In the latest book, “Streets of America”, Chris took on the impressive feat of visiting 23 cities in an 80 day coast-to-coast adventure. As such, there’s San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, Boston, Philadelphia and many more to take in.

With a tenacity that is rare to find for this kind of work, there’s hundreds of images published in the book, and I’m pleased that Chris has shared a selection with us here. 

I also asked him to share some insights into how he works – I’m exhausted just reading about his days pounding the streets in search of the perfect shot, but it does show that perseverance truly pays off.

In this year of the new Trump era beginning, and a very divided nation, there’s potentially never been more attention focused on our friends in the States, but on the whole this is a very positive book. Read on to find out more… 

AP: How did you decide which cities you wanted to include in your tour?

CP: When asked why he stole from banks, the notorious American robber Willie Sutton retorted, ‘because that’s where the money is’! So, like most street photographers I headed for the big cities and I was also influenced by popular culture as seen on TV and Hollywood. Having watched ‘Breaking Bad’ I checked out Albuquerque and Santa Fe on Route 66, but was disappointed as it was a quiet day with few characters about. A local online travel counsellor who knew America well, helped me plan with a very flexible itinerary. She would book some flights and hotels in advance of my next city, so avoiding dodgy areas and saving me from wandering the streets with a heavy rucksack late at night.  

AP: Were there any places you didn’t go to but wished you had?

CP: Inevitably in such a vast country my project was just a snapshot, but with hindsight there definitely was. Places such as El Paso on the Texas and Mexico border to try and reflect that centre of political controversy, for example. I also wanted to capture some of the election campaigning, but on my first visit in the spring of 2023, it was just warming up. However, in April 2024 I did witness pro and anti Trump protesters clashing outside the Supreme Court in Washington. I wish I had gone into the rural heartlands and swing States and also Miami but I ran out of time and money. I needed a year to do the project any sort of justice… perhaps I should have gone to Niagara Falls but reckoned I would just get soaked or, perhaps at Grand Canyon where I might see a few tourists admiring the view.

AP: What were your highlights? Will you be going back to any of them? 

CP: I wanted to see more of the old America, so Fort Worth in Texas was perfect with its cowboys but unfortunately no rodeo. However, an added bonus was capturing a crowd gazing up at a total eclipse of the sun. 

In spring 2023 I went for 50 days including Las Vegas where I just couldn’t get my mojo working in a search for some tacky Parr-esque images. I am glad I returned a year later for an extra 30 days and was rewarded by snapping a very drunk Elvis in a buggy on an escalator.

I loved Nashville – it was packed and buzzing with music filling the streets. But it was sadly marred by another mass shooting close by. Then an amazing coincidence happened while waiting for an Uber outside my hotel. A couple asked where I was from and on replying “Peterborough”, a man in the queue said he was too and that I had taken his picture 40 years ago and again in 2022 for my Reunions 2 book.

It was important that I reflected the national obsession with baseball which was not easy as some stadiums banned ‘professional-looking cameras or longer lenses, although ironically camera phones were not a problem. Fortunately, I managed to capture games in Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

The poignant Washington Vietnam war memorial where I saw relatives searching amongst the 50,000 names for their loved ones. Nearby, the impressive Martin Luther King sculpture brought to mind ‘I have dream’  and the long struggle for civil rights. My image of two children in Baltimore holding hands sums it up for me. That night I was asleep in my hotel while around the corner six people were injured in a nightclub shooting. 

Walking miles around a baking hot and tourist-packed Washington, I spotted a lone police officer guarding the steps of the Capitol building, cocooned in sheets and scaffolding. As I reflected on the attempted coup of January 6th 2021 a genial man and gun owner informed me the attack was all staged by the FBI and that the Sandy Hook school shootings was the work of paid actors!

Not exactly a highlight but just as memorable was in New York and just before my night flight home, when I ran after a dog wearing a pink tutu and went flying. Cradling my ‘baby’, I landed smack on my jaw in a square of hard mud where a tree had once grown. I was lucky that I managed to avoid using the American health system and the dental damage could wait until my beloved NHS sorted me out. To add insult to injury, I missed the picture too!  

At almost 72 I will probably not return and there’s plenty in dear old Blighty to keep me busy. 

AP: Did you find that the cities had lots in common, or were they all quite different? 

CP: New York ‘the city that never sleeps’ is a street photographer’s paradise where you are spoiled for choice with great characters and backdrops. In other big cities, such as Dallas or Detroit I found the same kind of photography particularly hard as the car is king. The cities are devoted to massive multi-storey and subterranean car parks, valet parking, wide roads and pavements that are devoid of people in some dystopian concrete jungle. Noxious fumes belched from enormous tank like vehicles with their drivers concealed behind darkened glass. Most buildings were also obscured, and it is only on opening a door you realise what’s inside and where all the people were. I walked miles through litter-strewn streets unsuccessfully trying to avoid human excrement; passing by shop security guards armed with guns and tasers.

I didn’t want to overdo images of the dispossessed but I had to reflect what I was seeing in front of me. I was saddened to witness the shocking effects of the opioid crisis on fellow human beings. Like scenes from a zombie movie they staggered around, ranting and raving, lying comatose in doorways and gutters, rags hanging off them, exposing festering sores on oedematous limbs. These scenes were replicated in other cities such as Hollywood with tents on sidewalks alongside the red carpets of Oscar night. In the US, there’s simply no safety net. In Britain, we have problems but fortunately we still have a welfare state and it shows. 

AP: How do you find the streets of the US compare with the streets of the UK and Europe? 

CP: In 2023, I landed in San Francisco to an inauspicious start. On a filthy graffiti-covered airport shuttle train to downtown, a man sat behind me shouting, ‘I want to stab something.’ Then, with a large pair of red scissors, he destroyed his seat. Camera-in-hand I was tempted, but took my cue from sensible locals who had already moved to the next carriage to await the police. Our tube feels safe and pristine by comparison. 

I don’t want to make sweeping generalisations but there are stark contrasts to some of the US cities. In Europe, it’s probably why Venice is one of my favourites – simply because of the refreshing absence of cars.

AP: You say you don’t know necessarily what it is you’re looking for when you go out – but are you going out looking for “moments” or do you just see if you get lucky? 

CP: You do make your own luck and street photography is about walking many miles and letting serendipity play its role. As with my multi coloured punks from the eighties, I still look out for characters who stand out from the madding crowd and humorous juxtapositions and interactions that are often missed. A bit like fishing where I would walk all day without a bite, tired and despondent and about to go home when suddenly, out of the blue, on walks Philly Man who was made for the front cover!

AP: How long do you spend each day (roughly) walking around waiting for something to catch your eye? Do you tend to stay in one place and let action unfold in front of you or do you approach it differently?

CP: “All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances.” So I wait and wait, and if no joy I find another stage. How do you capture those iconic places that have been photographed millions of times in a different way? For me, it is about finding the right character to match.

I probably spend a minimum of twelve hours walking up to twenty miles hunting for that decisive and elusive moment. In fact, I walked over seven hundred miles, along with thousands of miles on slow infrequent Amtrak trains, Greyhound coaches and inevitably planes to save time 

AP: Did people mind you photographing? Do you think you have a different viewpoint/vantage point as an outsider, compared to say when you’re photographing in the UK?

CP: I get into lost tourist mode, and not being a street photography purist I do a mixture of candid and engagement. In fact, I often provoke eye contact as it usually produces a stronger picture. Worry about the response from strangers is the main reason given for not pursuing street photography but I have rarely had problems. Most are flattered and I find a smile and an explanation goes a long way.

AP: Can you tell us about the gear that you use? 

CP: In the eighties, I was a bit shyer, so I did some telephoto work but I now realise the social context such as the shops is crucial. I try to adopt the maxim of one of my photojournalist heroes, Robert Capa: “If your photograph is not good enough, then you are not close enough.” Tragically he got too close in Indochina! I use a Canon 5D Mark III and EF 24 – 70 mm f/2.8 L USM lens. I thought getting a compact Fuji X100 would make me a less conspicuous, a better photographer and produce better images. It didn’t!  

I must admit, when I walk around town, I rarely take the heavy gear now except for projects like my American trip. I was a bit sniffy about mobile phones and despite the limitations of no viewfinder and overriding settings, I am beginning to appreciate the advantages. The quality is so good with raw shooting available too and its always with you.  

AP: Do you tend to shoot in one particular mode? 

CP: My former career as a paramedic taught me to be always ready to respond immediately to the unexpected. To seize the moment before it has gone. So it is with street photography and why my best shot ever was in Union Square New York of a leaping collie dog. I actually shot from my chest and would have been gutted had it been blurred or out of focus.

My camera is always set on aperture priority at a fast shutter speed and small aperture. Say a minimum of about  800 -1000 sec at around f8 or more. The lens is usually at the 24 -28 end and I use my feet as a zoom. I move around the subject as great potential pictures are usually ruined by messy backgrounds that ruin your composition with sticking out limbs and polybags. 

I use manual ISO, upping it if needed as it’s better to have a bit of noise than a blurred image. It’s crucial to have a filter on to protect the lens and sometimes a lens hood, although being careful of vignetting when it slips. Always check for raindrops, as I find they will always end up in middle of the face!  Focus points I often set at max for quick grab shots of general crowds and individual points for more precision. 

Additionally, I shoot on rapid burst mode too with raw and jpegs. Shooting sometimes from crazy angles to give impact, I avoid harsh sunlight by walking on the shady side of the street. I’m constantly scanning the horizon and rechecking settings as somehow they move! I always carry spare charged batteries and memory cards, comfy shoes, rucksack with sarnies and water plus protective gear. 

It’s no good being a fair-weather photographer as the best shots are to be had where others fear to tread. Again, my old career comes into play with dangers first and watching your back. Avoiding dodgy ill lit alleys and dead ends. 

AP: Do you do any post-production to the pictures? 

CP: I am a bit of a technophobe (my age) so have to keep it basic. There’s no substitute for getting it right first time in camera, rather than roll it in glitter later. I learned more from the Sunday Times picture editor  Harold Evans seminal work ‘Pictures on a Page’ than any other photo book. Just simple cropping for instance can make such a difference to those grab shots. I see a potential picture and get a few in the can just in case and then wait for things to develop and maybe a better picture will emerge.

AP: Have you gotten any better at editing your own work? 

CP: Fortunately I had a little bit of help from my friends with constructive critique from a great mentor and former photo editor. He would look at my images and say rubbish, boring, so what, leaves me cold, delete, delete, delete! As I could not find a publisher, I was very lucky to find a great graphic designer who makes my photographs sing in the books and also distributes them for me too.

I am slowly learning that less is more and that viewers get bored with too many similar pictures which will dilute your strong ones. Sometimes just one strong picture can tell the story.

Unlike my early books, I have tried to curate more tightly and resisted the temptation to justify and include weaker images. For example, I walked around St Louis for two days without a decent picture so the city does not feature. Likewise, despite all the expense and effort to capture the iconic Golden Gate, I left empty handed. As you do with digital I took thousands of images but deleted the vast majority as they were technically poor or just boring. 

AP: What’s been the reaction to this book? 

CP: Despite the compromises I am pleased with the outcome and the print quality is great. The man featured sitting on the White House Wall holding a placard with ‘Hate will not make America Great’ is a retired Washington professor in his eighties. Frustrated with Trump, he has protested there most days for five years and upset with the result he has now returned to his vigil in winter. I asked him what he thought after receiving my book. He loved it but did not feel it reflected the very divided and angry America that he sees and feels. He has a point, but I replied that I hope it also shows a more positive and happier side of his country and what can be.  

The problem is the book at £15 is cheap enough, but it costs an extra £35 to send it to the States. So apart from to those who are actually in the book, I have sold very few there. Here in the UK, it is still quite niche although very topical. I hope this feature will appeal to AP readers who might then want to see more of my quirky take on America. It’s all for a good cause too, as part of the proceeds goes to Breast Cancer Research in memory of Lesley, the love of my life for fifty years.

AP: You’ve said that this is going to be your last book – why is that? 

CP: Along with just published Barking 2! (inspired by Elliot Erwitt) I have self-published ten books now. I do not have time for another Reunions project as I would be over a century, although cameras can be mounted to Zimmer frames! There is no substitute for the smell and feel of a photography book compared to a screen but they are very expensive to produce and time consuming to make.  

Never say never, but I feel it’s time for a different direction as I have honed my craft on the streets and now find street photography lacks purpose for me. I enjoy social documentary-type work, such as my NHS book homage ‘Just Be Kind’ which covers my forty seven year career. My then and now Reunions exhibition based on my two books proved very popular and was attended by over 11,000 in Peterborough. I have tried to garner London interest, but sadly to no avail. Hopefully one day, but not posthumously as you cannot read the reviews…. 

Commissions and projects perhaps such as the one at London Luton airport displaying my images over the past seven years, which enabled me to buy a decent camera. So any offers of expenses paid trips back to Europe or even America would be welcome while my legs and brain still work! Seize the moment!    

Streets of America is available to buy now. You can buy a copy for just £20 including postage (to the UK) by visiting chrisporsz.com. Barking 2! Is also available, priced at £13 including postage.

Related reading:

• Tips for striking street photography
• Chris Porsz: the inside story of the amazing street photography project ‘Reunions’
• How to set up your camera for street photography

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In 2022, I was beginning a project photographing journalists. At the time, the UK had one in a maximum-security prison, and another as Prime Minister. Whilst the numbers differ, 2022 saw a sharp rise in violence against journalists and media workers. War in Ukraine was the first full-scale war in Europe since WW2, and it was just so accessible… My return flights were just £40!

