Andy Greenacre, the Director of Photography at the Telegraph, came in to university to talk to us about his successes and failures within the industry and how he got to the position that he is currently in. I took the opportunity to talk to Andy about my work and show him the direction that I had been going within my last project, Kinship.

Andy began his career in 1994 where he started working in the Magnum library as a picture researcher. He described this as being hard graft, working very long days but also mentioned how fulfilling and important it was for his future career. He spoke about how many connections he got just from being within the Magnum building and how much he learnt from looking at other photographer’s photographs. From the back of this initial job, Andy was asked to run the editorial department in London to get commissions from Magnum photographer’s, so he said that this was the start of something really exciting as he was able to not only work in one of the best photography sectors in the UK but also be in contact with some of the best photographer’s here too.

He eventually left Magnum in 1998 where he then started freelancing as a picture researcher in 2000. From this, and the work that he did within Magnum, he found himself  quickly get more and more offers to work for the Telegraph, Times magazine, Evening Standard, GQ. He said that he worked around the magazine houses learning the trade for a few years when in 2005 he went to the Telegraph for a 6 month job and ended up staying three years. Within this time, he was working on the Telegraphs ‘Ultra Travel’ and ‘Luxury’ extended magazines where he said he learnt a great deal about the industry and how much work is put into it. He spoke to us about this and developed on the point more by showing us a front cover that he went out to South Africa to shoot. He described to us all of the things that he had to organise before going out there and how much he had to take into account before even going on the shoot.

In his lecture, he spoke to us about the importance of portraiture and being able to actually shoot a good portrait as a photographer. “Portraiture, the key to everything – unless you want to be a still life photographer” he was explaining how portraiture is the number one genre of photography for getting photographer’s money and earning. He said how there was no point even trying to get into the industry if there is no chance of you shooting a portrait because there is little - to no - money in landscape photography. I think this will stick by me throughout the rest of my time of this course, and even throughout my career. The importance of having people like Andy come in to speak to us is second to none, purely because he has been in the industry for so long and knows exactly how it works and what succeeds. He mentioned to us that most, if not all, of the covers that they have published for the Telegraph has included a portrait of some kind. Mentioning how “Every story generally involves portraiture”. 

Andy then spoke to us about his job role of Commissioning Case Studies, which is one of his main job roles within the Telegraph. He said how exciting and interesting that he found it as he was able to speak to top photographer’s and celebrate their work. He also said that he has found graduate photographer’s in the past and asked his editor to publish/believe in them like he does. He spoke about how it is sometimes hard working him his editor as they have differentiating views a lot of the time and sometimes when he thinks publishing one person/photographer’s work would be beneficial to them, she doesn’t think so.

 Andy mentioned to us people that he had commissioned for the magazine, some of whom he had to persistently email and ‘pester’ in order to be part of the magazine but he also approached other people who jumped at the opportunity because of exposure to their photography. He told us that he would only contact people who he thought were really good photographer’s and had their own, personal approach to photography. This would be because they could put their twist on the magazine and commission assigned, therefore giving the magazine the other hand and a different approach to other magazines. The people who he particularly spoke about in his lecture were, two of which have been guest lecturers:

Kellingley Colliery by Jon Tonks

 Usain Bolt by Kalpesh Lathigra

 Concept dating shoot by Andy Lo Po

When having the opportunity to speak about my work to Andy, I decided to show him my book ‘Kinship’ which I have recently completed. I spoke about my excitements within the project and the fact that I managed to approach all of the subjects myself/had them approach me through the charity that I was working with. I spoke about the importance of documenting something like Cerebral Palsy in order to educate people and ‘normalise’ disability.

He said that he liked the way I used black and white photography to tie my three individual subjects together and said how confidently I spoke about my own work, saying how this would be a good trait to have in future works and pitches.

People he said to look into as they helped him form a good and extensive idea of photography and the different approaches to it:

• Look into ‘The end of the road’ by Paul Lowe
• James Mollison – research this
• NGO and charity photographer
• Holly Fernando – young photographer
• Harry Evans – editor of Sunday times : Billy Kidd (photographer)
• Tereza Cervenova photographer
• Gun Nation

Overall, I found Andy coming in really helpful in understanding the complications and positives of getting a job within the magazine industry. His opinions were so honest as he strived to give strong, positive comments as well as constructive criticisms. I found all of his comments really helpful and will take them with me throughout my career.