#444 Printing for Erwitt, Parr and Griffin!

08/01/24 • 100 min

1 Listener

Today, I spend time with Mike Crawford, a dynamic London photographer and master printer. For four decades he has worked with the world’s most highly regarded photographers, including Martin Parr and Brian Griffin, one of the music industry’s most prominent photographers.

More recently, he was chosen to print hitherto unseen photographs for the celebrated late photographer Elliott Erwitt for his ‘Found, not Lost’ book. As a photographer, Mike Crawford’s captivating work, featuring urban landscapes and portraiture, is predominantly shot on film and crafted in the darkroom.

I visit Mike on location at his company Lighthouse Darkroom, within the building that was once home to Russia’s Zenit UK operation. With the arrival of August, there’s a new assignment too, set this month by social and street photographer Emily Renier, one of Fujifilm’s newest ambassadors.

Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week.

WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week.

WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

Previous Episode

#443 Encounters: How to make portraits of strangers

Today’s show explores captivating encounters and stories that turn fleeting moments into meaningful connections with people through the lens. Four guests who are experts in the field help me on this mission.

Paul Hutson is a writer and photographer who has spent decades recording the stories of everyday people he encounters in pictures and words. Gabrielle Motola discusses the philosophy of asking strangers for a portrait and rejection. Valérie Jardin talks about candid street pictures and how they can often lead to a more formal portrait, and former guest Mr Whisper discusses a project requiring him to change his reportage approach to engage with subjects for a set of commercial pictures.

Also on the topic of photographing strangers, letters from Marilyn Davies who introduces us to a Flickr Group called 100 Strangers, Tony Lorenzo talks of how living with ADHD has been his superpower when it comes to photographing people he doesn’t know and Fred Ash finds there’s really no one way to make a portrait of a stranger.

Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week.

WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

Next Episode

#445 The FINAL photos we make...

Today on the show, two photographers, Patrick Stubbs and Sean Gallagher recount stories about the father-figure mentors in their lives and the pictures they made upon their passing. We discuss the mental health benefits of having photography during the more challenging times of our lives and how projects can bring meaning to our work. We also learn what it takes to make set photographs on some of America’s top-loved TV shows and why the everyday objects around us can be photographic gold.

From the mailbag, one of our Extra Milers Mat Bobby has found a project that requires you to stay behind the safety fence at all times, bringing back a memory or three for me. There is the most incredibly potent story and picture from a good friend of the show, Marissa Roth. Hegaard the Dane has landed in Italy and found a snake in paradise, as have I, although many thousands of miles away in Miami, and there’s a reminder of this month’s assignment from Emily Renier.

Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week.

WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.