But how do you prepare an influx of ordinary writers for kidnapping, explosives, and war-torn environments? Hostile Environment Training (sometimes known as HEFAT, HEAT, HETC, HETT, or HET) is the health and safety course for journalists working in war zones. I reached out to Hostile Environment Training Ltd, which runs at least two multi-day workshops twice a week, every week (apart from Christmas), to explore and photograph their operations. 

While it’s critical that more people understand the need for HET courses, especially for freelancers currently eyeing those £40 tickets to Ukraine, the team are a bit concerned – I’m a young woman from London, an artist no less. I reassure them by talking about my brothers – two farmers, used to bad weather and the facts of life. They let me come along. 

I arrive (at a location I’ve been asked not to identify), and they look me up and down. I was to be on the side of the militia. While the training starts off with some PowerPoints and seminars, a series of surprise attacks are due…

My new militia friends are lovely. We’re sat in an office as they fill out paperwork, hold their team meeting, and efficiently pack their props for the day – a large arsenal of guns, explosives, and blow torches, but most interestingly a wardrobe of costumes. The militia think my use of flash is great, and it is added to the rhythm of the torture which is to come. It was reassuring to know that if these journalists were going into real war zones, intruding on the lives of real victims, they were going to know what it felt like.

A bit later, I’m sat at the edge of a demonstration of IEDs, a short history, ‘They used to work like this, now this is more popular, in this region this is the trend…’ I’m hiding behind a bridge, on the ground, with some camo thrown over me. 

I’m waiting for a large explosion. Very large. The militia are all eager for me to capture this, but I instead recall some advice from Simon Roberts – ‘turn around’. I slither along the floor, I’m almost under the table containing the prop IEDs, my camera is on the faces of the journos scribbling notes.

BOOM.

The shot I get is sad. They’re illuminated in this putrid orange, some look confused, others are still taking notes. If this was a genuine attack, this is the banal final moments of their lives. Over in less than 1/125, no time for a final sign-off. Their story just gets cut off.

The rest of my militia are busy. Many who run the course are ex-armed forces, missing limbs. They’ve discarded their legs and arms, covered themselves in blood, and have thrown themselves onto the wooded path in front of the journos. One ‘victim’ looks like a pair of tights full of jelly – his eyes are bulging, his knuckles are white, he’s pleading for help whilst blood squirts and leaks. His scream is so foreboding and unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. But he has.

It’s been a long day for these journalists already, but this marks the beginning of the crescendo of the training. Another wave of the militia are on them. The journalists’ hands are tied, and they have bags and blindfolds slung over their heads. This is how they’ll be for the next several hours. 

They’re dragged and marched to a small shed, and the torture begins. I won’t give away all the tactics – we are sworn by the militia brotherhood – but there is one particular interrogation I remember.

‘Why are you here?! What do you do?! You’re a journalist, aren’t you? Taking pictures?! What you gonna say about this?!’

‘No, I’m not a journalist!’

‘You’re not a journalist?’

‘I shoot reportage!’

The militia interrogator didn’t even pause, ‘What the F— is reportage?!’

In negotiations with kidnappers, apparently, it’s not the best time to argue for the subtle nuances between reportage and photojournalism. 

My photos, on the other hand, sit in a bizarre uncanny valley. The hoods can’t help but mimic the shocking photos of the very real Abu Ghraib, but the clean, super-bright artificial light (the Profoto A1) confuses things. Flash is loud, and intrusive, it is near-impossible to use in a war zone, however I’ve had many people think these photos are of a real torture scene. I must have just gained the trust of a real militia. 

From Larry Fink to Martin Hartley, in order to shoot images you can’t be scared or intimidated by your surroundings. This applies for all good photography. You want your wedding photographer to push your second-cousin out the way of your ‘first kiss’ shot, not be hiding at the back of the room. Since this shoot, I’ve taken on many more ‘scary’ subjects and stories – from big stars with big egos, to Russian nazis hiding from the law. I like to think of myself as ‘The Access Queen’. But you’re only deserving of that spot if you have the right knowledge of your surroundings, and can look after yourself. 

The Ukraine invasion happened in February; by March there were no bulletproof flak jackets available from any UK distributor. Many people, looking for their own Robert Capa adventure, felt that just slinging on a jacket would make them ready to report, but they’re missing a critical piece of the
puzzle. A bulletproof flak jacket on its own isn’t going to give you the results you want.

I loved my time at the HET camp. There are very few things which are fun, important, and have a positive impact on both those attending, and running the course. These ex-armed forces members continue to use their hard-earned experience in the field. Meanwhile, we get high-quality journalism from some of the most desperate and at-risk areas in the world, and keep those who are reporting safe(r) so the only thing they miss is a trip to the pub. 

Jennifer Forward-Hayter is a photographer who focuses on documentary and social performance. She is based in London and Dorset. See more work at jenniferforwardhayter.co.uk

Related reading:

• Are citizen journalists killing reportage?
• Honouring the wartime photography of Lee Miller

Follow AP on Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

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‘I had the idea in my mind for ages, years. It could only work because of the COVID situation because nobody was around. There were no entertainers and no visits by family members. This meant that I was never going to be disturbed.’ It could be the beginning of a confession to a crime but is in fact much more thrilling. I meet Robert Speker (pronounced Speaker) in a comfy pistachio coloured sunlit room on a Sunday morning at the Sydmar Lodge Care Home in Edgware, north London.

He’s sitting with a straight back in a low chair, neatly presented in a checked shirt and dark chinos, smart watch around the wrist. Care home staples are dotted around us; water jugs and beakers, a plastic orchid, jigsaw puzzles, hand sanitiser. Entering the 53 bed lodgings was uplifting, a Union flag of Great Britain hung in the entrance and friendly chatter filled the corridors.

Robert continues: ‘It was Friday the 10th of July 2020, my second daughter’s birthday [he has three]. I’m quite a perfectionist. It was time to let the families and friends see it. I put it on Twitter, I put it on Facebook, went home and thought nothing of it. People obviously liked the images. I knew people would, because this was their family member or friend. People did need something positive. Over that Friday night it just went crazy.’

Robert is Head of Wellbeing at Sydmar Lodge, ensuring the health and happiness of the residents, staff and relatives through meaningful and personalised engagement; playing the piano, organising entertainers, quizzes, activities, events, outside trips and utilising residents to recreate iconic album covers! It was his Care Home Album Covers (CHAC) initiative which went viral on social media four years ago, four months into the first lockdown. That original Friday night tweet has received over 37K retweets, 1.5K comments and over 12 million views. Sydmar Lodge was trending. Radio and TV outlets reached out from across the globe – UK (including BBC, ITV, Channel 5), Europe, North and South America (ABC, NBC), Canada, Australia and the Far East.

It’s understandable why. The reimagined album covers are charming and authentic, created at a time when positivity was needed and vigorously shared. For inspiration, Robert typed into Google, ‘top iconic album covers’. He already knew the residents well and which of them would be best suited for each album cover. They had to like the particular singer or have some resemblance.

Vera was the ideal resident to recreate the fifth photo in the CHAC series, Adele’s second studio album 21. Vera was passionate about music and had similar hair to Adele. Vera’s name and age, 93, were inserted as the title. Robert recognised Lily had strength of character and a vague resemblance to Madonna, so cast her on the cover of the eighth photo in series, the 1986 album, True Blue. Roma had a similar hairdo to that of David Bowie for the fourth recreation, the 1973 album Aladdin Sane. It was then just a case of applying the iconic lightning bolt across the obliging Roma’s face. Positive comments even arrived through Twitter from Bowie’s widow Iman and son Duncan Jones. A fitting tribute.

For the first two albums in the series, 94-year-old Sheila used her walking stick in a playful reference to Elvis Presley’s 1956 eponymous album. Sheila then used her walking stick to emulate The Clash’s Paul Simonon’s bass guitar. Robert says: ‘Recreating this album felt even more relevant, since my series features works of pastiche, the practice of making art by intentionally imitating the style of someone else’s work. I just told Sheila to smash down her walking stick thinking of how she felt due to the Covid lockdown.’

Shelia’s third album reconstruction was Human by Rag’n’Bone Man, of whom she was an avid fan. ‘I think I look like him. Hahahaha. I just like Rag’n’ Bone Man. Charming, charitable, a very nice person,’ she says in one TV interview. In 2018 Robert had helped fulfil her bucket-list wish to see Rag’n’Bone Man in concert, at London’s Blackheath Festival, where she got to meet him backstage and was given a signed album. For the cover Robert replicated the artist’s tattoo on Sheila’s arms.

Not all the album covers featured residents. It was important for Robert to highlight the carers working at Sydmar Lodge and acknowledge those across the care profession. He did this by recreating the sixth photo in the series, Queen’s 1974 album, Queen II. Four female carers are shown in deep shadow, wearing pale or dark blue uniforms. The carer at the front wears blue gloves, arms crossed and a badge saying Lisa. The angle of the lighting is modified to mimic the original album to create a more intense and emotive feel.

To shoot the series, Robert opted to use a smartphone rather than his Nikon and a more cost-effective Huawei to an Apple or Samsung. Robert now uses Xiaomi and Oppo phones. The lighting was natural. He did every aspect including the stunning makeup. Each image was edited on the phone or in some cases using Microsoft Paint when adding text and fonts. The odd background removed, a conversion to black & white, never overly polished. ‘I only realised that when it was blown up to be printed the same size as an album, there was very little distortion. I didn’t shoot a raw file. I hadn’t even thought about printing it out. It was only supposed to be sent to family and friends. I’d not thought about them being printed out as pieces of art,’ he says.

He had to think about this when the Science Museum got in touch with him about acquiring the original series of 12. ‘There were so many emails coming through. My sister was fielding Twitter for me and the press. My wife saw that email and said I had to respond. I wasn’t even sure what ‘acquiring’ meant. Once I got my head around that, I had a really good discussion with the Science Museum and they made it very easy for me, explaining every process, even the pricing.’ They’re printed as an edition of 25 on Fuji C-Type paper and sized 12x12in to replicate an album cover. Prints are priced £395 each and all profits will be shared with the Alzheimer’s Society and Sydmar Lodge residents.

The series of 12 became 16 when Robert was emboldened to continue after the lead singer of Ultravox, Midge Ure, requested via Twitter that Robert construct the Vienna album which was celebrating its 40th anniversary. Robert summoned Freda, Mildred, Muriel and the reliable Sheila. ‘There was really no editing in that. The challenge was getting all four residents to stand in the right positions at the right time while I took a photo. What was complicated was assembling the chairs at the time and putting sheets over them to mimic the image. That was hard as was positioning the residents to do it. By the time you get to the last one they’ve already moved or one of them would say, “Don’t tell me to do that!” On seeing the finished album cover recreation Midge Ure delivered his verdict: ‘Utterly, utterly brilliant, Robert.’

Copycat projects were a further endorsement of the success. Residents at a care home in Aylesbury recreated their favourite Taylor Swift covers ahead of her 2024 UK Eras Tour. It’s debatable how much these ‘Senior Swifties’ knew about the music. An outside film crew documented the process. A professional photographer took the photos. A green screen was deployed. There was a heavy whiff of PR which raises ethical questions whether to coerce potentially vulnerable people to participate. Robert hides any concerns. ‘It’s not something I can patent. If anybody wants to do it, it’s fine. If it’s other care homes, fair play to them.’

Perhaps as a nod of respect (or guilt), the Aylesbury care home didn’t recreate the Taylor Swift 2014 album (named after her year of birth) that Robert had used. With his usual tenacity, Robert had tried to source a replica of the jumper Swift wore for the album cover. Not wanting to get into an extortionate bidding war on an auction website, Robert decided instead to print out an image of the jumper in A3, cutting out the neckline and asking resident Renee to hold it up in position. Renee’s initials and year of birth R.C. 1922 correlating to Taylor Swift’s use of her own initials and date of birth T.S. 1989 were applied on the album cover.

Photography and music are recognised as having health and well-being benefits, especially for those living with dementia. They can help them communicate, stay connected and trigger favourable memories. Robert acknowledges an element in his CHAC. ‘It was very difficult to explain the concept to some of the residents. I’d show them the album cover and say you’re going to be that, that’s what we’re going to make but it’s going to be you instead of Michael Jackson or David Bowie. It was only after it was finished would they laugh and say, “Now I understand.”

Their reactions were heartening and uplifting. They do place their trust in me and it’s my job not to let them down and I hope I didn’t. A lot of them with dementia would forget they even did the photo shoot. I’ll still show them it every so often and they won’t remember it at all. That it was on TV, in the media, all over the world, no recollection of it, so it’s nice they can relive it again. The families and close friends really appreciated the whole project and the opportunity for their loved relative to be involved in such an exciting initiative. They treasure the images!’

Robert has been up since 5am sourcing birthday cake recipes. His daughter wants a movie-themed birthday party but told him at the last minute that her friends had all seen the film Wonka which was planned to be shown. Robert recommended BIG (1988) and Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) instead. I stand to shake his hand goodbye. Before I do, he pulls out his phone and shows a recreation of the iconic album cover STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON by controversial American hip-hop gangsta-rap group N.W.A. The title on his, reads STRAIGHT OUTTA EDGWARE. ‘I’ve a lot more ideas for album covers,’ he says with a broad smile.

For more information visit: www.carehomealbumcovers.com/contact

Further reading on album cover photography:

• Nirvana’s Nevermind album cover voted ‘most iconic of all time’
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles
• Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones
• Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

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Astrophotographer Josh Dury captured this stunning image of the Orion Constellation above the iconic Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival site earlier this year in January. It was months in the making, with extensive research undertaken, recces and hours of planning.

Capturing this self-portrait has been an aspiration for Josh for quite some time. His passion for the arts makes this legendary location of one of the world’s most well-known music festivals, the ideal backdrop for creating his masterpiece. But to pull it off, he had several elements to consider and careful planning to ensure the stars aligned on the night.

