A Photographic Life - 246: Richard Sharum

In episode 246 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the issues facing photographers in 2023, the fragile nature of social media and the return of classic American documentary photography.

Plus this week, photographer Richard Sharum 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?’

Richard Sharum is a documentary and project-centred photographer who grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas. Mainly focusing on socio-economic or social justice dilemmas concerning the human condition, his work has been regarded as in-depth, up-close and personal. In 1996 he moved to Dallas where he still lives and started experimenting with photography. In 2005 he enrolled at Northlake College and took one introductory class in black and white film photography, and I was set on being a documentary photojournalist. In 2015 he initiated the Observe Dallas project where he hung eight photographs on five different buildings in downtown Dallas for two months to highlight the lack of public art in one of the biggest cities in America and In 2019 he became an Eddie Adams Alumnus. Sharum's book Campesino Cuba published in 2021 resulted from a period of four years spent travelling across rural Cuba, exploring the lives of isolated farmers and documenting their relationship with the land. His images have been added to private and public collections across the world, with exhibitions in Kyoto, Japan, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Reggio Emilia, Italy, New York, and Dallasand he has been commissioned by The Meadows Foundation, Centers for Community Cooperation, Harvard Law School, Student Conservation Association and the Children’s Cancer Fund amongst others. His work has been published by The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Huck Magazine, El Pais (Spain), The New York Times Lens Blog, and the International Business Times Weekly. https://richardsharum.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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts.

© Grant Scott 2023