#526 The India Photowalk Special 2026
The Photowalk
India is not a country that eases you in gently. It doesn't really do gentle. It's a place of somewhere between 1.4 and 1.5 billion people, the most populous nation on earth, having overtaken China in 2023, and it carries that scale in everything: the noise, the colour, the traffic, the sheer press of human life happening all around you at once. It is the world’s largest democracy, has a space programme, a film industry that dwarfs Hollywood, and somewhere in excess of twenty official languages. It's not a country so much as a civilisation that happens to have borders around it. In this...
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#525 How to change your life profoundly
The Photowalk
After a handful of specials, four weeks away from the studio, and a journey that took me from Austria to Bangladesh and on into India, it feels a little overdue, and very welcome, to make this a mailbag week, walking one of my favourite photowalk paths with camera and Sir Barkalot, spending a good hour and a bit with the letters you've been sending in, some contemplative music, the wind doing its thing along the path, and the welcome return of Valerie Jardin, our street photography mentor, fresh from her own travels in Mexico, for TEACH ME STREET. Letters and stories today from Martyn Cox, who...
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#524 The Bangladesh Photowalk Special
The Photowalk
Today, the show travels to Bangladesh. It’s the first of two specials, as we visit India too in the coming weeks. Bangladesh is roughly the size of England, with a population of between 170 and 200 million people. Dhaka is one of the busiest, loudest, most relentlessly alive cities you are ever likely to walk through. The city runs on noise, an orchestra of car, bus, rickshaw and tuk-tuk horns and beeps that never quite stops, layers of sound that, after a while, start to feel almost normal. We walk the riverbanks of the Buriganga, explore the shipyards of Keraniganj, lose ourselves in the...
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#523 Long live your photo blog!
The Photowalk
David duChemin is back for his third visit, and this time we're tackling a surprising topic: the enduring power of photography blogs. In an age of algorithms and fleeting posts, David makes a compelling case that blogs aren't dead and are thriving as vital spaces for deeper storytelling and better connection with your audience. Through a curated collection of photography blogs, we explore why long-form content and owning your platform matter more than ever, whether you're shooting for clients or purely for the love of it. David is a photographer and author based on Vancouver Island, Canada. A...
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#522 Seeing slowly at the end of The Earth
The Photowalk
David Wright returns from Antarctica with the story he promised to share with us at the start of the year. He talks of the deep stillness he encountered on his expedition as a guide, and the practicalities of photographing this vast beautiful land and seascape. David is known worldwide as an award-winning filmmaker and photographer who has worked in more than seventy countries for clients including National Geographic and the BBC. His path has gradually moved toward personal projects, and this Antarctic voyage is a part of that chapter, where the focus is on seeing slowly, working with...
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#521 Just one shot, part 2
The Photowalk
In this second part, former professional documentary photographer Giles Penfound and I are back at Penwood in Berkshire, England, to make one special single picture using 5x4, paying homage to the late Dennis Lee, an American community member who passed at the start of 2026. In this episode, you get to see what all of that waiting, all of that patience, actually produced. We reveal the finished photograph: the large-format portrait of a remarkable tree. We also pick up the conversation where we left it, talking more about what happens when you deliberately take your foot off the accelerator,...
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#520 Just one shot, part 1
The Photowalk
Sometimes the most profound photographs aren't made in an instant, they're cultivated over days, even weeks. In this special two-part episode, I walk with photographer Giles Penfound in Penwood in Berkshire, as he slows down to make a single large-format image of a giant tree, a portrait created in honour of a photographer known to us both. Working with a 5x4 plate camera, Giles has transformed his practice from the fast-paced world of documentary work to something more deliberate, contemplative, and rooted in presence. Across two weeks, we explore what it means to truly slow down: waiting for...
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#519 Milestones in your life
The Photowalk
This week, I speak with Gary Williams, a professional singer who's performed at Buckingham Palace and Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, where the late Martin Parr once photographed him. Over the last two years, Gary has built a thriving business photographing micro weddings at London's iconic town halls, the same venues where Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Lily Allen, and Ed Sheeran have tied the knot. We discuss reaching his photographic milestone of 100 weddings in just two years, the process of building a practice as a newcomer to professional photography, and what he's learned along the way. It's...
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#518 What is a photograph?
The Photowalk
This week, Steven Seidenberg is my guest, a photographer, philosopher, and writer whose work focuses on empty spaces, ordinary places, and the things most people pass by. His photographic books include The Architecture of Silence and Pipevalve: Berlin, and his work has been shown internationally, from Europe to the US and Japan. Alongside the photographs, he writes prose and poetry that explore similar themes, examining perception and what it means to truly notice what’s in front of us. It’s certainly one of our more thought-provoking conversations of late, as Steven even questions what a...
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#517 Dreaming in Photos
The Photowalk
This week, I speak with Cathal McNaughton, a well-respected international photojournalist and Pulitzer Prize winner. We discuss his biographical film I Dream in Photos, his recent photography in Ukraine that focuses on ordinary life continuing alongside the war brought to their country, and the role family plays in shaping how and why he photographs. Along the way, Cathal shares a personal discovery that has refocused attention on him, after a career spent observing others. It becomes a conversation about self-understanding and what it means to keep making photographs when the...
info_outlineThis week, Steven Seidenberg is my guest, a photographer, philosopher, and writer whose work focuses on empty spaces, ordinary places, and the things most people pass by. His photographic books include The Architecture of Silence and Pipevalve: Berlin, and his work has been shown internationally, from Europe to the US and Japan. Alongside the photographs, he writes prose and poetry that explore similar themes, examining perception and what it means to truly notice what’s in front of us. It’s certainly one of our more thought-provoking conversations of late, as Steven even questions what a photograph actually is, if it’s not a printed, tangible, tactile thing.
From the mailbag, Andrew Larking writes about self-criticism, sharing a story that touches on depression and the instinct many of us have to try to push through it alone; Richard Rawlings writes about neurodiversity, and Jim Farmer reports on unexpected wildlife encounters that may or may not involve actual alligators a little too close to home! Also today, a chance to join in with a new community feature for 2026 called HERE AND THERE.
Read more about our photographic adventures on our photography travel website, The Journey Beyond.
Links to all guests and features will be on the show page, my sincere thanks to our Extra Milers, without whom we wouldn't be walking each week and Arthelper.ai, giving photographers smart tools to plan, promote, and manage your creative projects more easily.
WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.