It was during a recce of the site on New Year’s Eve that Josh realised his plans to shoot at his desired location would be far more straightforward than originally anticipated. After stopping to chat to a couple of locals, he eagerly shared his ambitions with them, and they assured him the landowners, Sir Michael and Emily Eavis, encouraged the public to roam freely along the many footpaths across their land. Josh was given the green light. ‘My hopes of being able to capture “Starstruck” were looking more promising.’

Next, Josh had to pinpoint the exact location. ‘I needed to know which direction the “skeleton” of the Pyramid Stage would be in context to the setting of Orion, which is approximately south-west-west. The image had to be timed precisely at the right place and at the right time to capture Orion from this perspective.’

Once Josh was able to visualise the angle of view, he had to tackle his next challenge – the weather and light conditions in the night sky. Unfortunately, the weather throughout January had been abysmal and he had to wait for a clear night with minimal light from the moon. ‘I needed to capture those finer details under as dark as skies as possible. This also needed to be timed with the constellation Orion beginning to set towards the south-west at approximately midnight to 1am.’

When the perfect conditions finally presented themselves, Josh set out with his Sony A7S, Sigma Art 20mm f/1.4 lens, and his Benro Tortoise 24CLV and geared head.

Due to the astronomical nature of the image, the final picture is a composite. The image depicts an area of the night sky known as The Orion Molecular Complex. Josh explains, ‘This region captures faint details that consist of hydrogen-alpha gas emissions that stretch through the Constellation of Orion; including a notable astronomical target, referred to astronomically, as “Barnard’s Loop”.

These details are just about detectable using unmodified cameras. While some astrophotographers decide to remove the infrared-cut filter from their camera sensors to resolve this detail over long exposures, it can render the warranty of your camera void.’ In this instance, Josh decided to capture what was possible with his camera setup without the need for modification. He continues, ‘This image required extensive exposures, 10 second subs over a 30-minute exposure, in relatively dark skies from the same spot and is documented as a composite for that very purpose.’

The hours of preparation paid off and after a successful shoot Josh can now proudly show off his hard work. His self-portrait was deliberately crafted under the frame of the Pyramid Stage to mimic the many names in music who have passed before, from the likes of Bowie and Dolly Parton to Sir Elton John. Josh says, ‘This image brings together the pyramid that is photography, music and astronomy. Capturing the “King of the Stars” – Orion, as he takes centre stage.’

This self-portrait really is a wonderful celebration of the arts and Josh dedicates it to two of his greatest musical influences, Kate Bush and Grace Jones. Josh says, ‘This is my attempt to reach out to them through the stars to give thanks for what their music has lent to me narratively to craft my images. In the hopes that one day, it will be their turn to take their place on centre stage.’

About Josh Dury

Josh Dury is an award-winning professional landscape astrophotographer, presenter, speaker and writer from the Mendip Hills in Somerset. His work is recognised by major publishing and media outlets, including: NASA, BBC, ITV and CNN amongst others. See more of his work at www.joshduryphoto-media.com

Further reading:

• The night sky: How to photograph stars and the Milky Way
• Guide to night landscape photography
• How to shoot star trails – in 6 easy steps
• How to photograph the moon – and super moon!

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The post It’s Glastonbury weekend! Check out this insane Pyramid Stage image appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

What better way to spend a Thursday morning, than hanging out of an open-door helicopter over London? A couple of weeks ago I joined 75 years young American aerial photographer, Donn Delson for a flight over the city for what was, a truly inspirational and exhilarating experience.

Prior to photography, Donn built and sold the 4th largest entertainment merchandise business in the world, BandMerch. Donn represented worldwide merchandising (tour, e-commerce, licensing, and retail) for artists like Rihanna, Billy Joel, Alanis Morissette, Outkast, and Linkin Park. Having had multiple careers throughout his life, Donn retired in 2010 and pursued his passion for photography, starting with landscape photography and experimenting with long exposures and industrial laser beams.

It was my first ever experience in a helicopter, but for Donn, being strapped in and leaning out of a rotorcraft at approx 580m/1900ft (and sometimes even higher!) has become a regular occurrence since his first taste in New Zealand in 2015. On a casual helicopter trip with his wife, filming a glacier, the pilot offered Donn the chance to shoot with the doors off. ‘I said, “That sounds awesome!”, and so they buckled me in with a harness and they pulled the door open. And that was it for me. I was just in love.’

Finding a niche

Like most of us, up until that point Donn had never experienced taking photographs from above unless in an airplane looking through the tiny windows. ‘The gift of getting a bird’s eye view of the beauty of the world below. The freedom of looking out and down with no windows or reflections to distort the image, the sheer joy and appreciation of what I was getting to do and be able to share with others, I knew I’d found my niche.’

The return to LA and subsequent research and exploration has led Donn to several destinations across the US as well as London, Amsterdam, Kyoto, the Dead Sea, parts of Italy and many more.

‘My goal is to look for the artistic vision that the landscape reveals, the patterns, the symmetry, the colour combinations, and my vision of trompe l’oeil in the literal sense, in that it tricks the eye.’ His clear fascination with patterns and symmetry pays homage to abstract Bauhaus artists like Paul Klee, Mark Rothko and Piet Mondrian.

‘I’m obsessed with perception and how looking at things from a different perspective or angle often yields an entirely different impression. You know, appearance versus reality. What’s commonplace and known to us on the ground, takes on a completely different appearance when looking straight down from above.’

On his first helicopter trip over New York, he was determined to create his own version of Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie over Times Square with its chock-a-block colours and shapes. As a result of Donn’s Broadway Boogie Woogie, which is part of the Points of Light Collection, people then started to gravitate to his images.

Aerial photography: a matter of planning and chance

Sitting next to Donn in the helicopter I watched him at work, unfazed by the wind, jolts and swings of the helicopter. On our 20-minute trip we went from Battersea Power Station, via the British Museum, the Gherkin, Tower Bridge, and the Shard to the O2, and back again via St Paul’s Cathedral, Piccadilly Circus and Regents Street. Enjoying all the main landmarks of the city, without the crowds. traffic and joys of the underground.

In a short space of time, I could see that Donn was methodical and careful about which images he took. Prior to any flight, he might have some shots in mind (like The Crown Jewel a direct birds-eye view of the British Museum roof). A simple “Yes, got it.” Came from beside me as a signal to the pilot to move on. But most of Donn’s images fall to chance and serendipity, he has many stories about times like these but one about visiting Japan is particularly special.

‘I went to Japan this past November to shoot fall colours, as they are always so magnificent. Except this year, because I guess my timing was a bit off. We’re flying over the mountains west of Tokyo and the colours are just not vibrant… so I was disappointed. I looked off to the left and saw Mount Fuji. The pilot looked at me and he said “It’s usually covered in clouds. Look today, you are so lucky. This is so unusual.” There was cloud cover, but the peak of Mount Fuji was crystal clear and gorgeous. This little floating area of clouds come over from the right and blended a bit to the left of Fuji and balanced the image perfectly… I got the most incredible picture and made the whole trip a success.’

Another example is in Xylophones, where Donn captured rows of shipping containers at a port in Los Angeles. To him, the containers look like the musical bars on a xylophone, but he often gets the question of “why have you photographed a bookshelf?”; before they look closer and notice shipping containers with a large white lorry passing through. ‘It’s those surprise elements that come along that really make the difference too. It would’ve been a beautiful picture without the white truck. But the white truck was just like a gift.’

Kit for aerial photography

In terms of kit, Donn’s current cameras of choice are the Fujifilm GFX100 and Nikon D850. He said, ‘I love both these bodies and use them extensively. To give the viewer the best possible experience, to allow them to almost literally step into the picture and be with me in the helicopter. I make all my images large scale, the smallest being about 81 cm x 122 cm.’ The 102 megapixels of the Fuji GFX100 allows Donn the option of capturing insane amounts of detail and printing larger. The Nikon however, is Donn’s go-to for twilight and low light photography. When it comes to lenses, ‘With the Fuji, I tend to carry a mix of the 110mm F2, 32-64mm F4 and sometimes the 100-200mm F5.6. With the Nikon, the Nikkor 24-70 F2.8E FL ED VR.’

He also shoots in raw for the maximum amount of information. ‘Raw requires that I do some work in post-production, in Lightroom and Photoshop, but primarily to remove haze, increase contrast, or color saturation, basically to try to make the image as close as possible to what I actually saw.’

What about drones?

Despite some of the challenges that come with aerial photography – turbulence, unexpected weather, angles, the sun and the vibration from wind and propellers – to name a few. Donn hasn’t been tempted by drone photography. ‘I have the utmost respect for some of the amazing photography that I’ve seen lately that has been produced using drones.’ But it’s the connection and the emotion between Donn in the helicopter and looking down at the subject himself that is needed for the work. ‘I also fly to heights upward of 4,000 meters (12,000ft) as necessary to accomplish a shot. Drones are, I think, more limited, particularly over populated areas, as to what heights they are permitted to fly.’

Presentation is everything

Being unrestricted is an idea that resonates throughout Donn’s work and how it is presented too. He told me, ‘I don’t frame from pieces traditionally either. I mount them under acrylic with no frame… The idea being that without the frame you don’t have the encumbrance of the border. You have the freedom to, just like when you looked out the helicopter with no door, you had the perfect ability to just feel like a bird… I try to communicate that in my photography as well.’

The whimsical titles given to each piece reflect what they may resemble from high above, asking the audience to rethink their inherent assumptions about what they are seeing.

Advice for starting out in aerial photography

Aerial photography has taken Donn all over the world, so you might think he must have a favourite place he’s photographed… ‘The world from above is pretty spectacular, and although I’ve been fortunate to have travelled extensively, there’s still so much I hope to see and be able to shoot. If I include an image in my collection, it’s only because I love it. There’ve been so many…  sensational stories of things that I’ve experienced and had the opportunity to see that I can’t really pick a favourite… I’d love to go to India. I haven’t been.’

Having been up in the helicopter with Donn, I have a real appreciation for his process and the images he makes. I’ve always been an advocate for “looking up” to challenge your perspective – but now, I say “look down” when you get the chance to as well. Abstracting the mundanities of everyday life through this distance in such an artistic matter is what makes Donn’s work so special. In our interview, Donn shared with me a quote by Annie Albers, a weaving and textile artist from the Bauhaus School in the early 1900’s. She said, ‘You know it’s great art, if it makes you breathe differently.’ And Donn’s work certainly takes my breath away.

If you’ve ever thought about creating this type of work, Donn has one piece of advice for you:

‘My advice would be, do it. After 75 years of living, my advice would be if you have a passion for something, if there’s something that intrigues you, [or] something that piques your interest, never let anybody tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t… Every time I’ve stepped outside my comfort zone, I’ve experienced growth.’

Donn Delson’s top tips for fine art aerial photography

1. Shoot a high shutter speed 1/1600-1/2000 to help eliminate the vibration
2. Shoot in burst mode. The first and last few of the burst may or may not be in focus, but the middle should be.
3. Only take images that evoke an emotional reaction of some sort in you.
4. Take images that you believe will tell a story, evoke confusion, curiosity, joy, calm, etc. as every viewer sees something different in an image.
5. With respect to helicopter photography, it can also be quite expensive, so it helps if people want to collect your work to enjoy for themselves.

Donn Delson’s next solo show is scheduled for January 2025 at Axiom Contemporary in Scottsdale, AZ.

See more of Donn’s work on his website and Instagram.

Further reading:

• What is Fine Art? Photographers explain…
• Fine art architecture photography guide
• Guide to fine art black and white photography
• Guide to fine art landscape photography

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From 1986-1992, Sebastião Salgado travelled across the globe documenting the end of the first big Industrial Revolution and the demise of manual labour. The result was the classic tome, Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age. The book presented six essential chapters: Agriculture, Food, Mining, Industry, Oil and Construction.

The striking black & white images are an eclectic odyssey, from Russian car factories to the beaches of Bangladesh. Collectively, the book delivered a masterclass in photographic technique – content and contrast, lighting and composition. It is testament to the best attributes of the power of photography and what can be achieved through collaboration between subject, sponsor, publisher, editor, colleagues, friends and family.

Thirty years on from its first publication in 1993 and now republished by Taschen, Workers still resonates, perhaps more so as the world’s population is increasingly sucked into a screen/computer/robot-led existence. To mark the anniversary and the book’s republication, we ask leading figures in photography about the significance of Workers, Salgado’s importance and his influence on their craft, and their favourite of his images from this important book.

Andy Greenacre – Director of Photography, The Telegraph Magazine / Telegraph Luxury

‘There are a great many photographs by Sebastião Salgado that have attained iconic status within the canon of his works, but from Workers I have chosen what might, at first glance, seem a more prosaic image. Shot in 1990 at the Brest military shipyard in France, the picture of a welder, shown below, works on several levels.

‘First, the composition and scale is much tighter than many of Salgado’s photographs, yet it retains a sense of crackle and drama with him shooting so close to the sparks being thrown off the steel. Second, we are treated to his trademark printing with absolute whites and inky blacks. But what I like
most about this picture is the nod to the surrealism in the work of photographers of the 1930s, in particular Cartier-Bresson and Alvarez Bravo.

Salgado’s low shooting position gives us that eye within an eye, a touch of humour that adds another dimension to the photograph. From record of
industry to surrealist fun, this is a great example of Salgado’s ability to imbue his works with multiple levels of depth and interpretation.’

Carol Allen-Storey – Award-winning photojournalist chronicling complex humanitarian and social issues

‘Sebastião Salgado’s style of photography, for me, fosters poetic beauty embracing brutally raw subjects – from poverty through to the oppression of cultures and the impact of industrialisation on the natural landscape. His photographs go beyond language and culture, reaching deep into our souls and challenging us to reflect on the world we live in. They provoke debate and a call to action.

‘Salgado said: “I’m not an artist. An artist makes an object. Me, it’s not an object, I work in history, I’m a storyteller,” and “Photography is a language that is all the more powerful because it can be read anywhere in the world without the need for translation.” His exquisitely crafted visuals and personal philosophy have had a profound influence on my brand of photography.’

Nigel Atherton – Editor, Amateur Photographer

‘There are key moments in all our lives that shape who we are and what we believe in, and one of mine was the day in 1993 that I went to the Royal Festival Hall in London to see Sebastião Salgado’s Workers exhibition. Oil workers, gold miners, ship-breakers, fishermen, farmers, tea pickers and others were all sympathetically but beautifully photographed like the heroes of an epic visual poem.

‘It was my “red pill” moment, showing me for the first time how the comforts that we enjoy are so often built upon the exploitation of some of the world’s poorest people. Salgado’s next project, Migrations, which focused on migrants, refugees and displaced people around the world, many fleeing conflict or natural disasters, was equally powerful and is just as relevant today. His subsequent projects, Genesis and Amazonia, focused on humanity’s relationship with nature and were no less epic in scale and visual impact.

‘Choosing just one Salgado image is tough, but I feel I have to go with one of the images that first made my jaw drop all those years ago, from his now-iconic 1986 project on the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil. The astonishing sight of 50,000 men digging for gold in the mud of the Amazon, like a scene from Dante’s Inferno, or the building of the pyramids, is one that has stayed with me. This mine is now closed, but it’s a blight on humanity that millions still live similarly wretched lives.’

Russ O’Connell – Picture Editor, The Sunday Times Magazine

‘Salgado is one of those rare and prolific photojournalists who documents world events and natural world scenes with an honest yet artistic eye. His monochromatic images often play with scale and perspective in a way that is both intriguing and awe-inspiring. From his iconic images of workers in the burning oil fields of Kuwait, to the majestic tail of a southern right whale in his Genesis works, he never ceases to amaze me with the scope and detail of the work he produces.

‘My favourite image of his (Serra Pelada gold mine, Brazil, 1986) is biblical in scale, akin to a scene from an Indiana Jones feature film. It shows a worker in a Brazilian gold mine, standing like Jesus on the cross, while hundreds of other workers scurry up and down primitive ladders like ants carrying earth on their backs. It’s hard to believe it is a real scene and not an orchestrated film set, but that’s the beauty in Salgado’s work; it always leaves you stunned by its undeniable reality.’

Edmond Terakopian – Photojournalist and commercial photographer, winner of the British Press Awards Photographer of the Year award

‘I think most of us can remember the photographs that grabbed us and completely shook us to the core, staying with us for life. Salgado’s ‘Crucifixion’ photograph from the open gold mine at Serra Pelada in Brazil from 1986, is just such an image. It engaged me both emotionally and intellectually.

‘The scale of it is immense. It’s a photograph that captures a grand vista showing almost ant-like colonies of men in the background, creating a dramatic mosaic of suffering for a meagre wage, yet at the same time juxtaposes an amazing portrait of absolute exhaustion, elegantly, with immense gentleness and empathy. A man broken through a day of hell, all to feed the super-wealthy with their obsession for wanting more and more gold.

‘On a personal level, at the age of 17, a year after starting photography, this image also changed the direction of my life. It opened my eyes to what a camera could produce, when in the hands of a thoughtful, intelligent, empathetic photographer, with immense aesthetic talent. It set me on the path to wanting to be a photojournalist. I could even say that I owe my career to this photograph.’

David Collyer FRPS – RPS Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021

‘Every artistic genre has its standout practitioners; those who transcend the ordinary or even the extraordinary to become indisputable masters. Sebastião Salgado is one of photography’s masters. Not only are his campaigning photojournalism and social documentary work vital in showing the plight of some of the world’s most vulnerable and exploited people, but he does so with a consistent technical excellence. Importantly, his work is also visually stunning. Each photograph, a sumptuous feast for the eyes, is an unflinching gaze into the realities of the subject, yet is never done with anything other than respect and empathy for those he portrays.

‘Choosing a favourite Salgado image is almost impossible, but I’ve chosen the photo of the ship Prodromos being broken up in Bangladesh in 1989. The workers are imperative to the shot but dwarfed almost into non-existence by the looming hulk of the ship; they are vital yet somehow insignificant. The juxtaposition of the might of the vessel and the diminutive, exploited scrap workers is a perfect metaphor for the whole of Salgado’s work.

It really is a powerful testament to the battle between man and the elements, and the planet and the excesses of man. This shot has everything, yet unlike so much of his work, it’s strangely minimal in its composition. The strength of the shot, however, is that because of that sparse presentation, its impact is masterfully maximal. Genius!’

Tom Oldham – Photographer, Founder of Creative Corners, AP’s Hero of Photography 2023 and Sony Imaging Ambassador

‘Describing Salgado’s impact on photography is nigh-on impossible as he transcends the form. Us mere pixel- peepers aren’t asking what lens or format or megapixels or developer he’s using, are we? In no way is this work about the technical (though of course he is a master) – it’s so much more about how can anyone capture such magnitude, such incredible enormity whilst retaining that essential relatability necessary for an image to be about humans.

‘For me, what Salgado is to photography, The Beatles are to music and Ali is to boxing – you easily forget the medium and focus just on the message. The depth of understanding and pure power in those compositions has created change in us all, and for that the world owes Salgado a colossal debt.’

Ian Berry – Leading British photojournalist and Magnum Photos member since 1962

‘The first thing about Sebastião is that he’s a great photographer. Secondly, he has a background as an economist working for the World Bank which gave him a wide knowledge of global affairs and conditions. Lastly he’s a terrific guy, which is a great combination for a photojournalist/documentary photographer.

‘It was on his travels to Africa for the World Bank that he first started seriously taking photographs of the people he met. Then in 1973, he abandoned his career as an economist to concentrate on photography, working initially on news assignments before veering towards the work for which he is well-known. In 1979 he joined Magnum Photos, resigning in 1994 to start his own agency, Amazonas Images, in Paris with his wife Lélia.

‘I have sad memories of Magnum board meetings when there were discussions between two distinct sides on the board about where Magnum was going. Sebastião said that if Magnum didn’t maintain its editorial outlook he would quit. Things got heated. Sebastião rose, apparently about to depart, when Henri Cartier-Bresson got up and wedged a chair under the doorknob – a symbolic gesture to prevent him leaving. Then things became more peaceable but flared up again at a later board meeting when he rose to explain why he would leave Magnum and was basically ignored. He quit and I drove him to Heathrow to fly back home.

‘Although he decided to leave Magnum he has gone on to greater things, producing wonderful books with his capacity to spend years on a project. He is what Magnum should be about and is a great example for any budding photojournalist / documentary photographer.

‘Another side to mention is that he is also a passionate believer in preserving the environment. In 1998 his wife Lélia and he created Instituto Terra, an environmental organisation that aims to promote the restoration of the Rio Doce valley. Instituto Terra, besides advocating reforestation, promotes environmental education, scientific research, and sustainable development. For his part he has planted thousands of trees on his organic farm in Brazil.’

Tiffany Tangen – Head of Content, Wex Photo Video

‘Rembrandt became synonymous with the Golden Age because he was able to paint preternatural light, and for the same reason Sebastião Salgado is synonymous with photography. Spending a lifetime documenting the world in uncontrollable conditions, Salgado is able to see the light, regardless of what’s unfolding in front of him; to capture truth and trauma so beautifully is a rarity, and one that allows the audience to connect with a situation more wholly.   

‘My favourite image from the Workers collection is ‘Coal Mining, Dhanbad, Bihar, India, 1989’ (above). Salgado encapsulates a sense of individuality against a backdrop of sameness, like ants marching towards summer. His ability to connect you with the subject allows you to see both the solitary man, and the army marching behind. The two perspectives offer an all-encompassing visual story. The ability to document so beautifully, and in such an image-saturated world, gives scope for the general public to care more, which is something that is entirely welcomed.’

Book Review – Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age

Workers is widely recognised as an exploration of the activities that have defined labour from the Stone Age through the Industrial Age to the present. Faithful to the spirit and intent of the original publication, it pays tribute to the time-honoured tradition of manual labour.

‘This book is an homage to workers, a farewell to a world of manual labour that is slowly disappearing and a tribute to those men and women who still work as they have for centuries,’ writes Salgado. His lens elevates the workers to hero or saint. The constant companions of manual labour – poverty, disease, exploitation, injury – are largely ignored. It unapologetically avoids straying from the frontline of the working environment into people’s private lives.

That’s the Salgado way of taking pictures, to eulogise his subjects and present the best comprehension of human beings and the human condition. To show how the spirit of man prevails in the harshest of conditions. To deliver a message of endurance and hope. Every social documentary photographer and photojournalist has their own eye and a decision to make about what to record and take responsibility for what to leave out, in order to construct a narrative that can effect positive change. Salgado’s method provides a valid historical truth within a framework about workers, how the world works and what unites race and nationalities.

‘Salgado unveils the pain, the beauty, and the brutality of the world of work on which everything rests,’ wrote playwright Arthur Miller on the book’s original publication – a description that would be equally valid if written today.

Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age by Sebastião Salgado is published by Taschen, RRP £80. www.taschen.com

More reading:

• Sebastião Salgado honoured in Sony Awards
• Sebastião Salgado’s new book: Amazônia

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The post Celebrating 30 years of Workers by Sebastião Salgado appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

Joel Meyerowitz is strongly associated with locations including Cape Cod in Massachusetts, rural Tuscany and the busy streets of New York, where he has created some of the most memorable work of his 60-year career. So it seems strange to be interviewing him on a freezing cold January day in a residential area of north London, where he now lives and works. ‘Well, here I am,’ says Joel at the door of his studio, as if also slightly surprised to find himself there.

Although a few months from his 86th birthday, Joel is remarkably youthful for his age; he’s in very good shape both physically and mentally, and speaks as eloquently as ever. His compact, bright, white-walled studio, which he shares with his partner and fellow artist Maggie Barrett, is filled with neatly arranged books and prints, as well as assorted objects that have featured in his still-life work. 

Joel lived in New York for the majority of his adult life, then Siena, Italy for a decade before moving to London last year. Siena proved a fruitful ground for his photography and led to books of landscape and still-life subjects. He moved to London partly because Maggie was involved in a serious accident over a year ago and the city offers high-quality medical care, but also so he can be close to the social and cultural life.

‘I really enjoy myself here,’ he says. ‘I’ve been productive since we arrived and have printed most of the work for two exhibitions. And there’s a sense of community and a quality of life in London that feels good to me, compared to New York which feels more pressurised now. 

‘I like photographing here, although I don’t have a project that’s ongoing right now because other things are, in a way, of deeper interest to me personally. But I like being out on the street here. Street life is good when you’re in the centre of a city.’

Shooting in black & white – and colour

Joel started out his lifetime’s creative journey in photography in 1962. He was famously inspired to start using a camera by watching Robert Frank at work on an advertising shoot. He quickly established himself as one of the leading street photographers of his generation and he often worked directly alongside friends and contemporaries including Tony Ray-Jones and Garry Winogrand. 

At the time, black & white was considered the only type of photography for serious artistic photographers, while colour was used for commercial work, glossy magazines or amateur snapshots. There was a great antipathy in the art world towards using colour; as the great American photojournalist Walker Evans said, ‘Colour tends to corrupt photography…colour photography is vulgar.’ Although Joel worked in black & white, he also used colour extensively from the beginning and is now seen as one of the leading exponents for artistic photography in the period.

This street work forms the main part of Joel’s exhibition at Tate Modern, A Question of Color. This section consists of pairs of images of the same scene, shot on colour and black & white 35mm film, and invites us to compare the images. Sometimes the two images are very similar, and other times they’re quite different. They have come about because when Joel was working on the streets, he would take two cameras – mainly Leicas – one loaded with black & white negative film and the other loaded with Kodachrome colour transparency film.

He says he shot two versions of a situation to prove his point – long since accepted now, but radical at the time – that colour is the best way of capturing and interpreting the abundant variety of the world around us. ‘Working in colour requires a larger sensibility,’ he says. ‘It meant I could play photography on a richer scale [giving] a more intimate, personal understanding of what time and life and light mean, rather than in the reductive, narrow scheme of black & white.

‘And that’s what I think those pictures at the Tate Modern offer the viewer. You look at them side by side and you can see the bones of the picture in black & white. But when you see the same thing next to it in colour, and you see the nuances and the way light bounces around and comes up off a wall and flashes back, you can start to look into it dimensionally and emotionally, I think in ways that are expansive, they’re symphonic, rather than like playing a solo instrument.’

It’s interesting to view the pairs of pictures side-by-side in the exhibition; as well as comparing the colour and black & white rendition of a scene, one can also look at how he made pictures of the same situation from different angles and how it developed over a short time period. 

‘What I appreciate most is the challenge it poses to the viewer and the engagement [it provokes]. The Tate says people spend more time in that room than just about any other room in that wing of the gallery.’

Colour work

Although photo-historians previously credited William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and Joel with striking out a new direction in photography by their use of colour in the 1970s, the exhibition shows that Joel was using colour much earlier. In fact, it was he who initially spurred Eggleston on to take up colour photography.  

‘In 1968, Eggleston came up to New York to meet the New York photographers and to show his work,’ Joel remembers. ‘He came to my house one night and showed me 50 8x10in black & white prints and I showed him 300 colour slides in a carousel projector. I enlarged them on the wall so the pictures were two feet across. 

‘He left at 3.30 in the morning, saying, “I’m shooting colour from now on, you’ve converted me.” But at that time, you couldn’t easily make colour prints that were high-quality, because you had to go from the slide to an inter-negative to a print. And the inter-negative lost depth in the shadows, and tone in the highlights were kind of muddy.’

