country that resulted in the exhibition and publication Lost For Words. In 2012 Fraser exhibited A City in the Mind at the Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery, London. In 2013 Tate St Ives exhibited a selected retrospective of his work, and published a monograph containing photographs from all of Fraser's major series to date. In 2013 Fraser received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society. In 2017 his exhibition Mathematics was exhibited as part of PhotoEspana 17, and Skinnerboox, Italy, published Mathematics. The first UK exhibition of Mathematics opened at Camden Arts Centre, London in 2018. The accompanying File Notes no 120 published by the gallery, featured a specially commissioned essay The Things that Count by Amy Sherlock, deputy editor of Frieze. www.peterfraser.net Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 170 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the value of the photographic print, sharing some rules for life, considering the structured narrative and stressing the importance of never getting creatively old. Plus this week photographer Michelle Watt on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Michelle Watt is a fashion and portrait photographer known for her surreal narrative style and work that often addresses themes of freedom and restriction within presupposed conventions of female grace and beauty. Her editorial work has been published in The New York Times, USA Today, Vogue Italia, Marie Claire Maison Italia and Blanc Magazine and she has worked with commercial clients such as Cadillac, The North Face, Capture One, LG Electronics, and Scotch & Soda. Michelle is based in both Brooklyn and San Francisco with her Rhodesian boxer Fiona, and likes to travel to climb boulders. www.michellewattphoto.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 169 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on rules on being an artist, making friends through photography, the importance of writing to photography and applying for positions with photographic education. Plus this week photographer Frances Scott takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Frances Scott is from Orkney, but is currently based in Glasgow. She graduated in photography from Glasgow School of Art in 2014 and focuses on journeys made through a landscape of personal significance. Since 2016 she has been working on a long–term project to walk and document the coastlines of Orkney. She is a founding member of the Orkney–based Móti Collective, and one of the organisers of Holm Sound, a digital offshoot of ØY Festival. Her first photobook, Undertow, was published by Another Place Press in February 2020, followed more recently by her second publication, A9. https://frances-scott.co.uk Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). Grant’s book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/ © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 168 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on ego within photography, keeping it simple and inaccessible inspirational photo books. Plus this week photographer Tadas Kazakevičius takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Tadas Kazakevičius is a documentary and portrait photographer based in Vilnius, Lithuania. After spending five years in the United Kingdom, Kazakevičius returned to his native Lithuania where he is particularly interested in the social aspects of the people living there. Kazakevičius’ ongoing series Soon to be Gone was a finalist in LensCulture’s Exposure Awards 2017 and featured in The Royal Photographic Society’s 160 exhibition. In 2018, he was picked as a finalist in the ZEISS Photography Awards and the series was shown in Les Photaumnales festival in Le Quadrilatère Gallery, Beauvais, France. With his series Between Two Shores, Kazakevičius was one of the finalists of the LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards in 2018. The British Journal of Photography featured the series Soon to be Gone in 2019, and he was one of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2019 finalists. In 2019 he became a member of the international documentary photography cooperative, 'Inland Stories'. https://tadaskazakevicius.com Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 167 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on nostalgia, the photographic happening and a celebrity photo shoot in New York. Plus this week photographer Simon Roberts takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ exhibited widely and his photographs reside in major public and private collections, including the George Eastman House, Deutsche Börse Art Collection and V&A Museum. In 2010 he was commissioned as the official British Election Artist by the House of Commons Works of Art Committee to produce a record of the General Election and in 2014 he represented Britain during the UK-Russia Year of Culture. He has been commissioned to make several large-scale public artworks and recognised with numerous awards including an Honorary Fellowship to the Royal Photographic Society, the Vic Odden Award and grants from Arts Council England and the John Kobal Foundation. He is the author of several critically acclaimed monographs including Motherland in 2007, We English in 2009), Pierdom in 2013 and Merrie Albion in 2017. Roberts work has been profiled and published widely including in the New Yorker, Granta, National Geographic, ArtForum, Wallpaper, amongst others. He holds a BA Hons in Cultural Geography from The University of Sheffield, and is a regular public speaker and visiting lecturer at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Outside of his own professional practice he is involved with several not for profit organisations having served as a trustee of Photoworks and currently working as an ambassador for FotoDocument and the Positive View Foundation. Roberts is a member of the European artist collective, Piece of Cake and lives in Brighton, England. www.simoncroberts.com You can now subscribe to our weekly newsletter at https://www.getrevue.co/profile/unofphoto Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). © Grant Scott 2021

In episode 166 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on rules in photography, how you don't learn, if you don't hear what you need to hear and travel instigating work. Plus this week photographer Fabio Ponzio takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Fabio Ponzio's interest in photography began in 1976, during a trip to the Balkans. In 1977 he made his first photographic journey across northern Europe, travelling on a scooter and between 1978 to1980 Ponzio continued his travels into Germany and across Great Britain. He worked for the Italian and international press from 1980 to 1987, and co-founded two photojournalism agencies. In 1987, returning from a trip to Istanbul, he embarked on a lengthy photographic project in search of Eastern Europe, travelling through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, the Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Albania. In 1989 he documented the fall of the communist regimes and in 1991 he received the 'European Kodak Award of Photography'. In 1993 he received the Mother Jones 'Foundation Award for documentary Photography', and in 1998 the 'Leica Oskar Barnack Award'. Ponzio continued to travel across Eastern Europe from 1987 to 2009 and in 2003 travelled to Georgia with his friend, the writer Rocco Carbone and began a series of trips to the southern Caucasus. In 2007 he was commissioned by MAXXI in Rome to document the Italian landscape, a project that instigated a series of travels in Western Europe in 2008. In 2020, East of Nowhere, a collection of twenty-two years of work, was published with a preface written by Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller, the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. www.fabioponzio.com Fabio Ponzio’s contribution is read by his daughter Charlie Ponzio. Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and 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). Grant's book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/ © Grant Scott 2021