Daniel Meadows

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British photographer, video-maker and teacher

title: "Daniel Meadows" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["photographers-from-gloucestershire", "british-portrait-photographers", "journalism-academics", "photography-academics", "english-documentary-filmmakers", "academics-of-cardiff-university", "academics-of-the-university-of-wales,-newport", "alumni-of-manchester-metropolitan-university", "people-from-the-borough-of-tewkesbury", "people-from-moss-side", "living-people", "1952-births", "english-contemporary-artists"] description: "British photographer, video-maker and teacher" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Meadows" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British photographer, video-maker and teacher ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Daniel.meadows.bus.jpg" caption="digital stories]], and a teacher of photography turned teacher of participatory media."] ::

Life and career as photographer

Meadows was born in Great Washbourne, Gloucestershire, "in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the Cotswolds", on 28 January 1952. Both of his parents had Suffolk origins; his father was a land agent for the Dumbleton Estate, in which the family lived; his mother developed multiple sclerosis when Daniel was young and this gradually became more acute. He spent his early years without television.

With Peter Fraser, Brian Griffin, Charlie Meecham and Martin Parr, Meadows studied at Manchester Polytechnic. (Meadows' 1972 series June Street was a collaboration with Parr.) While a student he was particularly inspired by a lecture by Bill Jay (editor of Creative Camera and Album) and an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of work by Bill Brandt.

Meadows was living in the Moss Side area of Manchester during termtime, and was aware of its impending demolition. With its many small shops, Moss Side might, he thought, support a "picture shop", so he rented a barber's on Greame Street from January 1972, inviting people to come into the Free Photographic Shop to have their photographs taken for no charge. Two months later he had run out of money and had to close but had gained useful experience.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Daniel.Meadows.Barrow-in-Furness.October.1974.jpg" caption="date=6 June 2014 }}", Royal Photographic Society). The Transport Museum has shown the bus ("[https://web.archive.org/web/20150225065828/http://www.bammot.org.uk/vehicles/vjrr404.asp From Our Collection: Barton JRR 404]", as retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 25 February 2015), describing it as built in 1948. Meadows took this to twenty or more towns. Some of this work was published in Meadows' first book, ''Living Like This'' (1975), which combined Meadows' photographs and text with first-person accounts of those he had talked with."] ::

Among the photographs of this series is *Portsmouth: John Payne, aged 12, with two friends and his pigeon, Chequer, 26 April 1974.*The title has been given in various forms; this is how it appears on the copyright page and p.32 of No Such Thing as Society (2007). Payne, holding his pigeon in the centre of the photograph, told Meadows that he caught and bred pigeons. Paul Cabuts writes that:

::quote The photograph, like many other photographs in the exhibition [No Such Thing as Society], offers a window on a lost world, one that is difficult to perceive without considerable culturally-specific contextualisation. Meadows' photograph is however a masterstroke in providing clues about the life and times of those recorded through his lens. The boys became the subject, although the pigeon had been the vehicle for this particular engagement. In offering up their pigeon (the photograph was taken at their request), we enter a world of friendship and pride, the social activities on a working class housing estate. . . . ::

With its echo of Ken Loach's film Kes, the photograph was widely reproduced. It was the cover photograph of the 1975 Arts Council anthology British Image 1 and the photograph on the poster for and catalogue of the 2008 travelling Hayward exhibition No Such Thing as Society.

In 1979 Meadows presented an episode of the Granada TV arts series Celebration that focussed on photographers Charlie Meecham and Chris Killip. Meadows went on to photograph the northwest of England in the 1970s, including the people around Factory Records, and in the 1980s he went on to study the residents of a middle-class London suburb (Bromley, although not specified at the time), the latter published as Nattering in Paradise.

Career as teacher and digital storyteller

Meadows became interested in teaching while photographing in Lancashire in the 1970s; in 1983 David Hurn invited him to help teach the Documentary Photography course at Newport College of Art and Design. From 1994 he has taught at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. His students there have included Tim Hetherington. In the 1990s, he led photojournalism workshops for the Reuters Foundation, the British Council, and other organisations in Europe and the Indian subcontinent.

Meadows' interest in participatory media was greatly influenced by Ivan Illich's ideas as presented in Tools for Conviviality; and his interest in digital storytelling influenced by, successively, Pedro Meyer's I Photograph to Remember, Meyer's ZoneZero website, and the NextExit website of Dana Atchley of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) at UCB. Meadows taught an undergraduate course titled "Digital Storytelling and Photography" and also contemplated ways of adding digital storytelling to the website he was building about the Free Photographic Omnibus and the later lives of the people this had depicted. Meadows corresponded with Dana Atchley and arranged to attend one of the "boot camps" held by Atchley, Joe Lambert and Nina Mullen. Atchley was too ill to appear, but at the camp and a subsequent event at Ben Lomond he learned and exchanged ideas.

From 2001 to 2006 Meadows was creative director of Capture Wales, a BBC Wales project: "[he] accomplished an innovative reworking of the Californian [CDS] model, adapting it to the 'media ecology' of UK public broadcasting".

Since this time Meadows has also lectured widely about digital storytelling.

Photographic archive

In August 2014, Meadows' photographic archive was described as being in the process of acquisition by the Library of Birmingham: "Meadows established a relationship with a collecting institution with specialist expertise and resources", receiving much help from Pete James, the library's Curator of Photography Collections, and Val Williams. With a drastic cut of funds to the Library of Birmingham, its ability to continue to archive the work seemed doubtful.In a note within his page "The Archive", Meadows points the reader to a December 2014 article by Francis Hodgson, "Another one bites the dust", which describes the importance to British photographic history of the Library and the gravity of the Library's situation.

The Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford acquired the archive in March 2018. In autumn 2019, the Bodleian celebrated the acquisition with an exhibition of Meadows' work, Now and Then, accompanied by a book.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Joint and group exhibitions

Permanent collections

Publications

Books of work by Meadows

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Books_by_Daniel_Meadows.jpg" caption="Five books of or about the photography of Daniel Meadows (flanked by irrelevant Pelicans); left to right: ''Living like This, Set Pieces, National Portraits, The Bus, Daniel Meadows''"] ::

Zines of work by Meadows

Other appearances

  • British Image 1: Photographs by Homer Sykes, Claire Schwob, John Myers, Daniel Meadows, Bryn Campbell, Roslyn Banish, Ian Dobbie, and Paul Carter. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1975. Meadows' "The Free Photographic Omnibus" appears on pp. 38–49.
  • Julian Bream: A Life on the Road. London: Macdonald, 1982. . About the lutenist Julian Bream. Text by Tony Palmer, photographs by Meadows.
  • God in Wales Today: Religion in a Cathedral Town. The Newport Survey 6. Newport: Gwent College of Higher Education, 1986. . Edited by Meadows.
  • Education: The 5 Rs: Reading, Riting, Rithmetic, Right, Rong: A Photographic Survey of Education in Newport. The Newport Survey 8. Newport: Gwent College of Higher Education, 1988. . Edited by Meadows.
  • Look at Me: Fashion and Photography in Britain 1960 to the Present: A Touring Exhibition Curated by Brett Rogers and Val Williams. London: British Council, 1998. .
  • Love Stories. Granta 68. New York: Granta, 1999. . Ed. Ian Jack. Includes "Then and Now" by Meadows.
  • How We Are: Photographing Britain from the 1840s to the Present, ed. Val Williams and Susan Bright. London: Tate Publishing, 2007. .
  • No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection, by David Alan Mellor. London: Hayward Publishing, 2007. .