At the time, the only way to make a really high-quality colour print was by using the dye transfer process, which was complicated and expensive. Joel continues, ‘In the late ’60s, dye transfers cost $300 to make one print and when I was working in the ’60s I was earning $50 a week. So $300 was like a month’s rent. It was impossible. But Eggleston was a rich kid, so could afford it and was able to make these prints.’ Eggleston’s first major exhibition of dye transfer prints, held at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1976, is often seen as a turning point in the acceptance of colour photography as an artistic medium.  

Joel’s use of Kodachrome also had the effect of changing the kind of images he wanted to shoot. ‘I wanted to get everything sharp, because Kodachrome was sharp, so I saw that to make the depth I needed, I would have to double my normal shooting distance. I saw I’d have to give up shooting “the incident” so that I could get everything in the frame and make what I called a “field photograph”. 

‘That changed my perception of what was interesting on the street. I needed to see multiple actions and connections going on at once, so it was really much more engaged and inter-related, rather than an object or an incident being the single thing. So I found myself making a more difficult kind of picture.’ 

One example of this kind of image is West 46th Street, Manhattan, a New York street scene that captures a range of people and buildings in one frame. There’s no one single subject; the subject is everything in the picture. 

However, this change in approach meant Joel also needed to change the format in which he was shooting. He says, ‘The print quality [of the 35mm pictures] wasn’t good enough, but I knew if I worked with an 8x10in negative I would have everything and I could print it, because the labs could print bigger negatives at large scale.’ So in 1976, Joel bought a 1938 Deardorff 8x10in view camera, which was made of mahogany and brass with leather bellows. 

He spent the summer of that year in Cape Cod on the Massachusetts coast, making detailed, meditative colour images that captured the location’s atmosphere and quality of light. The result was Cape Light, a popular and influential book that went on to sell over 150,000 copies and launch a completely new phase in Joel’s career. This led on to many other projects in the following years, selections from which are included in the Tate Modern exhibition. 

They include his Empire State series (1978), a collection of New York urban landscapes, taken in different locations but which all include the iconic Empire State Building; and Aftermath, a monumental series of detailed images created in the sheer devastation of Ground Zero in the weeks and months following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Today and tomorrow

As well as the Tate Modern exhibition, Joel also currently has another exhibition in London, at the Huxley-Parlour gallery. Titled ‘Dialogues’, it also presents his work in pairs, but this time there’s a different relationship between the images. ‘Sometimes you see two pictures near each other and they have a kind of conversation,’ says Joel. There’s something that makes you want to put them together in a book or hang them together on
the wall.

‘So I thought, why don’t we do a set of pairs of pictures that are in dialogue with each other? Some pictures just relate to other pictures – it might be scale change, it might be colour relationships, it might be a space that has similarities in it. What I really would like to do is to engage the viewer in the act of looking.’

Joel has also published two books during the past year: A Question of Color (Thames & Hudson, 2023), which shows a wider range of his colour/black & white street photographs of the 1960s and ’70s than the Tate Modern display, and The Pleasure of Seeing (Damiani, 2023) in which he discusses his life in photography. ‘I’d like to write an autobiography, but when am I going to find the time to do that?’ he asks. ‘So that was a good way of doing it.’

Joel is currently less interested in developing new projects than revisiting old ones that didn’t receive exposure at the time they were made. ‘I’m more interested in revisiting the unseen works and doing the books that were not published back in the ’70s because there was no market at the time,’ he says. ‘I have more than 20 years of work, six or seven different big bodies of work, and I owe it to myself to bring them to the public now. I want to engage with myself in a way that I think is justified.’

He is at an age when most people have long since slowed down or have stopped working. What keeps him inspired and gives him his zest for life?

‘I see a lot of people younger than me who are schlumping around and life is over,’ he says. ‘I’m an optimist. I have been my entire life. I think humanity is capable of extraordinary optimism and poetry and grace – I see that, and I see the humour in it. And I think it’s the humour and absurdity, mixed with the grace and the beauty, that keeps me engaged.’

A Question of Color is on show at the Tate Modern, South Bank, London SE1 9TG until 3 November. The book of the same title is published by Thames & Hudson, price £20. A separate exhibition, Joel Meyerowitz: Dialogues, is on show at Huxley-Parlour, 3-5 Swallow Street, London W1B 4DE until 2 March.

Feeling inspired to take to the streets and start capturing your environment? If you are still looking for the best camera for street photography or the best lens for street photography we have you covered too, and once you had a look at the different kit options, you’ll find some great tips in our articles on street photography.

Related reading:

• Black and white Street photography: tips and tricks from the experts
• Best photography exhibitions to see
• Analogue street photography tips

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The album was titled after Swift’s birth year, mainly to signify her symbolic artistic rebirth, and was supported by seven singles, including three US Billboard Hot 100 number ones – Shake It Off, Blank Space and Bad Blood.

The fact that Swift named 1989 after her birth year also tends to corroborate the influence of 1980s synth-pop on the record. As creative director, Swift insisted the record’s packaging included pictures taken with a Polaroid instant camera – a photographic method that was significantly more popular in her birth year of 1989 than in the year of the album’s release, 2014, in the age of smartphone cameras and digital images on social media. 

The alleged inspiration of the musical work of Peter Gabriel also seems fitting as, like Gabriel with his 1980 album Peter Gabriel III (aka ‘Melt’), Swift chose to depict herself on the cover by using a Polaroid image as the main visual. In addition, similarly to what Gabriel and his art creatives Hipgnosis did on the cover of the ‘Melt’ album, she made the artistic decision of not showing the whole of her face.

Cut-off head

Swift said the choice of image for the cover was intended to bring about a sense of mystery. She explained, ‘I didn’t want people to know the emotional DNA of this album. I didn’t want them to see a smiling picture on the cover and think this was a happy album, or see a sad-looking facial expression and think, “oh, this is another breakup record”.’ 

The Polaroid cover of the album is a colour portrait of Swift, but it deliberately cuts off her face just below the eyes with her T.S. initials at the bottom left and 1989 at the bottom right in black marker pen. Swift has red lipstick on and is wearing a sweatshirt featuring flying seagulls, which some people have speculated is a reference to the British band A Flock of Seagulls, who had huge success in the US in the 1980s. Swift revealed, ‘Having been born on 13 December 1989, this album is called 1989. That photo you are seeing is a Polaroid we took, we took the album photos on Polaroids. It was kind of an accident, so I figured why not make that photo the album cover?’

Each CD copy of the 1989 album included a packet of 13 random Polaroid pictures (one of five available sets), chosen from 65 different pictures. The shots portrayed Swift in various settings, such as backdrops of New York and recording sessions with the producers. The photos are out-of-focus, off-framed, with a sepia-tinged treatment, and feature the 1989 song lyrics written with black marker on the bottom. 

Photographic duo

The US photographers behind the 1989 album cover shoot were Sarah Barlow and Stephen Schofield, who are based in LA and are known professionally as Lowfield. Barlow and Schofield had originally met in Nashville, with Schofield seeing potential beyond Barlow’s normal wedding photography work; this led to a collaboration that is ongoing. Both Barlow and Schofield had befriended Swift independently of each other and their first official paid job together was to shoot the cover of Swift’s 2012 studio album, Red.

In a similar way to the subsequent 1989 album cover, the front of the Red album also somewhat obscured Swift’s face, but it was simply a case of a shadow falling across the singer’s face because she was wearing a hat. In an interview, Barlow told Musicbed, ‘One of her background singers needed headshots. When Taylor saw them a few months later she came to me and was like, “Liz showed me the shots you took of her, and I need my album to look exactly like that.” Clearly this was a no-brainer. I said, “OK!”.’

In the Musicbed interview, Barlow revealed that the 1989 shoot ‘was like a Polaroid and digital mix. I think we end up shooting 460 Polaroids… [an] insane number of Polaroids.’ The idea behind the shoot was to purposefully mimic an image you might find in an old photo album or the type of candid shot you might take of a friend or put on social media.

Boost for Polaroid

The then-Polaroid Corporation CEO, Scott Hardy, reported that the Taylor Swift 1989 Polaroid album cover concept propelled a revival in instant film, especially among the hipster subculture who valued the ‘nostalgia and retro element of what [their] company stands for’. It also saw many Taylor Swift fans rushing out to buy Polaroid cameras to experience the fun and joy of creating instant images.

In a 2015 interview with website Digital Spy, Scott Hardy revealed how creating the cover of the 1989 album came about. ‘Taylor Swift’s camp approached us and told us about her upcoming album, 1989, which was the year she was born. They said they would love to do something with Polaroid, and so we did a nice collaboration effort with her, and she bundled 12 Polaroid photographs with that special edition album.

‘With a Polaroid picture you have that space to write underneath what it is, and so she personally hand- wrote what’s going on, chose the photographs and then we bundled them in. It was one of the most successful album launches in history. That was a proof point that showed that younger demographic know Polaroid, they want Polaroid products and they love what we stand for.’

A final twist

The 1989 LP was marketed as Swift’s first ‘official pop’ album, following her earlier, more country-style work. To bolster sales, Swift and Big Machine Records implemented an extensive marketing plan with Swift adopting a zany aspect for her 1989 persona. She had already used social media extensively to communicate with her fan base, showcasing her personal life to make young fans feel engaged with her. 

A final twist to the 1989 cover story came in late October 2023 with the release of ‘Taylor’s Version’ of the 1989 album. After leaving Big Machine Label Group, in 2018 Taylor Swift had subsequently negotiated to own the master rights to all the new music she created. By re-recording the 1989 album she now owns its rights moving forward.

The re-recording of 1989 heralded a fresh album cover, with a more conventional portrait of Taylor Swift shot by Beth Garrabrant. In a nod to the original 1989 album cover the 1989: Taylor’s Version imagery features flying seagulls in the background, but shows a head and shoulders portrait of Swift. Garrabrant had previously shot the black & white cover of Swift’s 2020 lockdown album Folklore, which shows the musician sleepwalking
in woodland in a nightgown.

Such was the initial worldwide reaction to the original Taylor Swift album cover that, in March 2022, the US music industry bible Billboard ranked the 1989 cover artwork as number 50 in its countdown of the 50 greatest album covers of all time. Despite its comparative newness, 1989 has clearly already carved out its own unique niche in album cover history.

Taylor Swift, 1989 – Quick facts:

• Released: 27 October 2014 (Big Machine Records)
• Best chart performance: No. 1 in 13 countries, including the US and UK
• Sales: Over 10,000,000 certified sales worldwide
• Fascinating fact: The cover concept and execution for the album quickly gained plaudits and spawned a host of parodies and imitators. One of the most entertaining was by the residents of Sydmar Lodge Care Home in London who, during the first 2020 Covid lockdown, recreated several iconic album covers. The Taylor Swift cover was mimicked by resident ‘R.C.’ with 1922 replacing the 1989 birth year. The project was masterminded and creatively directed by Robert Speker (activities co-ordinator at Sydmar Lodge), with sales proceeds going to the Alzheimer’s Society and the residents. See carehomealbumcovers.com

Lowfield

Lowfield is the professional name for the photography and directing duo of Sarah Barlow and Stephen Schofield, who are based in Los Angeles. They originally met in Nashville with Schofield seeing potential beyond Barlow’s wedding photography work. Lowfield’s first official paid job was shooting the cover of Taylor Swift’s 2012 album Red. The duo has subsequently also shot record covers for Pharrell Williams, Wilder Woods, Grace Mitchell and Hailee Steinfeld. www.low-field.com

Panel feedback:

Andy Cowles: ‘Taylor Swift is famous for her sense of control. This cover might suggest a casual approach to stardom, but nothing could be further from the truth. The handwriting is cute, but the power comes from the crop. The only thing that matters here are her lips. These are what we are being invited to buy into.’

Kevin Cummins: ‘Though this cover is well-crafted and glamorous, it has a DIY feel. It’s as if it was shot on a cheap Polaroid as a reference print for continuity on a video, rather than an expensive album sleeve shoot. I love the framing of the subject and the scribbled Sharpie title. It intrigues. It’s the perfect package.’ 

Rachael Wright: ‘The Sharpie-written title makes it feel personal; in keeping with Swift’s “Dear Diary” song-writing style. The choices reflect her growing confidence as an artist – the use of initials, the loose sweater, the undone hair and the face crop, which draws viewers’ eyes straight to her signature red lipstick.’

Leading lights of photography, music and design chose their favourite album covers. The panel includes: Janette Beckmann, Jason Bell, Harry Borden, Ed Caraeff, Andy Cowles, Kevin Cummins, Dr Andy Earl, Jill Furmanovsky, Christie Goodwin, Peter Hook, Simon Larbalestier, Gered Mankowitz, Dennis Morris, Peter Neill, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, Rankin, Jamel Shabazz, Mat Snow, Howard Wakefield, Kirk Weddle, Rachael Wright.

Further reading:

• Nirvana’s Nevermind album cover voted ‘most iconic of all time’
• Greatest Album Photography: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles
• Greatest album photography: Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones
• Greatest album photography: Quadrophenia The Who

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When Edward Burtynsky was a child, he grew up to the soundtrack of the General Motors plant in St Catharines, Ontario. ‘We would drive past and all you could hear was ba-boom, ba-boom,’ he recalls as we settle down for a chat. St Catharines was a blue-collar city and his father, Peter, had secured work on the production line at the factory. ‘There was a red brick wall that ran for about half a kilometre and from behind it there came a noise so loud that you could feel the earth shake,’ he explains. When Edward was seven, he attended an open day at the plant and was amazed by what he found there. ‘I saw molten metal going down chutes, big presses in action and people wearing aluminium suits that made them look like Martians,’ he laughs. 

