Lou Jones – skills, slides & survival

My name is Andrew Walmsley and your listening to episode 163 of photography insights. This is the show that interviews people from the photography world.

This interview is one I had been really looking forward to as well, so let me tell you why. First of Lou Jones was recommended by Paula Tognarelli and as the ex-head at Griffin museum, she knows a talent when she sees one. So after reaching out we had a brief chat weeks before the discussion you will hear. Lou is such an interesting guy and time just flew by, so I apologise for the length of this one. I was going to split in to 2 episodes but seemed stupid so take your time with this one. It was actually too hard to cut, the beginning of our chat lay the foundations for who Lou is and we escalate through his career and experiences (through still film and the digital world).

The thing is Lou has worked for many big names like Time/Life, National Geographic and other Fortune 500 companies, he’s wrote many books, travelled and taught. It’s practically impossible to cover so much variety and its ever changing. Even though we didn’t get chance to talk about it, his next project is so important – thats the PanAfricaProject, so do check out his work.

So we get to talk about life, cinematography like Bladerunner and Dune, and how they effect our photography. We move in to the life and times of being a black photographer, from getting noticed to maintaining a career. It’s a long career shooting with text book publishers, advertisers, models, the Olympics (winter and summer) to musicians. Not only that but we discuss how important his Death Row series was to him as a person and his career. You need to listen to this as it’s a rare thing to gain access to death row inmates.

Lou is a fabulous, fun and well spoken guy, so lets hope we see him again in the future. For now here a list of a few points we come across: