Ffoton Wales – Details, episodes & analysis

WALTER WAYGOOD IN CONVERSATION WITH BRIAN CARROLL
MERTHYR TYDFIL, MAY 2024
(Published on Ffoton YouTube channel 13 August 2024)

Walter Waygood studied Fine Art at Newport College of Art in the 1970s where he was introduced to the large format camera and, from that point onwards, has incorporated photography into his art, design and photomontage disciplines.

Waygood's work was inspired by the German portrait documentary photographer August Sander and the American photographers of the 1930’s Farm Security Administration. Here in Wales, he continues to be inspired by the landscape and people of his home environment Blaenafon, South Wales. His photography provides a commentary of working class life in the area during the 1970‘s. His interest in photography as a form of social commentary led him to make more political statements through his pictures during the miners strike of the 1980’s and he was one of the photographers selected as part of Ffotogallery's 'Valleys Project' in the 1980s.

His work is held in the collections of The National Library of Wales, National Museum Wales and The British Library.

See more of Walter's work on his website www.walterwaygood.com
Gallery images © Walter Waygood and used with permission of the photographer.

Portrait of the photographer © David Mayne 2024

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

ROO LEWIS IN CONVERSATION WITH EMYR YOUNG
LONDON, APRIL 2024
(released on Ffoton 10 July 2024)

Ffoton talks with London-based commercial photographer Roo Lewis.

Memories of trips to Wales to visit his grandfather in Pembrokeshire had a lasting impact on Lewis - including those passing the vast steel works in Port Talbot located just off the M4 motorway. Now a busy professional photographer, Lewis has documented the town and people in recent years, creating an intimate portrait of the town, its landscape and eccentric characters – published in 2023 in his photobook 'Port Talbot UFO Investigation Club' by GOST Books.

View more of Roo's photography portfolio on his website: www.roolewis.com
Follow him on Instagram @roolewis
Images © Roo Lewis. Used with permission of the photographer.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales

Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

PETER FINNEMORE IN CONVERSATION WITH EMYR YOUNG
CARMARTHENSHIRE, JUNE 2021
(released on the Ffoton podcast 19 September 2021)

Part 2 of 2

Peter Finnemore is a long established, and much respected, Welsh photographic artist based in south-west Wales. His work has long explored memory, family, culture and history, and his deeply immersive, thirty-plus year Gwendraeth House project is ongoing.

Peter studied photography at both Degree and Post-graduate levels at Glasgow School of Art under Thomas Joshua-Cooper, before gaining a Masters in Fine Art, Photography at the University of Michigan. He represented Wales at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, and his work has been shown widely in both solo and group exhibitions in the UK and internationally, and in published titles ‘Gwendraeth House’ ,  ‘Zen Gardener,  and ‘Silent Village’.

Ffoton was delighted to speak to Peter as our first in-person conversation since the Covid-19 lockdowns in Wales, at Gwendraeth House - his family home, in Carmarthenshire. A very enjoyable day with a very passionate photographer.

See more of Peter’s work on his immersive website www.peterfinnemore.com
Follow him on Instagram @peter.finnemore
Gallery images © Peter Finnemore and used with permission of the photographer.

Ffoton images of the photographer © Brian Carroll 2021.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

PETER FINNEMORE IN CONVERSATION WITH EMYR YOUNG
CARMARTHENSHIRE, JUNE 2021
(released on the Ffoton podcast 1 September 2021)

Part 1 of 2

Peter Finnemore is a long established, and much respected, Welsh photographic artist based in south-west Wales. His work has long explored memory, family, culture and history, and his deeply immersive, thirty-plus year Gwendraeth House project is ongoing.

Peter studied photography at both Degree and Post-graduate levels at Glasgow School of Art under Thomas Joshua-Cooper, before gaining a Masters in Fine Art, Photography at the University of Michigan. He represented Wales at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, and his work has been shown widely in both solo and group exhibitions in the UK and internationally, and in published titles ‘Gwendraeth House’ ,  ‘Zen Gardener,  and ‘Silent Village’.

Ffoton was delighted to speak to Peter as our first in-person conversation since the Covid-19 lockdowns in Wales, at Gwendraeth House - his family home, in Carmarthenshire. A very enjoyable day with a very passionate photographer.

See more of Peter’s work on his immersive website www.peterfinnemore.com
Follow him on Instagram @peter.finnemore
Gallery images © Peter Finnemore and used with permission of the photographer.

