The Sound of Photography is a radio programme hosted by Frank Watson on Resonance 104.4fm and is also available online at www.resonancefm.com

You will find here an archive of the weekly programmes that revolve around a guest photographer, curator, writer and others associated with photography. There is also a mix of music associated with themes of each show. The show returns in Autumn 2024.

Frank Watson is also a practising photographer. For further information visit www.frankwatsonphotography.com

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James Berrington

29th March 2025

Frank Watson’s guest is James Berrington. James is an artist whose practice involves photography,

printmaking, sound and moving image. He has exhbited widely including being selected for Bloomsbury New Contemporaries

in 2016.His work has been collected for the UCL East Public Art Collection.

Before becoming an artist James was a National Policy Expert in Social Housing.

The show will consider mental health and the role of photography and  The Panacea Society,

a group of millenarian women who set up their own religious group.

His website: www.jamesberrington.co.uk

 

Daniel Homer

March 14th 2025

Frank Watson’s guest is Daniel Homer. Dan is a  film cameraman who has subsequently

sidestepped into photography. His recent book ‘Route de la Belle Etoile’ is published by Gost (2024).

The book looks at the contribution of amateur astronomers to discoveries in the world of

Astronomy. See website: www.danielstephenhomer.com.

The show will discuss the relationship of photography and astronomy.

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Mark Sealy

February 21st 2025

My guest on The Sound of Photography is Mark Sealy.

Mark is Director of The Autograph Gallery and Professor of Photography – Rights and Representation.

at the University of the Arts, London College of Communication.

He is also a Curator and Cultural Historian. As an author, his publications include

Decolonising The Camera: Photography in Racial Time (2019) and

Photography:Race, Rights and Representation (2022)

 

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Gerry Badger

February 14th 2025

Frank Watson’s guest is Gerry Badger.Gerry is a Photographer, Architect and Critic.

In 2007 he published The Genius of Photography  television series. In 2010 he published The Pleasures of Good Photography, an anthology of essays. He also coauthored The Photobook: A History Vol.1,2 & 3 with Martin Parr. Gerry will speak about his latest publication Best Face Forward: Some Thoughts on The Portrait Photograph published by Prestel (2024).

Frank Watson

January 10th 2025

This episode of The Sound of Photography is devoted  to music I have chosen in response

to the guests having the freedom to choose their selections.(including Tortoise Mambo).

Liz Wells

December 12th 2024

The guest this week on The Sound of Photography is Liz Wells. Liz is an independent writer and curator. She is also an Emeritus Professor in Photographic Culture at the University of Plymouth.Her publications include Photography, Curation and Criticism: An Anthology (Routledge, 2022) and Land Matters: Landscape, Photography, Culture and Identity (Routledge, republished 2021).
Here recent curatorial work has included Sea, Sand and Soil – Plastics in Our Environment at a Festival in China, and Seedscapes : Future Proofing Nature, a touring exhibition in Britain 2020/1.
You can find her work at http://www.lizwellswriter-curator.co.uk

Peter Kennard

November 20th 2024

This week’s guest on the Sound of Photography is Peter Kennard. For the last 50 years Peter has been Britain’s leading and most prominent political artist. He is renowned for his reactionary photomontages attacking political systems, capitalist greed, war mongering countries around the world and more recently environmental catastrophe as the world begins to disintegrate from global warming and pollution.His work has appeared in national newspapers, on banners at protest marches and posters that have become part of the urban fabric.
He has also been a Professor of Political Art at the Royal College of Art. See his website for a range of publications of his work.
Peter  is currently showing a retrospective of his projects over the past 50 years entitled Archive of Dissent at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.
You can view his work at www.peterkennard.com

Chris Dorley Brown

November 20th 2024

This week’s guest on the Sound of Photography is Chris Dorley Brown.Chris is  known for his work on the London Borough of Hackney with particular emphasis on the street culture of the borough as well as its hospitals, tower blocks and local industries.
He has worked with the BBC, The Museum of London and the Wellcome Institute.
Chris has published numerous books with Hoxton Mini Press, both with his own work and the archives of other local photographers.
His latest book A History of the East End was recently published by Nouveau Palais.
His website: www.modrex.com

Derek Ridgers

October 22nd 2024

My guest this week on The Sound of Photography is Derek Ridger.
Derek is a music, fashion and advertising photographer. He is particularly known for his work on
club and street photography during the 1970/80’s, photographing Punks, Skinheads and New Romantics.
He has worked in the past with The N.M.E., The Face and Loaded magazine as well as many of the daily
newspapers and fashion magazines.
He has also published numerous books including this year ‘The London Youth Portraits, 1978-87.’
His work can be found on http://www.derekridgers.com

 

Jenny Mathews

October 10th 2024

The start of the new series of The Sound of Photography. The guest this week is Jenny Matthews.
Jenny is an internationally acclaimed documentary photographer and filmmaker working on issues of dispossession and human rights with particular emphasis on the lives of women and girls. Her book ‘Women and War’ chronicling 20 years of women worldwide affected by conflict was published in 2003 and she is presently working on a second volume. Jenny is also working on documenting her community in Hackney. Since 2020 she has been making a series of photo quilts comprising of edited photographs from her archive.
Website: http://www.panos.co.uk

