Working on the Ian Parry Scholarship

I'm now back in London after a short stay in Paris over the last week. No sooner had I arrived back at my flat in London I got a call from the organisers of the Ian Parry scholarship asking if I wanted to drop by a say hello (not completely random - I was going to be working with them). I made my way to the frontline club in Paddington, but sadly missed the chance to meet Don McCullin who was one of the judges this year. Apparently he left about 5 minutes before I arrived. I did however get to meet some other legends including the photographers Tom Stoddart, Philip Blenkinsop, Simon Roberts and the Vice president of Getty and former Sunday Times Magazine picture editor, Aidan Sullivan. It turned out to be a really fascinating evening and I even managed to get some opinions on my work which was great. It made me realise just how subjective photography can be, with Philip really liking one picture whilst Tom would simply shrug past it and vice versa. Take for example the picture below:


Philip picked it out because he said that it wasn’t of anything in particular but that’s why he liked it; it was a moment, a quiet picture. But for Tom that was pretty much the exact reason for not liking it as much. These opinions probably reflect the background of the photographers and their own styles and influences. To be honest I wish I’d been recording the whole thing (the wine was flowing so I don’t think many people remember too much from the evening). It was just fantastic to be getting genuine compliments from some of my heroes.

Anyway they announced the winner – not sure if it’s public knowledge so I won’t give it away here, but I’ll just say that they got the call in airport as they were flying to London and rushed from the airport straight to the Frontline Club to a deserved welcome and congratulations.

I spent most of today at Getty’s London HQ (and will be spending most of tomorrow) scanning, colour correcting and captioning the winning images. I also got to have a coffee and a chat (and another chance to show work) to Aidan which was an added bonus.