A Photographic Life - 253: Landry Major

In episode 253 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the mistakes made when staging a photography festival, the importance of developing a thick skin as a photographer and honesty in the world of generated photography. Plus this week, photographer Landry Major takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which she answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Landry Major's childhood summers were spent on a family dairy farm in Nova Scotia. Her ongoing series Keepers of the West takes her back to fields at dawn, and the family-run ranches of the American West.  She believes that visions of the American West have long been central to our culture, but the way of life of the cowboy and the family-run ranch is fast disappearing as over half of all family owned ranches in Montana are run by people over 65 and many of their children are not choosing to remain in ranching. The images she creates are made up of the places, people, and creatures that have welcomed her into their world to remind us of the arresting moments of grace and beauty found in a life lived under the wide-open western skies. Major's work has been widely exhibited including at the Griffin Museum of Photography Winchester and the J. Paul Getty Museum and she has received multiple awards. www.landrymajor.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. © Grant Scott 2023