Ffoton images of the photographer © Brian Carroll 2021.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

MARTIN PARR IN CONVERSATION WITH EMYR YOUNG
CARDIFF, NOVEMBER 2019
(released on the Ffoton podcast 1 March 2020)

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer with a long relationship with, and affection for, Wales.

Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic in the early 1970’s alongside peers such as Daniel Meadows and Brian Griffin - both of whom he remains friends with to this day. He became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1988 on achieving the necessary two-thirds vote of other members but not before Welshman Philip Jones Griffiths had pleaded for them to exclude him, stating…
”…His membership would not be a proclamation of diversity but the rejection of those values that have given Magnum the status it has in the world today... Let me state that I have great respect for him as the dedicated enemy of everything I believe in and, I trust, what Magnum still believes in.”

Martin Parr’s Magnum colleagues went on to select him as President of Magnum Photos International in 2014 (a post he held until 2017) and he remains an active voice within Magnum to this day.

Parr is now one of the world’s most famous names in photography - both in terms of his ongoing raw documentation of society in saturated colour and also his life-long passion for collecting Photobooks and other ephemera. In 2017 he and his dedicated team opened The Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol to archive and exhibit not just his own work but also a rich and important collection of post-war British Documentary photography and archive material by other photographers. The Foundation also houses a world-class collection of Photobooks which is expanding weekly and includes a growing (albeit slowly) collection from Wales.

Recorded at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. Our thanks to Bronwen Colquhoun, Senior Curator of Photography, National Museum Wales.

See more of Martin’s work on the Magnum Photos website www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/martin-parr
Find out more about events and exhibitions at The Martin Parr Foundation (and membership) at www.martinparrfoundation.org and follow them on Instagram @martinparrfdn
Gallery images © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos and used with permission.

Banner image © Brian Carroll 2019.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

NICK WYNNE IN CONVERSATION WITH EMYR YOUNG
COLWYN BAY, OCTOBER 2019
(released on the Ffoton podcast 1 March 2020)


Hailing from Merseyside, Nick Wynne’s life-long passion for photography is evident in his self-initiated projects documenting people and communities - both here in the UK and wider afield.

Based in the Wirral not far from the border of the North Wales coast, his passion started in the school darkroom and led him to study photography at Wolverhampton Polytechnic College before being accepted on the Documentary Photography course in Newport. 

Nick’s early and ongoing work stands out on Instagram - the online platform where he chooses to share examples of his of photography. Early in his study, his close documentation of a Traveller community in Flintshire resulted in a series of strong images that then fuelled a desire travel to America, Romania and more recently, a Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon to document people and communities ‘on the edge’. His Traveller and Romanian images caught the eye of Offline Journal - resulting in a feature article and cover of issue 3 in 2019.

Ffoton met up with Nick at the 2019 Northern EYE Photography Festival in Colwyn Bay.
See a larger selection of Nick’s ongoing work on Instagram @nicholasthomaswynne
Gallery images © Nick Wynne and used with permission of the photographer.


Banner image © Brian Carroll 2019.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

HAYDN DENMAN IN CONVERSATION WITH EMYR YOUNG
COLWYN BAY, OCTOBER 2019
(released on the Ffoton podcast 4 February 2020)

Haydn Denman has been a documentary photographer for over twenty years whilst also following his main career as a multi-BAFTA award-winning television documentary cameraman and director.

Haydn has received numerous commissions in addition to British Council and Arts Council Awards to document communities and regions here in Wales, but also in other parts of the world including Patagonia, the Arctic, South Africa, Palestine and the U.S.A. His photographs have been shown in numerous exhibitions and publications. Collections of his work are held here in Wales at the National Library of Wales and Ffotogallery.

Recorded at the 2019 Northern EYE Festival in Colwyn Bay, Wales.
See more of Haydn’s work on his website www.haydndenman-photography.com
Follow his work and travels on Instagram @haydndenman

Read more about ‘Welsh Mod: Our Story’ and buy the book at www.welshmod.co.uk

Gallery images © Haydn Denman and used with permission of the photographer.

Banner image © Brian Carroll 2019.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

AMANDA JACKSON IN CONVERSATION WITH ELLIE HOPKINS
COLWYN BAY, OCTOBER 2019
(released on the Ffoton podcast 13 December 2019)

Canadian by birth but resident in the UK since 2001, Amanda Jackson is a commercial portrait and lifestyle photographer based just over the Welsh border in Malvern.