All the while, ba-boom, ba-boom rang out like a heartbeat. To a child born at the beginning of the Space Race, this odd environment where humans and technology worked side by side must have seemed intoxicating. ‘I realised that there was this whole other world,’ he
says. ‘It was like going into the bowels of the machine while knowing that every time we drove past, we were riding in the thing the plant was making!’

Edward received his first camera at the age of 11 (a gift from his father, who was a keen amateur photographer), but it would be more than two decades before the ‘man-altered landscape’ became his primary focus. By then, he had put himself through college and university by working in factories, just like his father. All that changed in the early eighties. ‘Recently I came across a journal from 1983 which contains a paragraph where
I define my life’s work,’ he smiles.

At the time, Edward was on a solo trip across North America (partly funded by an arts grant), travelling with a 5x4in camera, a stack of film, a tent, fishing gear and some money for petrol. ‘I fished and photographed for four months,’ he grins. Halfway through the trip he began making notes about the trajectory of human population growth. ‘I was looking at the scale of resource extraction and all the technology that accompanies human expansion and I was thinking how frightening and unsustainable it was,’ he recalls. ‘I decided to find the largest examples of the human footprint and to make photographing them my life’s work.’

Nothing less than perfect

Speaking to Edward, his ambition is clear. In 1985 he opened a laboratory where he created prints for himself and some of the best-known photographers in the country. ‘I learnt how to print, I learnt about what made a good image, I was the first in line for new optics, and I ran the chemistry,’ he says. ‘I knew how it all worked, so I became a highly skilled technician in the field of printing.’ 

Edward refused to settle for anything less than perfect, and this attention to detail still underpins his work today. ‘I wanted to be at the leading edge; at the point where you couldn’t make it better because there was nothing better,’ he enthuses. 

He applies the same ‘best of the best’ approach when it comes to selecting subject matter. Whether he’s shooting mines, salt pans, factories, dams or oil refineries, he’s always looking for the biggest and the best examples. ‘The largest example is where extraordinary things are found,’ he says. ‘It’s where humans are dwarfed in the theatre of our own creation. We become bit players in a world of technology that we’ve built.’ 

Bearing witness to the impact of human industry on the planet is bound to affect your mental health, and I’m curious to know if Edward has ever suffered from eco-anxiety. ‘Yes,’ he confides. ‘I experienced a kind of grieving in the past, especially towards the end of shooting in India in 2002. Coming across kids that have been born on the streets – nothing prepares you for that.’ 

Similar feelings arose when Edward visited China around the same time. ‘I saw the ambition people had to rise out of poverty, and it felt like a massive train leaving the station. It frightened me,’ he admits. On one occasion, Edward found himself driving for hours on end through a smouldering landscape. ‘It was like a war had destroyed everything,’ he explains. ‘No tree or mountain was safe. It was a scorched earth.’

Witnessing such an assault on the land must have been painful, but Edward used his grief to sharpen his focus. ‘Like any grieving process, when you come out the other side and go on with life you take the grieving and you convert it into meaning – that’s the way out, it’s the only way out,’ he stresses. ‘You become much more meaningful and persistent in your work, and you become clearer in what you want to say and do.’ 

Edward describes himself as an artist (or agent) trying to raise awareness, but he doesn’t see himself as a preacher or a judge. None of the activities he photographs – from mining to deforestation – are illegal, for example. ‘I don’t want my work to stand as an indictment,’ he says. ‘People say that I photograph disaster aesthetics, but that’s not the case. What I’m photographing is the extension of what it takes to build a city.’ Every large settlement is fed and fuelled by ‘a whole world’ of natural resources and manmade technologies. ‘If you are going to call it a disaster then be careful because this is what we’ve created to give us the life we want,’ he argues.

What’s more, there is an undeniable beauty to Edward’s work – colourful organic shapes fill the frame, geometric patterns satisfy the eye, blocks of stone create striking architectural forms – but if we take a moment to read the captions, any sense of wonder is soon replaced by feelings of shock and guilt. ‘What the work tries to do is to bring us to a sober and rational understanding of who we are and what we’re doing,’ says Edward. ‘It’s not trying to say who’s right and who’s wrong.’   

Drawing on painting 

One of the things that makes Edward’s work so aesthetically beautiful is an understanding of art history, and a knowledge of painting. ‘Caspar David Friedrich was the first romantic painter who elevated the experience of nature,’ he says. ‘He demonstrated that there was more to nature than a pastoral landscape, a field of cattle or a nice tree. For him, gazing into nature was a complete experience.’ Perhaps the romantics knew that they were about to be hit by a wave of technology that would compromise the natural world. ‘They were looking down the barrel of something scary,’ agrees Edward. 

In the early days, he was also inspired by Edward Weston, Emmet Gowin, Paul Caponigro and Frederick Sommer. ‘I was influenced by the modernists,’ he reveals. ‘I love the work that Sommer made in the desert where he flattened space.’ Edward realised he could take what Sommer was doing and mix it with the basic fundamentals of abstract expressionism. 

‘I went from looking at the modernists to looking at abstract expressionism and wondering how I could marry these guys up,’ he echoes. ‘I wanted to use this knowledge to help me organise the frame and make sense of the world.’

When Edward scribbled down a paragraph that defined his life’s work in 1983, he knew he wanted to make pictures that would be felt and understood for generations. ‘I wanted to produce photographs that had a kind of future forward built into them,’ he says. ‘I wanted there to be something about these pictures that meant that they couldn’t be swept under the rug or ignored.’ 

On 14 February Saatchi Gallery opened the largest exhibition of his work to date. Looking at the images displayed on its walls, it’s clear to see that Edward has succeeded in his mission. ‘I never had a beautifully laid out life plan,’ he concludes. ‘I just followed my instincts.’

Burtynsky: Extraction/Abstraction runs at Saatchi Gallery until 6 May. 

Edward Burtynsky: New Works runs at Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London until 6 April.

To find out more, visit www.saatchigallery.com, www.flowersgallery.com and www.edwardburtynsky.com.

His book, Extraction/Abstraction, which accompanies the exhibitions, is published by Steidl in June, price £48, ISBN 978-3969993132.

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• Rock of ages – exclusive Jill Furmanovsky interview
• Photographing BST Hyde Park with the Nikon Z8
• Inspiring portrait portfolio wins Emerging Talent Award

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Knowing just how many well-respected alumni it had, not to mention the luminaries who had taught on it over the years, an anniversary piece seemed like an obvious idea. I had little clue that it would end up spanning more than 20 different interviews with a broad range of people – and I could have gone on to interview dozens, if not hundreds more.

Such is the influence of this course, that every time you speak to someone, they insist that you really ought to get in contact with this person, or that person. I’ve no doubt that an entire book could be written on the impact this school has had on British (and even global) documentary photography.

Since its inception in 1973, the list of names who taught on the course, either regularly or as guest speakers, includes (but is certainly not limited to) David Hurn, Daniel Meadows, Ken Grant, Paul Reas, Martin Parr, Josef Koudelka, Clive Landen, Ian Walker, Ron McCormack, Celia Jackson, Lisa Barnard, Sir Tom Hopkinson, Don McCullin, Keith Arnatt, John Charity, Barry Lewis, Bll Jay, Roger Hutchins, Patrick Sutherland, Paul Graham, David Barnes, Peter Fraser, Paul Seawright, Jon Benton Harris and far more besides.

Meanwhile, the alumni list is just as illustrious. It includes (but again is not limited to), Simon Norfolk, Ivor Prickett, Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Paul Lowe, Sebastian Bruno, Clementine Schneidermann, Tish Murtha, Lua Ribera, Sue Packer, Jack Latham, Tom Jenkins, Linda Whittam, Guy Martin and more. Graduates from the school – which now covers BA, MA and PhD level – work across the globe for top news agencies, galleries, newspapers, magazines, and other leading institutions.

For this piece, I spoke to an extraordinary amount of different people – many of whom from the lists above. The over-reaching message seemed to be that this was, and is, a life-changing course that has altered the face of documentary photography in ways that many will have no realisation thereof. Many spoke of the lifelong friendships and support fostered by it, as well as the intensity – especially in the early years – of the work involved.

The beginnings were quite humble. David Hurn, who is Welsh but had been living in London and enjoying a very successful career as a photographer, decided to move back to his homeland in the early 1970s, looking for a more peaceful life. On arriving back, he was approached by various important figures in the Arts Council and local art college with a view to setting up a new photographic course. Remembering that this kind of education was very much in its infancy at the time, David took the view that he would be willing to do it with a few caveats – that he would have control over what was being taught, who was let onto the course and, most importantly, that the aim of the course was to get people into paid employment.

Newport, 1977. Documentary Photography students covered the Queens Jubilee. Students went all over UK and got their film back to Newport where others processed and printed them © John Charity

After discussing his ideas with his friends Sir Tom Hopkinson, once the editor of the Picture Post, and Don McCullin, of course the notorious war photographer, he was pretty much ready to go. He describes the setting up of the course in an arts college, in a blank space that was yet to be built, two enormous bits of luck. The first meaning that there was no real government supervision or insistence on what should be taught, and the second meaning that he could set up the facilities in a precise way.

Publicity

Having a huge amount of contacts in Fleet Street, David was able to generate publicity for his new course – he believes Amateur Photographer even covered it too. In the first year – 1973 – the course lasted just a year and was designated as a TOPS course (Training Opportunity), meaning that the typical students it attracted were extremely diverse – many of which had been made redundant from the local industries of steel and coal in the area. In fact, the course was overwhelmed with applications, such would prove to be the case for many years to come as its reputation grew. David didn’t choose people to join based on existing work though. He says, “I deliberately didn’t look at portfolios – I knew that steel workers and miners aren’t going to have those. They didn’t even necessarily know they wanted to be photographers. I just wanted to talk to them about ideas they had about life. It worked on the theory that teaching somebody to get pictures in focus – that’s easy. What you can’t do is persuade people to be interested in things.”

And why documentary photography in particular – not something more general, or geared towards another subject? “We called it documentary because I felt that the sensible public have a rough idea what that means. We were not going to do anything commercial or fashion – that relies enormously on how good the models are, which I knew about having worked for Harper’s Bazaar. The idea of teaching a fashion course in Newport was to me nonsensical – you didn’t get models walking down the high street there.”

David was strict, but fair, with his students – bearing in mind at the beginning he was the only teacher. “I decided everything would be done as professional photographers do it. I locked the door at 9am, if the student wasn’t there then they just didn’t get in. The idea being that if you are even one minute late for a deadline, you don’t get published. Within a week, everybody loved it.”

The course covered the great photographers – some of whom would come and visit David, and therefore the students – as well as practical elements of being a documentary photographer. This went far beyond the basics of operating a camera. David explains, “I would go to the local mosque and I would say to the imam, will you come and talk to us about how to behave should we come into the mosque – and I’d do the same for all the local religious centres and so on. I would also bring in people from other industries – like poets and artists – and ask them how they make money.”

Tish Murtha’s acceptance letter, signed by John Charity, July 1976. © Tish Murtha / Ella Murtha

Almost straightaway, the course became incredibly successful and David was able to employ more staff. He always favoured teachers who were also out there making work themselves – like himself. Generally he found that students respected them more, and, with the advice they had being provably relevant. The course also expanded to two years, with the second year giving students the opportunity to engage with all the contacts David had built up in London on picture desks, particularly the colour supplements which were still in their golden heyday at the time.

David left the course in the late 80s, not being happy with it turning towards becoming a full undergraduate degree, and therefore losing some of the original ethos of accepting students from a wider range of life. But, the course and school today still includes David’s name as a testament to the legacy of what he created.

“The bees knees”

Daniel Meadows came to the school in 1983, having previously taught at Humberside College after making a name for himself for his Free Photographic Omnibus project in 1973. By that time, ten years into the course’s existence, its reputation was significant. “It was the bees knees as far I was concerned,” Daniel says. “It was the only course I’d really wanted to work on. I was kind of serving my apprenticeship at Hull because I’d been practicing as a photographer for a decade or more, but I had a family and suddenly the world of freelance wasn’t quite so suitable. But being able to teach, while also maintain some practice was a good option at the time.

“The course was the only one called documentary photography then, and that’s my subject. Everywhere else wanted you to be a graphic designer or an artist, but I believe that documentary has its own set of rules and way of behaving. I also respected David Hurn, as well as Ron McCormack and Clive Landen who were all teaching there when I joined. It was like landing in the place of desire.”

Firmly believing he was there during the course’s “golden years” (he left in 1994), which he attributes to its simple ethos and diverse range of applicants. “It was a magical course, I’ve never since or come anywhere near to the kind of quality teaching and learning experiences – it was very special. We had teenagers off Youth Opportunities Schemes, middle-aged men who’d been made redundant two or three times following Thatcherism, graduates from ‘posh’ universities – all mixing in the same darkroom. And the simple structure – everybody did the same briefs, “man at work,” relationship, establishing shot, portrait, three picture story, five picture story, big picture story. I never taught a course that was as well thought out and delivered in the same way that David’s did.”

Despite the fact that several “big names” in documentary photography did the course while Daniel was there, it’s not those who he holds the most fondness for. “For me the most satisfying teaching was when people had a genuine revelation about how photography was going to change the way they lived. There was a woman there who had a child with severe learning difficulties who wanted to tell the story of what respite care means to parents – she did it from the inside out. I love it when people make pictures about something they really know and in that process of teaching them how to do make better pictures, you learn a subject too.”

