130 - Tom Craig

British-born photographer Tom Craig began his photographic journey as a reportage and documentary photographer, working for clients such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Independent newspaper, before a commission from Vogue magazine to shoot a fashion story came “like a bolt from the blue” and altered the course of his career irrevocably. Since then Tom has travelled all over the world for both editorial and commercial clients, largely defying categorization by any specific photographic genre. His projects have spanned portraiture, fashion, travel and advertising commissions in over a hundred countries and his work has featured in the world’s most high profile international publications, among them Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ and The Sunday Times magazine, and in campaigns for Louis Vuitton, Alice Temperley, Mr. Porter, Persol and Oxfam.

Tom is also well known for his long and unique professional collaboration and close friendship with the writer A.A. Gill, which spanned 25 locations across the globe until it was brought to an untimely end by Gill’s death in 2016.

Tom has either won or been nominated three times for 'British Magazine Photographer of the Year’ three times, exhibited for five consecutive years at the National Portrait Gallery, served as Photographer-in-Residence for the Royal Geographical Society, was named The Telegraph "Travel Photographer of the Year”, participated in the prestigious World Press Master Class and was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's prize for a notable achievement in the art of photography by someone under 35.

On episode 130, Tom discusses, among other things:

• What he was up to before lockdown
• Having a ‘studio’ of people - the pros and cons
• Approaching photography as a business
• The notion of personal work
• Distillation, creating a voice and a language...
• ...And translating that into images
• How his commission from vogue came as a “bolt from the blue” changed everything
• Diversity and avoiding pidgeonholes
• Trying to live life to the full and expressing that photographically

Referenced:

• Arthur Elgort
• Irving Penn
• Diana Vreeland
• David Bailey
• Richard Avedon
• Rinko Kawauchi
• Martin Parr
• Josef Koudelka
• David La Chapelle
• Robert Capa
• Chris Steele Perkins
• Alex Shulman
• Bay Garnett
• Sophie Baudrand
• Garry Winogrand
• Aidan Sullivan
• Cheryl Newman

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“Have as much fun and enjoyment and engagment with all of it, as often as you can and as thoroughly as you can, and ultimately, hopefully, that will come across in the images. And if you can see even a modicum of that sentiment in the photographs that I’ve taken or in that Instagram feed, then that makes me really happy. Because that’s what I want. I want there to be a sense of life, a sense of light and a sense of joy in those pictures. ”