After studying photography in Hereford she has continued to build a portfolio of work for numerous clients whilst also developing her own personal projects. Her lifestyle work has been featured in various publications including The Observer, The Guardian, The Independent; Marie Claire, In Clover Magazine and Photoworks Annual.

Her ongoing personal project ‘To Build A Home’ which documents the people and setting of the Lammas Eco Village in Pembrokeshire gained her Arts Council funding in 2013 and making the photographs inspired her to purchase a small plot of land nearby - providing a lure and impetus to revisit the site with her camera. Work from the series has been exhibited in Aberystwyth, The Northern EYE Festival and Ffotogallery and several prints are held in the archive at The National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Ffoton managed to pin Amanda down at the 2019 Northern EYE Festival in Colwyn Bay to record a conversation with fellow photographer Ellie Hopkins. Our thanks to both.

See more of Amanda’s work on her website www.amandajaxn.co.uk
Follow her adventures on Instagram @amandajaxnphoto and Twitter @amandajaxnphoto

Ellie Hopkins is a photographer, PhD researcher and photojournalism tutor at the University of Stirling.
View her work on her website www.elliehopkinsphoto.com and follow her adventures on Twitter @ellmhopkins

Gallery images © Amanda Jackson and used with permission of the photographer.
Podcast images © Brian Carroll 2019.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

PETER CATTRELL IN CONVERSATION WITH PETE DAVIS
MACHYNLLETH, SEPTEMBER 2019
(released on the Ffoton podcast 7 November 2019)

Born in Glasgow and now based in London, Peter Cattrell studied photography at London College of Printing and has taught photography part time at Central St Martins, Camberwell and London College of Communication.

Highly regarded for his landscape photography made in Britain and Europe, Peter works primarily with film and fine printing techniques. These skills as a master printer brought him to the attention of the renowned photographer Faye Godwin who worked with Peter to print her black and white landscapes of the British countryside. In his own work, Peter draws inspiration from locations through historical research and personal association.

His work is held in numerous Collections around the world, including the V&A, London; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; National Galleries of Scotland; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Goldman Sachs, London and National Trust for Scotland.

Spending time when he can in Wales by making new work around Machynlleth and mid Wales area, we caught up with Peter on a recent visit to Ffotogaleri y Gofeb. Ffoton are grateful to Peter and Pete Davis for agreeing to record this conversation and we’re delighted and honoured to have two exceptional analogue landscape photographers featured here.

Recorded at the Ffotogaleri y Gofeb in Machynlleth – our thanks to Diane and Geoff - curators at the gallery.
Gallery images © Peter Cattrell and used with permission of the photographer.

Podcast images © Brian Carroll 2019.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales

RON McCORMICK IN CONVERSATION WITH PAUL REAS
CARDIFF, JUNE 2019
(released on the Ffoton podcast 13 September 2019)

Part 3 of 3

Ron McCormick trained as an artist at Liverpool School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools in London before moving across to photography. He played a significant role in the formation and development of photography galleries across the UK in the 1970’s - including Half Moon Gallery in London, Side Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne and the original Ffotogallery in Cardiff.

Ron taught on the Newport Documentary Photography course alongside David Hurn and established ‘The Newport Survey’ publication that students worked on as part of their studies - produced over a decade in the 1980s. He was one of the first photographers to be commissioned by Ffotogallery to produce work for the highly regarded ‘Valleys Project’ in the 1980s and his documentary work of the changing landscape and communities in the south Wales valleys as coal mining disappeared in the region is considered to be some of the best produced.

His work is held in the Arts Council Collection and in private collections. He has lived and worked in Newport since 1977 and continues to be an active member of the Newport art and photography scenes. A major exhibition of his south Wales work 'How Green was my Valley' will open at Newport Museum & Art Gallery on 21 September and run through to 14 March 2020.

Recorded at the University of South Wales Atrium campus in Cardiff by Brian Carroll. Our thanks to DocPhot course leader Paul Reas for organising.

A selection of Ron’s books are available via BigCartel on communimedia.bigcartel.com
Gallery images © Ron McCormick and used with permission of the photographer.

Podcast images © Brian Carroll 2019.

Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.

Also available on the Ffoton YouTube channel

www.ffoton.wales
Giving a voice to talented photographers across Wales since 2015.

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram @ffotonwales

Made in Wales