A Photographic Life - 53: Birthday Special: Plus Elliott Landy

In this birthday special UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the first year of the podcast, the weekly contributions photographers have made, the themes that have developed, the importance of 'having a go' and the 'personal' in photography. Plus this week photographer Elliott Landy takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and The Baruch College of the City University of New York Elliott Landy began his photographic career working with Underground newspapers in support of the rising tide of anti-war sentiment throughout the United States during the late 1960s. His press pass and camera not only gave him access to the political scene but also provided him a personal entry into the new rock music counterculture. Albert Grossman who managed the careers of many of the most popular and successful performers of folk and rock music including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Peter, Paul and Mary, Richie Havens and The Band had seen Elliott’s images of Janis Joplin and invited him to photograph The Band in Woodstock, photographs that were used on their iconic Music From Big Pink album. During this time, Elliott met Bob Dylan and his photo of him appeared on the cover of the September 1968 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. Within the next few years his celebrated images included portraits of Bob Dylan for his album Nashville Skyline, Janis Joplin for the Big Brother & The Holding Company album Cheap Thrills, Van Morrison for the album Moondance, alongside images of  Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Joan Baez, Eric Clapton, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Frank Zappa, John Lee Hooker and many others. His iconic photographs of Dylan and The Band during the years they resided and recorded in the small arts colony of Woodstock, NY and his coverage of the 1969 Woodstock Festival became synonymous with the town, and the famed 1969 Music Festival. Since 1967 Elliott’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide and published on the covers of major US and international magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, Life, Rolling Stone and the Saturday Evening Post. He is the author of eight books including his latest monograph, The Band Photographs, 1968-1969 which was the highest funded photographic book in Kickstarter history. In 1997 Landy began a syndicated column and website to recommend positive life-affirming films and films with strong, loving, accomplished woman as protagonists. He has created a new interactive music and video App, LandyVision, which lets the user blend still and video imagery with music to create a new form of musical and visual experience. After years of metaphysical observation, Landy developed and offers 'Sharing Stillness' Meditations, in which he transmits a spiritual (non-physical) energy that enables one to quickly reach a deep, meditative state. https://elliottlandy.com You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 on Player FM https://player.fm/series/a-photographic-life and Podbean www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/i6uqx-6d9ad/A-Photographic-Life-Podcast Grant Scott is the founder/curator of the United Nations of Photography, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His next book New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2019. He is currently work on his next documentary film project Woke Up This Morning: The Rock n' Roll Thunder of Ray Lowry. © Grant Scott 2019