Great Big Photography World

In this episode, Perrin sits down with Stephen S T Bradley, a Belfast photographer whose career runs from covering the Troubles to commercial work in Atlanta and fine art sky photography. They talk about how a shy outsider found his place behind the camera, rebuilding a business from scratch more than once, and why his personal work matters most to him now.Stephen talks about selling his first news photo to the Pacemaker agency as an amateur, being told to get off a table of socks by Margaret Thatcher, and turning a one-hour Newsweek shoot into four or five hours by treating his subject like a friend. He gets into teaching himself web design and SEO after moving back to Belfast, turning down camera work on the Game of Thrones pilot, and editing swirling skies into dark, brown-toned fine art inspired by Turner and Dalí.Want to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I’m in there regularly, and you’ll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/Help shape the new GBPW. Our Founders Deal gives the first 100 members 50% off a yearly membership for as long as they stay, plus a direct line to our team. Ends November 30th or when spots run out: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/deal/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with Alison Bounce, an underwater portrait and maternity photographer based in France. She has spent 12 years photographing people beneath the surface, even though she’s shy, claustrophobic and afraid of water. They talk about how a camera became her way past shyness, how she helps nervous clients feel calm underwater, and the Antarctic voyage that became her book Austral.Alison talks about leaving her first camera in its box for six months, why she calls the camera a passport for shy people, and her best tip for wedding photographers: follow the kids. She gets into the moment in the Maldives that pulled her underwater and how she coaches clients to breathe and hold for about ten seconds. She also covers why maternity shoots use fewer immersions, flooding her gear when she was starting out, and the ten-hour storm at Cape Horn that kept her from opening her photos for five years.Want to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I’m in there regularly, and you’ll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/Help shape the new GBPW. Our Founders Deal gives the first 100 members 50% off a yearly membership for as long as they stay, plus a direct line to our team. Ends November 30th or when spots run out: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/deal/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with John Leech, a UK wedding photographer, to talk about how he approaches a wedding day and where he finds the real emotion in it, from the getting ready to the walk up the aisle.John talks about picking up a camera at about six or seven, learning to develop and print in his dad’s darkroom, and why he likes going into a wedding blind with no shot list. He gets into why the getting ready phase helps couples accept him as a background element, why the signing of the register is such a hard shot to get, and why the moment a couple walk up the aisle on their own is one of his favorites. He also covers bouncing flash and never using it direct, when he goes black and white, photographing the main ceremony at his daughter’s wedding, the first time he felt really nervous at a wedding, his Morecambe Bay photo books, and his advice for anyone shooting their first wedding.Want to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I’m in there regularly, and you’ll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/Help shape the new GBPW. Our Founders Deal gives the first 100 members 50% off a yearly membership for as long as they stay, plus a direct line to our team. Ends November 30th or when spots run out: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/deal/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with Neil Selkirk, a London-born, New York-based photographer who assisted Richard Avedon, took Diane Arbus’s masterclass, and went on to become the only person authorized to print her photographs since her death. They talk about his career and his new book, Why Photographs?Neil talks about how a job with Irving Penn that fell through over a visa led him into Avedon’s studio, the Arbus photograph he saw on a wall in London that devastated him and took fifteen or twenty years to live with on his own wall, and the winter he spent searching through 7,000 rolls of film to find her negatives. He gets into why he believes photography is about discovery rather than creation, what the camera reveals that we never notice when we press the shutter, why he considers composition deadly to a photograph, and why he thinks photographers should keep it simple and keep it straight at a time when no one knows which images to trust.Want to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I'm in there regularly, and you'll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/Want to help us build new features and steer the direction of the community? Don't forget to check out our Founders Deal which gives the first 100 people 50% off the yearly membership as long as they are a member. It comes with a direct line to our team to help shape the culture of the new GBPW. Offer ends November 30th or when the last spot is gone.

