A Photographic Life - 52: Plus Geoff Waring

A Photographic Life

In episode 52 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the citizen journalist, news organisations expecting images for free and the rise of the magazine promoted photo competition. Plus this week art director/photographer Geoff Waring 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?’ After studying Graphic Design at Manchester University in the 1980's Geoff Waring moved back to London and began a career as a magazine designer and art director. He held the position of art director at Elle UK in the late 80's, and Design Director at Vogue UK in the 1990's. After four years at Vogue Condé Nast asked him to art direct Vogue Australia. Sixteen issues later he returned to London to launch Red magazine (The logo is in his handwriting). In 1999 he left Red to work on a major new women's website that never went live, and he returned to print media and Condé Nast to launch Glamour UK magazine in 2001. In 2005 he launched Easy Living magazine where he stayed as Creative Director for four years before moving to Hearst UK to revamp Good Housekeeping magazine among other projects. In 2015 he chose to work solely as a freelance art director for brands including, Boden, M&S, Gina, Monsoon, Cath Kidston and Clarks shoes. Twice a year he designs and art direct the arts and culture magazine Perfect Bound with other industry professionals who like Geoff found they were not being given the creative freedom in commercial magazines anymore and decided to create their own publication. As a commissioned photographer he works for brands including House of Fraser, Karen Miller, Gina, and various Hearst published magazines. Not content with working as a photographer and art director Geoff has also written and illustrated several award winning children's books published in the UK and across the world, including the USA, France, Sweden, Taiwan and Korea. He has also created his own typeface titled Mental Block. www.geoffwaring.com You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 on Player FM https://player.fm/series/a-photographic-life and Podbean www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/i6uqx-6d9ad/A-Photographic-Life-Podcast Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2019. He is currently working on his next documentary film project Woke Up This Morning: The Rock n' Roll Thunder of Ray Lowry. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay has been screened across the UK and the US in 2018 and will be screened in the US and Canada in 2019. © Grant Scott 2019