A Photographic Life-338: A Conversation with Curator, Writer, Editor, and Educator David Campany

n this special episode Grant Scott speaks with editor, writer and curator of photography David Campany. This conversation was instigated by an Instagram post Campany made which Grant responded to thanks to one of his podcast listenners. Grant and David's rigorous debate deals with the subject of how a photographer should/could present themselves and issues with gatekeepers.

David Campany is a curator, writer, editor who has worked worldwide with institutions including Tate, Whitechapel Gallery London, MoMA New York, Centre Pompidou, Le Bal Paris, ICP New York, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Photographer’s Gallery London, ParisPhoto, PhotoLondon, The National Portrait Gallery London. His work has been published with Aperture, Steidl, MIT Press, Thames & Hudson, Phaidon, MACK, Frieze, The New Yorker, The FT Weekend, and The Telegraph. He has written over three hundred essays for monographs, museums, and magazines, he has a Phd and has received the ICP Infinity Award, the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award, the Alice Award, a Deutscher Fotobuchpreis, and the Royal Photographic Society award. Instagram: davidcampany https://davidcampany.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 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: 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 continues to work as a photographer, writer and filmmaker and is the Subject Coordinator for both undergraduate and post graduate study of photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England.

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

© Grant Scott 2024