A Photographic Life - 250: Luke Stephenson

In episode 250 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on making photography accessible, buying cheap cameras, encouraging the photographers of tomorrow and entering AI images to photo competitions.

Plus this week, photographer Luke Stephenson 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?’

Luke Stephenson was born on New Year's day, 1983 in Darlington, North-East England. Life in Britain and the British psyche are at the core of Stephenson's work, which ranges from prize budgerigars to the World Beard and Moustache Championships. He graduated in 2005 the same year he was awarded the Jerwood Photography Prize and in 2006 he was selected as one of ten photographers to showcase their work at the International Festival of Fashion and Photography at Hyeres, France. His work has been published in a variety of publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Foam, Art Review and Wallpaper*. Stephenson has published four photo books to date; his first Show Birds published in 2012 and the second published in 2014 a series exploring the wonderful world of the '99-ice-cream'.  In 2019 he published a book looking at the English Rose from the esteemed grower David Austin and his most recent book British Record Fish was published in 2021. www.lukestephenson.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