A Photographic Life - 133: 'US Election Photography Special' Plus Richard Beaven

A Photographic Life

In episode 133 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the recent US Election and the continued importance of the photographic image in shaping narrative and existing as a historical document. In this episode Grant reflects on specific images and photographers that define US political history and those that may define the past four years of Trump's presidency for future generations. Plus this week photographer Richard Beaven takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ British born Richard Beaven is based in The Hudson Valley, New York and works as an award-winning editorial and documentary photographer. Beaven's passion for photography started at the age of 11, but it was not until 2012, when he left a successful career in advertising and moved to the small community of Ghent, NY that he was able to concentrate on leveraging his own project work, along with newspaper and magazine assignments, to build a reputation in photography. He gained wide recognition for his In Trump Country (before) and In Trump Country (after) series and has recently completed his most ambitious self-assigned project to date, All Of Us: Portraits of the Ghent Bicentennial, which includes 276 portraits of residents in his town. His Ghent portraits were published as All of Us by Daylight Books in the autumn of 2020. Beaven's clients include The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Buzzfeed, and De Zeit. He has been featured on the NPR, Hudson River Stories, BBC News and the Jeffery Saddoris Podcast. In addition to his photography career, Richard and his wife Mimi, own and operate Little Ghent Farm in the Hudson Valley, NY. http://richardbeaven.com Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Taylor Francis 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Taylor Francis 2019). His book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/ © Grant Scott 2020