A Small Voice: Conversations with photographers and filmmakers

Lee Shulman is a visual artist, filmmaker, and founder of The Anonymous Project, one of the most significant archives of vernacular color photography in existence. Since 2017, the project has amassed nearly one million Kodachrome slides from the 1940s to the early 2000s — intimate, everyday images that might have otherwise been lost to time. Through curation and transformation, Lee reanimates these personal photographs, weaving them into compelling narratives that explore memory, family, love, and cultural shifts across generations.
Lee’s career also extends into film direction, notably with his debut feature documentary, "I Am Martin Parr," released in 2025. This film chronicles a road trip with renowned photographer Martin Parr, revisiting iconic locations from his oeuvre. Shulman's prior collaboration with Parr on the "Déjà View" project, which paired Parr's distinctive photographs with images from The Anonymous Project, laid the groundwork for their working relationship. The documentary provides an affectionate portrayal of Parr's artistic process and enduring work ethic, further cementing Lee’s engagement with the broader discourse of photography.
Born in London in 1973, Lee lives and works in Paris. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale and Rencontres d’Arles, and is held in major collections such as the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and Photo Elysée in Lausanne.
Website | Instagram


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Featuring:
Ed Sykes
Ian Howarth
Dina Litovsky
Joseph Michael Lopez
Mike Abrahams
Ian Macdonald
Katrin Koenning
Tomasz Tomaszewski
Mackenzie Calle
Marc Wilson
Paul Seawright
Mohamed Bourouissa
Anna Arendt
Marjolein Martinot
Rankin
Tony Docekal
Eli Reed
Merlin Daleman
Mike Brodie
Paul Sng
Ed Kashi
Rachel Elizabeth Seed


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Rachel Elizabeth Seed is a Brooklyn and Los Angeles-based nonfiction storyteller working in film, photography, and writing.
In 2025, she won the Truer Than Fiction Spirit Award for her debut feature film, A Photographic Memory, which is also a New York Times Critics Pick.
Rachel’s work has received support from the Sundance Institute, Chicken + Egg Films, the Jewish Film Institute, the California Film Institute, Jewish Story Partners, NYFA, Field of Vision, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, the Maine Media Workshops, the Roy W. Dean grant, the National Arts Club, IFP, and many others. 
Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, her photography has been exhibited worldwide, including at the International Center of Photography, and she was a cameraperson on several award-winning feature documentaries. Rachel’s writing has been published by No Film School, the Sundance Institute, and Talkhouse and she is Executive Director / Co-founder of the Brooklyn Documentary Club, a NYC-based filmmaker collective with 250+ members.
In episode 271, Rachel discusses, among other things:
A summary of her mum’s character
nature vs. nurture
Her mum’s Images of Man interviews for ICP/Scholastic
What inspired her to make a film
How her own story became interwined with her mum’s
Discovering a family archive of super 8 footage
How she recreated the interviews using actors
The importance of working with good editors
The challenge of funding and financing
Key advice for anyone wanting to make a personal documentary
The fine balance between collaboration and having the courage of your convitions as director
Writing for narration as opposed to for reading
Sharing her personal stories as the film evolved over a ten year period - How to balance life and art
‘Selling the film’ and what that means in practice
The Brooklyn Documentary Club
Moving to L.A.
Projects she has in development
Website | Instagram


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Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952), the man who the Daily Telegraph declared to be, “arguably Britain’s greatest living photographer” is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world.
His major projects have been rural communities (1975–1982), The Last Resort (1983–1985), The Cost of Living (1987–1989), Small World (1987–1994) and Common Sense (1995–1999). Since 1994, Martin has been a member of Magnum Photos, where he scraped in by one vote and where between 2013 and 2017 he served as President. His work has been published in numerous photobooks, over 120 of his own, and he has exhibited prolifically throughout his career.
In 2017 the Martin Parr Foundation was opened in Bristol. The MPF is as a gallery and archive and research resource dedicated to both preserving the Martin’s photographic legacy and to supporting emerging, established and overlooked photographers who have made and continue to make work focused on the British Isles.
Since his first A Small Voice appearance on Episode 91 of the podcast in October 2018, Martin has had a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which opened in March 2019. Entitled Only Human, the show included portraits from around the world, with a special focus on Britishness, explored through a series of projects that investigated British identity. Also since that episode Martin was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in June, 2021.
Martin’s latest book, A Year in the Life of Chew Stoke Village was released in September 2022 by RRB Books.

