A Photographic Life - 265: Tom Bowden

In episode 265 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the dangers of photography becoming too introspective, the importance of recognising when you hit a ceiling and the realities of working as a commissioned photographer. Plus this week, photographer Tom Bowden 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?’ Tom Bowden is an American Photographer recognised internationally for his street portrait work.  Influenced early in life by the work of Diane Arbus, Mary Ellen Mark and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, his street portraits are often accompanied by the stories of the people he meets and works with on the streets. When he was 15, he saw the Diane Arbus image, Child with Toy Hand Grenade in a High School Library Book. After that, he was obsessed. Bowden's work as a photographer and producer have taken him around the world and his work has been collected in two books Love Street and Encounters, Portraits of Americans. His work has been published in The Guardian, FotoMagazin, L’Oeil de la Photographie amongst many other publications.  www.tbowphoto.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). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. © Grant Scott 2023