Daniel fought for some time to keep the course as it was, but ended up also leaving dissatisfied with the change to the course being a three-year undergraduate degree. He also believes that it moving to Cardiff has been a huge shame for the city of Newport. “If ever a town needed an art school, it’s Newport. Things like this are enriching, and we built a community around these students who got involved with things like The Newport Survey, which was published every year.” Several people have mentioned the survey to me during my research for this piece. In essence, it was put together with the help of the graphic design students, covering a different topic every year, such as religion, rivers, neighbours, family and so on. The results would not only be published in a real book that could be bought, but also exhibited at the nearby museum and art gallery.

The Newport name itself indeed became synonymous with excellence, as Daniel recalls, “David often refers to a meeting he had, I think with The Sunday Times or Magnum, and somebody said, “you’re the one that started at Newport Mafia!” – you had art directors and picture editors all talking about the Newport Mafia.”

A changing industry

Ken Grant, whose name readers might recognise for his recent AP-award winning Chris Killip show at The Photographers Gallery, which he co-curated with Tracy Marshall-Grant, taught on the course for over 15 years, having first joined in 1997. He later went on to become the course leader in 2008-9, not long after he believes the wider photographic industry had changed dramatically.

“In 2004, with the Tate doing its first big photography show, different types of things were happening. People were working with the book in a much more elaborate way, digital practices were coming in – people were starting to think we don’t just do a beginning, middle and end narrative anymore – you couldn’t get to the frontline anymore and you had to think in a much more oblique way about how you worked.”

David Hurn teaching students – the photograph is by student Tish Murtha. © Tish Murtha / Ella Murtha

Although based in South Wales, one of the best things about the Newport, and now Cardiff, course has always been how much of an international focus it has had. “You could imagine something that’s really quite local in Newport, but we’d have people coming from far and wide,” says Ken. “An upshot of that is that people wouldn’t disappear at 5pm – the course was their home in many ways, and they really wanted to be there – they’d already experienced other things in their lives, but they were hungry for it and they’d come from different places because of that.”

Paul Cabuts taught on the course having previously been a student himself of the BA as a mature student in 1993 and later spent a lot of time researching the development of the course for his PhD from the European Centre for Photographic Research. Later, he would go on to become the academic subject leader for art and photography, overseeing all of the photographic courses.

In the mid 2010s, Newport merged with the then University of Glamorgan to become the University of South Wales. Glamorgan already had a photojournalism course, so Paul says it was potentially a dangerous time for the Documentary course, being so similar. “It was quite a good course, but it was only two or three years old – I worked quite hard to make sure the Documentary course stayed, purely because of its fantastic legacy. Myself, Paul Reas and Ken Grant and others, we all made a very firm case for why documentary photography had to maintain its place as a leading course. Luckily enough, that did happen.”

“A sort of aura”

Paul is another who believes it was a shame for Newport, the city, that the course eventually moved to Cardiff. “Everybody associated Newport with documentary photography – but students do generally prefer to be in Cardiff than Newport, for obvious reasons. But, Newport did have this sort of aura around it. The people of the town had a really strong bond with the students, which was evidenced by the annual Newport Survey, which happened for about 10 years and made the relationship between the students and the town really something quite important.”

In 2015, Paul left to work at Falmouth Photography, which also has a very well-respected photography course – which he says followed the same kind of tried and tested structure that Newport had set up all those years before, again demonstrating the impact that it had had on the wider photographic and educational world.

Paul Reas is a name which I felt like I heard several hundred times across the many interviews I did for this piece, so naturally I had to meet the man himself. His time with the course spans almost its entire duration, having first been a student himself in the early 80s, then later a technician and latterly a teacher on it until he retired just a couple of years ago.

He was a mature student when he joined, having had a previous life as a bricklayer. Like many, he says the course changed his life – making him middle class. “For me, it was the first time I’d been around people with different life experiences – people who had done other things with their lives. It forced you to re-examine all your preconceived ideas about people and people’s backgrounds, such as class and identity.”

From the course he says he took away something extremely meaningful that goes beyond skills as a photographer. “It gave me a realisation of my responsibility to represent things as truly, fairly and honestly as I could. To be compassionate and give something about – it’s not all about what you take from communities, but what you can contribute too.”

Having spanned such a broad stretch of time, Paul’s been able to observe big changes. “The professional world has changed so much. When I studied, it was still possible to make a really good living from working for magazines and newspapers – now people have much more diverse careers and the course had had to change to reflect that. Now we might look at commercial opportunities, or the art world, a lot more, for example.”

Moving to the present day, I also spoke to current BA Course leader David Barnes, MA course leader Lisa Barnard, plus lecturers Karin Bareman and Professor Mark Durden.

David, as with Paul Cabuts and Paul Rees, is himself a former student – such is clearly the draw of the course. He believes that the current BA runs on the same ethos of David Hurn’s original intentions from 1973. “We’re completely open minded about who comes on the course – so we have people who have done full careers and a really broad range of ages, so we still get that melting pot of people.” The course also keeps numbers small – just like the old days too, but it has expanded with the industry too. “We’ve been able to bring in all dimensions of documentary, including critical thinking about representations and ethics. While the industry is sometimes seen by some as contracting, it’s actually the opposite – it’s expanded, just in different directions.”

Storytellers

At the university, there is also a BA Photography course, but David feels it’s important that the Documentary course continues to exist in its own right too. “Why we teach specifically documentary is because at its course, it’s an interest in storytelling. Our students all want to be storytellers. They’re all passionate about something in the world.”

Although it has moved to Cardiff, he still also believes that the location brings something special too. “South Wales is a great place to go out and shoot pictures because people are really friendly, and kind of nosey in a nice way. Of course, people are travelling and going way beyond Wales at the end of the course, but in the first instance you’ve got to learn the ropes here and I think that works really well.”

By contrast, the MA Documentary Photography is run completely online, in order to attract a more global audience who don’t have to move from wherever they currently are in order to study – it also attracts lots of mature students. “The photo scene is very specific in the UK – it’s quite traditional,” says Lisa Barnard. “Whereas in Europe, documentary is treated completely differently. By broadening this out to be global, I get students that are interested in very long term projects, and they also use other tools beyond the camera to talk about their ideas too.”

Sue Packer (then a student) taking advantage of Tom Hopkinson’s (later Sir Tom) permanent offer to help students with layout if they came to his house in Penarth. 1977. © David Hurn

Interestingly, Lisa says the opposite to David Barnes, in that the MA is not actively trying to maintain the legacy of David Hurn. “It’s not to say I don’t respect his approach, but on our MA it couldn’t be further apart. I think in a decolonialised world that we live in, there’s a responsibility as image makers. I fundamentally believe that people that are making work should be making work in the countries that they inhabit – which is why I started running the programme online. That’s completely different from the historic idea of the white man who travels the world to exploit it for images. It’s very different.”

Mark Durden has been with the school since 2007, and works across the BA, MA and also supervises PhD student – USW is rare in that it runs courses in documentary photography across these three levels. While he appreciates and recognises the schools deserved reputation, he says its important not to become fixated with that past. “Since I joined, the approach to documentary has expanded and become more encompassing – historically it tended to be a bit narrow, both aesthetically and conceptually. In the past, it was rather unthinking and anti-theory, whereas now students have a very healthy relationship to critical theory.”

One of the most recent recruits to the school is Karin Bareman, who has been teaching there for less than a year. Unlike many of her colleagues, she’s not a practicing photographer, but, she has extensive experience in curation, which helps to bring another element to the students. She came to the course after conducting some guest lectures where she found the students to be hugely engaged, something she had not necessarily found elsewhere – “they were the most enthusiastic, the most prepared, the most engaged – the students are a real pleasure to work with,” she says.

She’s also keen to point out the supportive atmosphere, which is helped by keeping course numbers low. “You actually get to know each other very quickly – and the students also learn a lot from each other and support each other very strongly.”

It’s clear that an awful lot has changed since 1973. But it’s also very clear that the legacy of David Hurn’s original course is still very much going strong, and over the last half a century has had a phenomenal impact on documentary photography. It became quite clear to me while researching this piece that I could have spoken to many hundreds of people who have some connection to Newport/Cardiff, and I was delighted to discover that there is indeed a book in the works from Paul Cabuts which will look at some of the course’s aspects and impact on the wider photographic world. For now, I leave my research here – but I can’t wait to find out more in the future.

To find out more about the current courses, visit southwales.ac.uk. Keep reading for more from Newport / USW alumni, who each tell us what it was like to study on the course.

Anastasia Taylor Lind

Anastasia completed the BA Documentary Photography in 2004 and has worked for National Geographic, TIME, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and more. She is also a 2018 Harvard Nieman Fellow and has won numerous awards for her documentary and war photography, and is currently working in Ukraine.

A man weeps beside a bloodied stretcher outside the emergency department of the Republican Medical Centre in Stepanakert, November 2020 © Anastasia Taylor-Lind

She recalls being taught by Clive Landen and Ken Grant, the latter of which she says, “never stopped being my teacher” – a testament to the kind of connections made at Newport. “I wanted to be a photojournalist and go and do it as soon as possible. I asked my A Level teacher where I could learn how to take pictures like Don McCullin and they said “At Newport”, so I applied and had the good fortune of being accepted.

“It taught me how to build a photo story using the building blocks which I believe David Hurn had coined. I got back from Ukraine recently and I’m still going out and making those kind of pictures nearly 20 years later.”

anastasiataylorlind.com

Paul Lowe

Award-winning photographer Paul Lowe is represented by the globally acclaimed agency VII Photo and has been published in various outlets including Time, Newsweek, Life, The Sunday Times, The Observer and many more. As well as being a photographer, previously he was the course leader on the MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication and is now Professor of Conflict Peace and the Image at LCC. He studied at Newport from 1986 – 1988.

A young girl plays with a ball in the street alongside the River Miljacka in a ceasefire during the siege on Sarajevo by Serb troops, 1994 © Paul Lowe / Panos Pictures

“It was extraordinary because it was incredibly intense. I don’t know if it’s ever been replicated really in photographic education, as far as I know.

“I think if there’s a legacy of that course, funnily enough, I try to argue that the course we run at LCC is probably the closest to the spirit of that original course.

“I started it with Patrick Sutherland, who taught me at Newport and had set up a postgraduate diploma at LCC. He invited me to turn that into an MA in 2005 – and one of the interesting things about us is that you don’t need a first degree in anything if you’ve got some professional experience. Because of that, entry requirement or lack thereof, I think we inherited that quite consciously and built on it. We get a lot of people on our MA who are like the people that went to Newport when it was a two-year course.”

panos.co.uk/photographer/paul-lowe

Sebastian Bruno

Sebastian did both the BA and MA in Documentary Photography between 2012 and 2018. He has been exhibited, awarded and published numerous times since then. Originally from Argentina, he has stayed living in Newport since finishing the course, and often returns to USW as a lecturer.

Swffryd’s Thursday Lunch club, from the book The Dynamic, published in 2023 by IC Visual Lab © Sebastian Bruno

“One of the reasons we [he lives with Clementine Schneidermann – see further down] stayed so long after we finished studying and continue to make work here is because of the support we had from the course. I do quite a bit of teaching which I really enjoy because there is that act of reciprocity.”

sebastianbruno.com

Simon Norfolk

Often described as one of the leading documentary photographers of all time, Simon Norfolk completed the HND course at Newport in 1983, after completing an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Sociology at Cambridge University. His work is held in major institutions around the world, he has won or been shortlisted for numerous prestigious awards including World Press Photo, Deutsche Borse and Prix Pictet.

Former teahouse in a park next to the Afghan Exhibition of Economic and Social Achievements in the Shah Shahid district of Kabul. Balloons were illegal under the Taliban, but now the ballonn-sellers are common on the streets of Kabul providing cheap treats for children. © Simon Norfolk

“The course was superb – a baptism of fire. I think I was one of the younger ones to do it, a lot of people had actually done stuff in life. They’d been a journalist, or a coal miner, or the Royal Marines or whatever.

“From the very beginning you were sort of thrown out the door – go out, shoot pictures, come back, process them, create a contact sheet, have a critique, back out the door again. The best thing really was you had to break down that social embarrassment about walking into a place.

“You were pushed very, very hard. They told us when we got there that they’d take one person too many so they were going to theow someone out at the end of the year. That meant our focus was amazing – you don’t get anything like that nowadays.

“The thing I walked away from that course is that storytelling is what matters. Yes, it must be beautiful – but it has to have a real spine through the work. I’m a political photographer who wants to change the world and that’s what I learned to do.

“To this day, the highest qualification I’ve got in photography is an HND – the same as my plumber. These days we don’t really have vocational degrees like that any more – which is a shame as that was the genius behind David’s course.”

simonnorfolk.com

Chris Chapman

Chris Chapman was invited to join the Newport course by David Hurn, where previously he had been studying Fine Art. Since 1975 he has lived and worked in Dartmoor, documenting aspects of local life. His photographs are held in some of the world’s most respected collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the International Center of Photography in New York. He has published numerous books and has been commissioned widely.

At the Llangibby Hunt, 1975 © Chris Chapman

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He says, “I had bluffed my way into art college but couldn’t draw. When I discovered the camera, I used it as my sketchbook, working up large canvasses from my photographs. It never dawned on me I could just take photographs. David offered me a place on the course in 1974 and I never painted again!”

“It was a terrific atmosphere. David was a brilliant teacher and commanded huge respect. I remember a favourite phrase of his was ‘Go back and take it again!’ and of course we all did until the magic day arrived when he would look at your work and give praise.

“Without a doubt, the reason so many successful photographers come from that course is David’s skill both as a teacher and a mentor. I keep in touch with him still and was delighted to discover he had included one of my photographs in his first Swaps exhibition at the National Museum of Wales in 2017.”

chrischapmanphotography.co.uk

Lúa Ribeira

Magnum photographer Lúa Ribeira completed the Documentary Photography BA in 2016, attending at the same time, and sharing a house, with some of the others mentioned in this piece including Clementine Schneidermann and Sebastian Bruno.