Arteh Odjidja

March 1st 20024

Frank Watson’s guest on the Sound of Photography is Arteh Odjidja. Arteh is an award winning portrait and fashion photographer. He has exhibited extensively in both the U.S. and the U.K. His projects include working with fashion designers Ozwald Boateng and Paul Smith. He has worked in Nigeria and Sierra Leone on social, political and environmental issues. In 2022 he published his book ‘Fear and Dreams’ that tells the stories through image and text of immigrants who have uprooted their lives and established new careers and identities with the cultural pressures that come with rebuilding themselves. Website: www.arteh.co.uk

Daniel Meadows

February 1st 2024

Frank Watson’s guest on the The Sound of Photography is Daniel Meadows. Daniel is a  photographer and documentarist. He is best known for his work ‘The Free Photographic Omnibus Project’ and the portraits taken whilst driving his bus around England in the 1970s. He has an extensive archive of documentary projects about ordinary people’s lives.www.danielmeadows.co.uk. In 2019 The Bodleian Library acquired his entire archive. Daniel has also had a career in teaching photography and journalism. This included teaching a course on Digital Storytelling and Photography. The show will focus on Daniel’s many sound recordings made during his career.

 

Charlotte Schepke

January 22nd 2024

Frank Watson’s guest is Charlotte Schepke. Charlotte is the Director and Curator of The Large Glass Gallery in London. She will speak about her ideas behind the gallery and the shows she has curated. She will also talk about the photographic work of Guido Guide and Mark Ruwedel. www.largeglass.co.uk

Tom Hunter

January 10th2024

Frank Watson’s guest is Tom Hunter. Tom is a London based photographer who has exhibited internationally and received many awards for his work. He will speak about his past and present projects in relation to the importance of community and in particular his attachment to Hackney,London. www.tomhunter.org

Jelena Stojkovic

6thNovember 2023

 Frank Watson’s guest is Jelena Stojković. Jelena is an art historian and critic based in London. She is a Senior Lecturer in Critical Theory at the School of Arts, Oxford Brookes University and the author of The Impossible Avant-Garde: Surrealism and Photography in 1930s Japan (Routledge, 2020).   The show will look at the Daido Moriyama show at the Photographers Galley.

Jane Hilton

30th October 2024

Frank Watson’s guest for this show is Jane Hilton. She is a photographer and filmmaker whose work involves documenting American Culture, in particular the American West, which she has explored for the past twenty-five years. Her monographs include “Dead Eagle Trail”  (Pub, 2010) depicting the lifestyle of the twenty-first century cowboy; In 2013 she published “Precious” featuring intimate nude portraits of working girls in Nevada with their background stories.And Most recently “LA Gun Club” (self-published, 2016) exploring American Gun Culture with a collection of unique ‘shot up’ target posters.      Website: Jane Hilton.com

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Noni Stacey

23October 2023

Frank Watson’s guest on this show is Dr Noni Stacey, a Dublin-based writer and researcher who will talk about her recent publications. She is currently a Practice Supervisor at Royal Academy of Art at The Hague and Visiting Research Fellow at  Technical University Dublin. Her publications include Leave to Remain published this year, a book about photography and Brexit and her first book Photography of Protest and Community, The Radical Collectives of the 1970’s   which was published  in 2019. Both are  published by Lund Humphries

Lucy Soutter

9th October 2023

This week’s guest is Lucy Soutter. She is a Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on questions of value and meaning in art and photography. She is the author of Why Art Photography? (Routledge, 2nd ed. 2018), co-editor of Writer Conversations (1000 Words, 2023) and writes for publications including Source, 1,000 Words and Photoworks. She is currently working with Duncan Wooldridge to edit The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies to be published in Spring 2024. www.lucysoutter.com

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Mark Neville

20th October 2023

Frank Watson’s guest this week is Mark Neville, an internationally recognised photographer who has helped to redefine documentary practice. He works with and often lives with communities in a collaborative process, drawing communities together to bring about direct practical and political benefits to his subjects. He sums up his work as residing between art, activism and documentary. Since 2020 Mark has lived and worked in Ukraine and he is best known for his book  Stop Tanks with Books published in 2022. It ‘s this book and his Humanitarian work in Ukraine that will be discussed  via Zoom from his base in Ukraine.

Website: www.markneville.com

Susan Bright

30th September 2023

Susan Bright is a curator. Her best-known exhibitions include ‘How We Are’ which was the first exhibition of British Photography shown at Tate in 2007. ‘Home Truths’ a collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery, The Foundling Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago in 2013, and a series of solo exhibitions for PhotoESPANA as Guest Curator in 2019. She will speak about her Book Feast For the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography. WEBSITE: susanbright.net