Interview with the Artist
Your professional career has spanned 4+ decades. Recap your timeline? Any noteworthy stops along the way?
I was a commercial photographer in Toronto, Canada, from 1982 to 1993, specialising mostly in editorial and illustrative photographs for trade magazines, advertising and public relations agencies, and public education illustrations for government ministries and charities.
Rutherford Photo: Hooman Moghadam
After 12 years, I withdrew from commercial photographic practice and accepted roles as Director of Communication— first for an environmental industry group, and then, for a social justice organisation educating men about their responsibility for ending domestic violence (1993-1997).
We moved to Nice, France, in 1997 and, after two years in corporate communication in French engineering firms, I accepted a post teaching undergraduate courses in visual communication, advertising, photography, technical communication, and modern history (1999-2005).
A move to the UK in 2005 to accept the post as course leader of BA Advertising at the University of Chester (2005-2014) was followed by the offer of a post as course leader of MA Advertising at Bournemouth University (2014-2024). I completed my Ph.D. in 2024, retired, and returned to Nice. Throughout, I've compiled numerous publication credits on the topics of Pedagogy, Visual Communication and its influence on our mental pictures, and Social Justice.
What did you like about teaching? Is there a downside? For some an academic career is handcuffs, for others it’s liberation. What about you?
I began teaching in adult education (classes in photography) at a community college in Toronto in 1985. I enjoyed it very much, primarily because I found that, in having to explain principles and practices in terms accessible to amateurs, it helped me to understand my own photography better.
When teaching these classes, on the first or second night, a few students would invariably rock up with their gadget bags full of kit: camera bodies, lenses of different focal lengths (especially the big, long ones), and special effect filters. My advice to these students (which often went over like a lead zeppelin) was to choose one body and one lens—and lock all the rest away for the duration of the course. The problem with having a lot of equipment is that, when (as inevitably happens) the image in the viewfinder doesn’t seem right, having access to this equipment encourages the tendency to “fiddle with the kit”—rather than thinking about what you are trying to achieve and/or moving left or right, forwards or backwards, or up or down. Changing lenses is rarely the solution. Further, access to kit leads to what I have called "The Rule of the Tool": the principle that our access to, and our proficiency with, certain tools or techniques encourages their use.
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