On episode 197, Martin discusses, among other things:
Influence of his methodist grandfather… and peers at Manchester
Early experiences in Hebdon Bridge
The move to Ireland - From the Pope to a Flat White
Liverpool and the controversy around The Last Resort work
Bristol and Bath - The Cost of Living
Being blown away by his first experience of Arles
Joining Magnum amidst disapproval from the old guard
Small World
A Year in the Life of Chew Stoke Village
Signs of the Times
Common Sense
The work of the Martin Parr Foundation
Good work and bad work
Referenced:
Robert Doisneau
Bill Brandt
Robert Frank
Garry Winogrand
Alan Murgatroyd
Brian Griffin
Daniel Meadows
Albert Street Workshop
Fintan O’Toole
Peter Fraser
Peter Mitchell
Tom Wood
Anna Fox
Ken Grant
David Moore
John Hinde
Philip Jones Griffiths
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Boris Mikhailov
Krass Clement
 
Martin: Website | Instagram | Episode 91 | Chew Stoke book
MPF: Website | Instagram
“Most of the pictures I take are very bad, because to get the good pictures is almost impossible. If you went out in the morning and said ‘today I’m only gonna take good pictures’ you wouldn’t get anywhere. You wouldn’t even start. So you’ve got to have that momentum of shooting, and you’ve got to have found the right subject, the right place, the right time, and then things will start to happen.”


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The man who the Daily Telegraph declared to be, “arguably Britain’s greatest living photographer” had a suburban childhood in the provincial county of Surrey, England, where his budding interest in the medium of photography was encouraged by his grandfather George Parr, himself a keen amateur photographer.
Martin went on to study photography at Manchester Polytechnic in the early 70s and since that time has worked on many, many photographic projects, publishing over 100 books of his own work and editing another 30. He has developed an international reputation for his innovative imagery, his oblique approach to social documentary, and his input to photographic culture within the UK and abroad.
In 1994 Martin became a full member of Magnum Photos, scraping in by a single vote, in the face of strong opposition to his inclusion from some of the old guard, including Philip Jones Griffiths and Henri Cartier Bresson himself. He has since become an important and influential Magnum Member where he served as President between 2013 and 2017.
Martin has also developed an interest in filmmaking, and has started to use his photography within different genres, such as fashion and advertising. In 2002 the Barbican Art Gallery and the National Media Museum initiated a large retrospective of Martin’s work and this exhibition toured Europe for the next 5 years.
Martin was Professor of Photography at The University of Wales Newport campus from 2004 to 2012 and Guest Artistic Director for the Arles photo festival in 2004. In 2006 he was awarded the Erich Salomon Prize and the resulting Assorted Cocktail show opened at Photokina and in 2008 was guest curator at New York Photo Festival.
Parrworld opened at Haus de Kunst, Munich, in 2008. The show exhibited Martin’s own collection of objects, postcards, photography prints by both British and International photographers, photo books and a new project from Parr entitled Luxury. The exhibition toured Europe for the following 2 years.
At PhotoEspana in 2008, Martin won the Baume et Mercier Award in recognition of his professional career and contributions to contemporary photography. He is co-author with Gerry Badger of the exhuastive three volume series The Photobook: A History. In March 2016 Strange and Familiar, curated by Parr, opened at the Barbican, London. The show examines how international photographers from 1930s onwards have photographed in the UK.
Martin was awarded the Sony World Photography Award for Outstanding Contribution to Photography in April 2017. In Autumn 2017 the Martin Parr Foundation - which is a gallery and archive dedicated to supporting and preserving the photographic legacy of not only Martin himself but also of photographers who made, and continue to make, important work focused on the British Isles - opened in Bristol.
Martin is currently working on an exhibition for the National Portrait Gallery which opens in March 2019.
In episode 091, Martin discusses, among other things:
The Foundation
The UK’s attitude towards photography
How his suburban childhood influenced his photography
Tony Ray Jones
Developing his distinctive colour style
The Last Resort
Being described as ‘an alien’ by Heni Cartier Bresson
Passing on 12,000 photobooks to Tate Modern
The health and future of Magnum Photos
Referenced:
Roger Mayne
David Hoffman
Hans Bellmer
Don McCullin
Paul Trevor
Tony Ray Jones
Peter Mitchell
Chris Killip
Daido Moriyama
Simon Roberts
Niall McDiarmid
Chloe Dewe Matthews
Clementine Schneidermann
John Myers
Sergio Larrain
Robert Frank
Paul Graham
Tom Wood
John Hinde
Martin: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
MPF: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
“I’m pretty happy with the way it’s turned out, to be honest. I have to kick myself sometimes to realise I’m still earning a living from my hobby.”


Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
Follow me on Instagram here.
Need a new website? I will build you one with Squarespace. Details here.