Untitled, from the series postnaturalism, taken
while at USW
© Lua Ribeira / Magnum Photos

Lúa switched from a different photography degree to join the documentary course as she felt it was closer to her approach. Her main teachers at the time were Paul Reas and Lisa Barnard, who she appreciated for their opposing views and willingness to share them. “The teachers were tough, that was important for me. What I learned stayed with me as I’ve worked over the last few years.”

She describes how Newport fostered a familial approach, and also believes that its location was a big help. “It’s a town you might not otherwise go to,” she explains. “And I feel that isolation in e area was very healthy because it created a kind of family feeling – everybody supporting each other, but with a healthy competitiveness as well. There was something really special here.”

luaribeira.com

Tish Murtha

Tish Murtha was one of the earliest students of the course, and although she died in 2013, she has become well-known in more recent years thanks to the work of her daughter, Ella. A documentary film directed by Paul Sng about Tish was released in November 2023.

Newport Tip, 1978 by Tish Murtha © Ella Murtha

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Here, her daughter Ella describes her time in Newport.

“She started the course in September 1976 and graduated in 1978. I found the letter from John Charity welcoming her to ‘Documentary Photography’ in her stuff when she died, and it’s so lovely and informal. She was lucky enough to get an education grant from Newcastle City Council, which enabled her to go, but due to the sheer volume of film that they shot, she also worked in the evenings to afford it. She loved the place and the people and got a lot from the course. She worked incredibly hard, as she was desperate to learn the skills she needed to help make her a better photographer. I think Newport was probably very similar to  Newcastle, so she felt very at home wandering around and meeting people along the way. The famous “man at work” project found her documenting Wilf a local scrap man – her dad was a scrap man, so she was used to exploring the tip looking for treasures. I remember her being very proud that the journalist Tom Hopkinson had come in to work with them and assigned them all a story to work on. She headed off to the ‘New Found Out’ pub in Pill for hers, and I really enjoyed looking through all those contact sheets. There were some right characters!

She just photographed what she knew, and that was people. She had always been a people watcher long before she ever picked up a camera, she knew she wanted to be a social documentary photographer, but she absorbed everything that David Hurn taught her until it became second nature. He taught her how to create a picture story and once this was ingrained in her, she returned to the northeast with great purpose and fond memories of Wales.

She met her good friend Daisy Hayes there, Daisy actually photographed my birth! Other friends I remember were David Swidenbank, Kevin O’Farrell, George Wilson, Clive Landen, and Sue Packer and a Swedish lad called Ingard. He is in a couple of photos from the time, but I don’t know his surname unfortunately, which is a shame as he had a lovely twinkle in his eye and I bet has some good stories.

It has been really special to connect with people off the doc photo course and hear their memories of the time and my mam. I visited her old student house in Colne Street, which is relatively unchanged, but couldn’t get into the tip as needed to book, and the pub was long gone, but it felt quite spiritual walking in her footsteps and imagining her at work. It was really good to speak to David Hurn and hear what it was like to teach my mam and how he swapped a print of Angela and Starky with her, as he thought it was so tender. I actually found myself in the exact spot it must have been taken because of the reflection of a building I recognised. It was a real goosebumps moment. I’m a very proud daughter.”

tishmurtha.co.uk

Clementine Schneidermann

Clementine Schneidermann studied for both an MA and PhD in Documentary Photography. She has won numerous prizes, including the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award and the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. She has been published in many outlets including The Guardian, The New Yorker and Creative Review. Originally from France, she has stayed living and working in Newport.

I called her Lisa Marie © Clementine Schneidermann

“The course was amazing. It was also discovering a new country at the same time. For the first year I commuted from Bristol, but in the second year I moved to Newport with Sebastian [Bruno], Lua [Ribeira] and others – we had a big house in Newport. It sounds cheesy, but I feel like it kind of changed my life.

“Because I’m not from Wales, we [she lives with Sebastian Bruno – see above] kind of felt like we finally had a family in the university – among the students and the lecturers too.

“Since we finished, the market has changed. It’s become much harder to make a living – even when we started people were telling us it would be difficult, but now it’s really hard. Now photographers are encouraged to tell their own stories and use their own voice – they’re starting to look inwards a little bit more.

“I appreciated the toughness of the lecturers when I was there. I did a project on burlesque dancers and thought I was Susan Meiseilas. I showed it to Paul Reas, who was very tough on it – I felt like crying. But, in the end, I was so glad he did because he really pushed me to work much harder.”

clementineschneider.com

Jack Latham

Multi-award winning photographer Jack Latham has become well-known for his work surrounding conspiracy theories. He has published multiple books, been exhibited numerous times and also works as a lecturer at the University of West of England in Bristol. Originally from South Wales himself, he graduated from Newport in 2012.

Phantom Patriot was the name taken by Richard McCaslin of Carson City, Nevada, who, on January 19, 2002, attempted an attack on the Bohemian Grove after viewing Alex Jones’ documentary. He was imprisoned in California for 8 years. He now resides in Nevada and has a super hero base in his backyard which he refers to as the ‘Protectorate Outpost’ © Jack Latham

“I went to Newport because it was Newport. I didn’t have much of a portfolio, but I showed that I was incredibly passionate. I was offered a place by Clive Landen who said ‘I’m going to give you a place but if you f*** up, I’m going to kick you out personally. That has kind of followed me my entire career. I’m from Cardiff but I was never academically bright, and art wasn’t necessarily afforded to me growing up. The idea that I could even go to university was a huge thing.

“We always used to say you had support from Clive, you’d have brutality from Paul [Reas] and poetry from Ken [Grant]. But one of the best pieces of advice I received was actually from one of the technicians, who said, you shouldn’t finish university with a completed project.

“I’m proud to have gone to Newport. Coming from South Wales, the fact that it was in Newport is mind-blowing. I don’t think culturally people really gave a Newport a fair chance – it’s amazing it was documented for all those years using photography. It’s got a legacy and it will have always been an important place for British photography.”

jacklatham.com

Glenn Edwards

Photojournalist Glenn Edwards attended the course in 1983. He has worked for a wide-range of clients and is a former UK Press Photographer of the Year.

From the book and exhibition Yuckers Year. David Pearce training with his father Wally at the Waterloo Hotel in Newport before his British Heavyweight Title fight with Neville Meade in Cardiff September 1983. Not an environment you would find Fury or Anthony Joshua in the modern era. The first magazine to run a spread on this work was Amateur Photographer in 1983. © Glenn Edwards

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“Without sounding over-the-top, the course was absolutely life-changing. I was in the steel industry previously, and I was extremely lucky to get in. I think there were about 350-400 applicants and only 15 of us on the course.

“It was totally practical. It was all about going out, making mistakes, and then going out again and again until you got it right. We were all a little bit in awe of David, but he is one of the most approachable guys you could ever wish to meet.

“From the get-go, we had to go out and find people to photograph. Forget the photography aspect, the social skills were equally important. It was structured in such a way to make you a working photographer – at the end of the day, what’s the point unless you can earn a living?

“Recently I’ve had an exhibition and a book of pictures that I took at Newport. We had to find our own stories and I discovered a local boxer – David Pierce, who went on to fight for the British heavyweight title. I followed him for a year and it’s recently been the 40^th anniversary.

“It’s sort of come full circle, and that’s what Newport gave to me – knowing how important photography can be.”

glennedwardsphotojournalist.co.uk

Sian Trenberth

One of the youngest students to attend the course, Sian joined at age 18 straight from school in the early 1980s. Today she specialises in studio, portraiture and performing arts photography – but owes a lot of her craft to what she learned at Newport.

© Sian Trenberth

“I’d always loved photography, and I had a job at a theatre when I was at school as a dresser – somebody said there’s a photographer at the front of the house, you should go and speak to them. It happened to be David Hurn – I didn’t know who he was of course. I told him I was interested in the backstage stories, and he told me to join the course.

“I found it very hard, it was absolutely brilliant training and what I learned is still with me every day – it was a real hothouse environment. Standards were very, very high – David always instilled the being the best you can be type of approach. I don’t think that ever goes away. I’m a portrait and performing arts photographer now, but I adopt the “Newport approach” still.”

sian-trenberth.com

Iga Koncka

Iga is a very recent graduate from the Documentary Course at USW, where she was studied from 2018 until 2021.

© Iga Koncka

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Studying in the midst of the Covid pandemic was a challenge for Iga, who came to the UK after completing her A Levels in Poland. She says “I loved being on the course. It shaped my work ethic and I learned so much about photography and the arts in general. I was only 18 when I emigrated and the course was a great anchor to the realities of a new country.”

As is more common with newer students, Iga used other forms as part of her studies, including short films, performance and installation. She says, “The majority of my course was during Covid, so we had to be very creative with the projects we produced, as traditional human contact was not an option. This limitation allowed me to explore my Polish identity more and think outside the box when photographing close surroundings and domestic spaces.”

Iga admits that she didn’t know of the course’s famous reputation until after she arrived, but is now proud to be part of its community. She finished the course with First Class honours and went on to study for an MA in Contemporary Photography at Central Saint Martins, where she was selected as this year’s New Contemporaries artist.

igakoncka.com

Curtis Hughes

Curtis Hughes is a very recent graduate of the USW course, having studied for the BA from 2019-2022, but he has already found a good degree of success, with some of his project ‘Modern Love’ being featured in the book ‘Love Story’ by Hoxton Mini Press.

Vero and Julius, from ‘Modern Love’ © Curtis Hughes

“My decision to pursue a photography course was prompted by a moment of epiphany while I was living in Guatemala and working on my first documentary project. I naturally gravitated toward the documentary genre, with a deep-seated fascination for people and their stories. It was my sister who recommended the course after I shared my aspirations of attending university to study photography, specifically documentary,” he explains.

After leaving school, Curtis had been working in customer focused roles, before leaving the UK in his early 20s to take in part in what had intended to be a brief gap year. Six years later he was still away, teaching English at schools in India and later Guatemala, and developing a love for photography, particularly portraiture.

On returning to the UK to study at the famous documentary course, he found it to be an “exceptional experience.” He loved the sense of community, the connections formed, both with fellow students and teaching staff – he says “they have become like family to me.”

His project, Modern Love was created during the final year of the course. “I embarked on a train journey across Europe, capturing couples in their homes who had met online. Throughout the entire process of making the work, I received unwavering support from my colleagues and lecturers, who encouraged me to question not only what I was doing and how I was doing it, but most importantly, why I was doing it. I believe that this process of feedback and collaboration played a significant role in the project’s success. To this day, I seek collaboration and feedback in my work, cherishing the lessons I learned during my time at USW.

curtishughesphoto.com

Robin Chaddah-Duke

Robin graduated from the BA course in 2023, with the first two years of the course completely disrupted by Covid. He says, “Despite this, the course stayed active and the staff worked endlessly to make sure we were getting the education we had been promised. The skills I learned in these two rocky years meant that I was still able to produce a body of work I’m proud of.

An image by Robin Chaddah Duke

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“I studied photography at my college where I was able to discover my interests more specifically which lay in documentary practice. I was recommended to the course by my tutor Tom Keating and was amazed by the opportunity to study under a course who had produced names whom I very much admired.

“I was only 18 when I joined, so I had a lot to learn about life in general and I think the course allowed me to do this in a way that is really special. What I valued most was the ability to explore my own interests completely freely. I was welcomed into various communities with open arms and introduced to so many different people from different walks of life. The mentality of using a camera to get to know people I would never meet usually is something they really push on the course.

“It feels quite surreal now that I think about it that I was on such a famous course. It has put out some of photography’s biggest names, and I guess I’m now next to them – right at the bottom of the plaque. Seriously, it feels great – I’m very grateful to all of the staff and my class for everything.”

robinchaddahduke.co.uk

Laurie Broughton

Laurie graduated from USW in 2022.

Baby on the table © Laurie Broughton

“I wanted to study documentary photography at USW because of its prestigious reputation for producing world-renowned photographers. The course’s alumni really impressed me and gave me confidence that I would learn the skills to make that step to being a freelance photographer.

“Being all consumed by photography has left a lasting impact on myself. It has given me confidence but a burning desire to constantly think about the next image that I would want to make.

“Having studied here I’ve been able to connect with other photographers that have been in my shoes. I feel very fortunate to have been part of this course as it has changed my life for the best.”

lauriebroughton.com

What is documentary photography? 

I asked several of the interviewees here to give us a definition of documentary – a genre which can be very difficult to pin down. Here’s what some of them had to say about it…

“Oh Jesus, that’s my entire PhD! I always go back to John Grierson, and he called it the creative treatment of actuality.” – Karin Bareman

 “I guess it’s something along the lines of interpreting what is out there in the real world through a process of visual investigation.” – Paul Lowe

“F*** knows? Since the inception of the term, people have rebelled against it. My colleague refers to it as ‘non-fiction photography’ – it’s not about what something is, it’s about what something isn’t. Whatever you want to make it, I suppose.” – Jack Latham

“A horrible question. It’s really about connecting to the real in some way, so some aspect is based in reality – real environments, real issues, real people.” – Lisa Barnard

 “I don’t really have a definition, all I can do is tell people what I do. I record something that reminds me of accurately of the essence of what I saw and found interesting – then I show it to other people and hope they find it interesting enough to buy it.” – David Hurn

 “It’s a way of photographing what really matters.” – Ken Grant

 “Hearing the voice of the people rather than the voice of the establishment telling us what we should be doing. In its purest form, that would be my definition – seeing the world from the bottom up.” – Daniel Meadows

Further reading

Best photography exhibitions to see in 2023

How my camera saved me from a night in the Russian gulag

Best cameras for photojournalism and documentary in 2023

The post The best documentary photography course in the world? appeared first on Amateur Photographer.