Awards

Notes

References

References

  1. ''The Bus,'' 63–67; Meadows' description of Great Washbourne is on p.65.
  2. "The Daniel Meadows Archives".
  3. Phil Coomes, "[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-15717619 Daniel Meadows on digital literacy]", BBC News in Pictures, 15 November 2011. Accessed 2 May 2012.
  4. Daniel Meadows, ''Living Like This,'' pp. 9–10.
  5. Meadows, ''Living Like This,'' p.12.
  6. David Allan Mellor, ''No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–87: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection'' (London: Hayward, 2007), p.32.
  7. Meadows, ''Living Like This,'' pp. 14, 16.
  8. ''British Image 1,'' p.40 (the photograph appears opposite, and is titled ''John Payne from Portsmouth, aged 12''); ''Living Like This,'' p.61 (the photograph appears on the same page, and, like many in the book, is not given a title).
  9. Paul Cabuts, "Three boys and a pigeon: Photography in Wales", ''Planet'' 196. Reproduced [http://www.paulcabuts.com/articles_114318.html here] on Cabuts' site. Accessed 3 November 2010.
  10. [[David Alan Mellor]], ''No Such Thing as Society,'' p.32.
  11. Foldworks. "More about Charlie's Photograph...".
  12. Cafe Royal. "Daniel Meadows - Factory Records 1979-1980".
  13. [[Val Williams]], ''Daniel Meadows: Edited Photographs from the 70s and 80s'' (Brighton: [[Photoworks]], 2011), 220, 221, 224.
  14. David Alan Mellor, ''No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection'' (London: Hayward Publishing, 2007), 217.
  15. Tim Hetherington, "[http://www.source.ie/issues/issues0120/issue15/is15artbigiss.html The Big Issue]", ''Source.'' Accessed 1 November 2010.
  16. Potted biography, "[http://projectionsofreality.org/en/artists/artists/ Artists] {{Webarchive. link. (27 July 2011 ", ''Projections of Reality.'' Accessed 1 November 2010.)
  17. Daniel Meadows, "The Electric Engagement", pp. 94–96 within Daniel Meadows and Jenny Kidd, "''Capture Wales'': The BBC Digital Storytelling Project"; in John Hartley and Kelly McWilliam, eds, ''Story Circle: Digital Storytelling around the World'' (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2009; {{ISBN. 978-1-4051-8059-7), pp. 91–117.
  18. "Digital storytelling at QUT: A survey of digital storytelling projects and activities".
  19. John Hartley and Kelly McWilliam, "Computational Power Meets Human Contact", in Hartley and McWilliam, eds, ''Story Circle: Digital Storytelling around the World,'' p.6.
  20. Padley, Gemma. (12 August 2014). "Daniel Meadows at the Library of Birmingham". Apptitude Media.
  21. "[https://www.photolegacyproject.co.uk/case-study/details/daniel-meadows/subpage/key-points Daniel Meadows: Key points from the case study]", Photographers' Archives and Legacy Project. Accessed 7 October 2019.
  22. Daniel Meadows, "[https://www.photobus.co.uk/the-archive The Archive]", Photobus. Accessed 7 October 2019.
  23. Diane Smyth, "[http://www.bjp-online.com/2018/03/petejamesobit/ Obituary: Pete James, Curator of Photography Collections at the Library of Birmingham, 1958–2018]", ''British Journal of Photography'', 14 March 2018. Accessed 7 October 2019.
  24. Michael Pritchard, "[https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-daniel-meadows-archive-an-update The Daniel Meadows Archive: An update]", British Photo History, 2 February 2019. Accessed 7 October 2019.
  25. "[https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley/news/2019/sep-10 Britain then and now captured in unique exhibition by pioneering documentary photographer Daniel Meadows]", Bodleian Libraries, 10 September 2019. Accessed 4 October 2019.
  26. Williams, ''Daniel Meadows,'' 240, 241.
  27. Williams, ''Daniel Meadows,'' 240, 243.
  28. Williams, ''Daniel Meadows,'' 240.
  29. Invitation card from the Photographers' Gallery for a private viewing of "Suburbia", "The World Over" ([[George Rodger]]) and "Incurably Romantic" (Bernard Stehle).
  30. [[Val Williams]], ed., ''National Portraits: Photographs from the 1970s'' (Salford: Viewpoint Photography Gallery; Derby: Montage Gallery, 1997).
  31. [http://galleryofphotography.ie/exhibitions/ List of past exhibitions], Irish Gallery of Photography. Accessed 30 October 2010
  32. Robert Murphy, "[https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/going-back-to-the-future-6348689.html Going back to the Future]", ''Evening Standard,'' 18 May 2001. Accessed 6 June 2014.
  33. [https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/daniel-meadows-early-photographic-works Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Works], [[National Science and Media Museum]]. Accessed 4 May 2020.
  34. "Street life".
  35. [http://www.redeye.org.uk/exhibition/daniel-meadows-early-photographic-works Exhibition notice], Redeye. Accessed 29 April 2012.
