A Photographic Life - 268: Plus Edward Thompson

In episode 268 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on snake-oil salesmen, the importance of an attention to detail over concept and the issue of quantity over quality.

Plus this week, photographer Edward Thompson 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?’

Edward Thompson is a British documentary photographer whose photographic work focuses on various subjects over the years covering environmental issues, socio-political movements, subcultures, everyday life and the consequences of war. Thompson had a life changing experience with an early apprenticeship with the Russian photographer Sergey Chilikov, whom he met at the Arles Photography Festival in 2001. That summer Ed stayed with Sergey in Paris and learnt the value of shooting everyday life, eating fried fat and drinking red wine. Since then, his documentary photo-essays have been published in international magazines including National Geographic Magazine, Newsweek Japan, Greenpeace Magazine, The Guardian Weekend Magazine, BBC, CNN and The Sunday Times Magazine. Thompson's work has been exhibited at Christies, Somerset House and Four Corners Gallery (London) and shown as part of photography festivals in Arles (France), Tampere (Finland), Zingst (Germany) & London (U.K). Thompson has lectured on photography and spoken regularly about photography on television, radio and online, including on Al Jazeera News and the BBC World Service. In2012 he self-published a book of his work titled Occupy London. In 2016 he published The Unseen: An Atlas of Infrared Plates and in 2022 he self-published his book In-A-Gadda-Da-England. https://edwardthompson.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). 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