For 300 episodes, you've been listening. Now you're in the room.Episode 300 is a big one, for two reasons. Perrin says thank you to every guest and every listener who got the show here, and he takes you on a first look inside the new Great Big Photography World: what we built, why we took our time, and how you get to decide what comes next.He talks about where it all started with Photographycourse.net, why the community works like a camera system (the community is the body, the podcast, Prime Classes and the directory are the lenses), and why a good print comes up slowly in the tray. He walks through the Great Big Photography Directory, where photographers are found by their work and not their ad budget, Prime Classes taught by working photographers in about 45 minutes, and the Roadmap, where members propose, vote, and we build. He also shares why the community runs on TribeCrafter.Founding Member deal: the first 100 Founding Members get 50% off the yearly paid tier, for as long as they stay a member. Open until 30 November 2026, or until the 100 spots are gone: greatbigphotographyworld.com/dealWant to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I'm in there regularly, and you'll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with Craig McGowan, a Brisbane-based landscape photographer who balances a career spent in offices and meetings with a passion for some of the world's most remote places, from the frozen landscapes of Ellesmere Island to the old growth forests of Tasmania.Craig talks about how a teenage Olympus OM-1 and a library full of technical books first drew him to photography, the free Saturday morning photo walks in Fremantle that introduced him to a community of fellow photographers, and the Patagonia workshop where a woman using a camera she barely knew how to operate completely changed how he thought about composition. He gets into why he heads out when the forecast looks bad, the morning his fingers stopped working while photographing musk oxen at minus 30 degrees, and how printing his work during COVID became the single biggest influence on his photography. He also shares why he states that every image is made without AI, the little jetty he has photographed hundreds of times, and the multi-year forest project that keeps drawing him back to Tasmania.Check out the episode article hereWant to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I'm in there regularly, and you'll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with John Shephard, a panoramic landscape photographer who has spent over 30 years shooting exclusively on slide film with swing lens and rotating lens cameras, a format that has all but disappeared from serious landscape work today.John talks about his four year apprenticeship under renowned panoramic photographer Ken Duncan, including a trial by fire two week trip that taught him what real dedication to the craft looks like, and the moment Ken sent him to shoot the closed Statue of Liberty with a single instruction: figure it out.He gets into what makes his swing lens Noblex and fixed lens Hasselblad X-Pan 2 so different from standard cameras, why he still shoots on Velvia 50 slide film for its rich saturation despite how difficult it is to source, and the decades-long America Wide book project that has taken him across all 50 states. He also opens up about his closing philosophy on photography: staying out of his own way, remaining open to what a place wants to show him, and never wanting to feel like he has mastered anything at all.Check out the episode article hereWant to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I'm in there regularly, and you'll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with Felix Inden, a German landscape and nature photographer who has spent over a decade chasing dynamic weather and demanding conditions around the world, building a career that blends photography expeditions, workshops, and years of patience in the field.Felix talks about why some of his favorite images sit unedited for up to ten years before he's finally ready to work on them, how a background in mountain biking taught him to stay out in rough weather rather than retreat from it, and the field method he developed for quickly reading a scene, from finding a dominant anchor subject to keeping distracting elements away from the edges of the frame.He gets into what it means to be full time in photography without necessarily being a full time photographer, the imposter syndrome that creeps in when a shot doesn't turn out the way he pictured it, and why he has learned to let go of Plan A and embrace whatever the day actually gives him.Check out the episode article hereWant to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I'm in there regularly, and you'll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with Skaistė Gulbė, a photographer and serial entrepreneur from Lithuania who spent years shooting weddings, newborns, birthdays, and pretty much anything clients would book her for, before a three month COVID lockdown pushed her toward the bold, black and white, deeply personal style she is known for today.Skaistė talks about the self portraits that sparked it all, the moment she looked back at years of client work and deleted her entire portfolio to start over, and why she refuses to shoot models for her creative work, choosing instead to find a woman who catches her attention and study her online for a month before ever reaching out. She gets into how her mother's background in psychology shaped the way she works with people, why she thinks of her studio sessions as something closer to a confidence building experience than a transaction, and why after thirteen years of learning to take a good picture, she is now chasing something much bigger: learning how to take one that actually means something.Check out the episode article hereWant to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I'm in there regularly, and you'll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/

In this episode, Perrin sits down with Jasmine Lawrie, a Scotland-based product, food, and drink photographer who turned a point and shoot camera from her mum and a teenage beauty blog into a full time career built on striking, scroll-stopping imagery.Jasmine talks about the ghost mannequin technique, the layering and Photoshop wizardry behind those clean, catalog-ready product shots that most people have never heard of, and how being made redundant from her in-house ecommerce role pushed her to finally go freelance. She gets into her philosophy that every image has to earn the stop, whether that means the colors, the props, or the lighting, why balancing a client's brand identity with her own creative instincts is one of the trickiest parts of the job, and why she is now exploring food and drink photography, as the next stretch of her creative growth.Check out the episode article here: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/jasmine-lawrieWant to talk photography with me outside the show? Join the Great Big Photography World community. I'm in there regularly, and you'll get your own free photography listing page for others to discover you too. Free through December 2026: https://greatbigphotographyworld.com/