A Photographic Life - 206: Plus Tricia Porter

A Photographic Life

In episode 206 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the truth within images of conflict, whether smartphones have become too smart and he suggests a Photo Life Hack to save you money. Plus this week photographer Tricia Porter takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Born in 1946 Tricia Porter's interest in photography began as a teenager, when she wanted to bring back a visual record of her first trip outside Britain, to Moscow in an old bus loaded with college students and camping gear. She met the photographer, Sylvester Jacobs who encouraged her to buy a camera and she began attending lectures and seminars at The Photographers Gallery, London, and the ICA Photo Study Centre learning from photographers work, such as Tony Ray Jones, Bill Jay, Steiglitz, Ansel Adams, Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Kertesz, Bill Brandt and many more. Her first photography exhibition was in Liverpool in 1972, the outcome of documenting her surroundings while living in Liverpool's inner city. In 1974, she moved to Liverpool 8, an area of the city that was notorious for its poverty, planning blight and vandalism. The resulting Bedford Street exhibition was shown at the Liverpool Academy of Arts, and later the Half Moon Gallery in London. It gained Arts Council support, and Porter went on to create a follow-up exhibition, Some Liverpool Kids, which was also shown at the Academy in 1976. She left Liverpool in 1976 to live in rural Hampshire and has remained living there until today. Throughout her career Porter has running community based photography workshops, and continued to exhibit her work with the most recent ‘Liverpool Photographs 1972-74' being staged at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool in 2015. Cafe Royal Books have published five books of Porter's work, Portraits of People in a Dying Community Liverpool 1972, Some Kids in Liverpool 8 1974, Industry Year 1986, Liverpool Docks 1975, and Selborne 1980-82 www.porterfolio.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). © Grant Scott 2022