  36. [http://www.ffotogallery.org/daniel-meadows-early-photographic-works Exhibition notice] {{Webarchive. link. (24 April 2014 , Ffotogallery. Accessed 6 June 2014.)
  37. Ben Miller, "[http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/photography-and-film/art392153 Pioneer Daniel Meadows enjoys retrospective in Early Photographic Works at Ffotogallery]", culture24.org, 11 July 2012. Accessed 6 June 2014.
  38. "[http://www.libraryofbirmingham.com/article/photography/danielmeadows Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Works] {{Webarchive. link. (6 June 2014 ", Library of Birmingham. Accessed 2014-06-06. )
  39. "Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Works". [[University of the Arts London]].
  40. Kelly Richman-Abdou, "[https://mymodernmet.com/daniel-meadows-now-and-then/ Photographer captures portraits of strangers he met on the streets 25 years later]". My Modern Met, 16 September 2019. Accessed 4 October 2019.
  41. Michael Pritchard, "[http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/publicaton-exhibition-now-and-then-daniel-meadows-oxford-from-4-o Publication/Exhibition: Now and Then, Daniel Meadows / Oxford, from 4 October 2019]", British Photographic History, 26 August 2019. Accessed 4 October 2019.
  42. Williams, ''Daniel Meadows,'' 239.
  43. ''Serpentine Photography 73: The Arts Council Presents Work by 43 Young Photographers'' (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1973). Exhibition catalogue.
  44. "[http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/photographs-from-new-society/ The Other Britain Revisited: Photographs from New Society]", Victoria and Albert Museum, 2010. Accessed 2 May 2010.
  45. [[Val Williams]], ''Look at Me: Fashion and Photography in Britain 1960 to the Present: A Touring Exhibition Curated by Brett Rogers and Val Williams'' (London: British Council, 1998), 127.
  46. [http://www.kunsthal.nl/22-531-Look-at-me.html Exhibition notice] {{Webarchive. link. (27 September 2013 , Kunsthal. Accessed 29 April 2012.)
  47. Blake Morrison, "[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/19/photography.art Think of England]", ''Guardian,'' 19 May 2007. Accessed 6 June 2014.
  48. Benjamin Secher, "[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3665249/Portraits-of-a-strange-land.html Portraits of a strange land]", ''Daily Telegraph,'' 14 May 2007. Accessed 22 January 2010.
  49. [http://www.bulgergallery.com/dynamic/fr_exhibit_press_release.asp?ExhibitID=136 Exhibition notice], Stephen Bulger Gallery. Accessed 1 November 2010.
  50. "The Prince of Tides".
  51. [http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-aad-no-such-thing-as-society.htm Press release] {{webarchive. link. (17 July 2008 for the exhibition, British Council. Accessed 15 February 2009.)
  52. [[Jon Savage]], "[https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/24/arts.g2 Tories, turmoil and tank tops]", ''The Guardian,'' 24 March 2008. Accessed 26 October 2019.
  53. [http://projectionsofreality.org/en/artists/projects/ List of projects] {{Webarchive. link. (27 July 2011 , ''Projections of Reality.'' Accessed 1 November 2010.)
  54. Карина Абдусаламова, "[http://www.vostokinform.ru/artmenu/arthouse/projeki_realnosti/ Проекции реальности: столкновения с (не)знакомым] {{Webarchive. link. (17 March 2012 ", ''Vostok Inform.'' Accessed 1 November 2010.)
  55. "[http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1334872 Негатив в шоколаде]", ''Kommersant.'' Accessed 1 November 2010.
  56. [http://fotonow.org/past_projects_explore/22 Exhibition archive] {{Webarchive. link. (6 June 2014 , Fotonow. Accessed 6 June 2014.)
  57. [http://issuu.com/macarts123/docs/summerbrochure_2011 Mac Birmingham Summer Brochure 1011], issuu.com. Accessed 30 April 2012.
  58. "The Art Fund helps Birmingham Central Library secure important photographic legacy for the nation".
  59. "[http://www.rps.org/news/2014/april/daniel-meadows-exhibition Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Works] {{Webarchive. link. (6 June 2014 ", Royal Photographic Society, April 2014. Accessed 6 June 2014.)
  60. [https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?listing_type=&offset=0&limit=15&narrow=&q=Daniel+Meadows&commit=Search&quality=0&objectnamesearch=&placesearch=&after=&after-adbc=AD&before=&before-adbc=AD&namesearch=&materialsearch=&mnsearch=&locationsearch= Search results], Victoria and Albert Museum.
  61. "Daniel Meadows awarded RPS Fellowship".

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photographers-from-gloucestershirebritish-portrait-photographersjournalism-academicsphotography-academicsenglish-documentary-filmmakersacademics-of-cardiff-universityacademics-of-the-university-of-wales,-newportalumni-of-manchester-metropolitan-universitypeople-from-the-borough-of-tewkesburypeople-from-moss-sideliving-people1952-birthsenglish-contemporary-artists