Ed Thompson joins the Idle Hands Society for a wide-ranging, candid conversation that moves from an unexpected stint teaching employment skills inside a Category D prison to a frank diagnosis of what has gone wrong with photography as a culture and profession. The episode covers the collapse of editorial photography, the false promise of YouTube-taught craft, the social value of art college, the nature of photographic vision, and the slow, patient construction of long-form documentary work.

Dan, Paul, Ed Thompson catch up in an inpromtude episode of The Idle Hands Society Podcast. Sorry about the audio blowing out in a few spots; we recorded this gem unplanned using some very basic gear. As we’re getting into the slower months for our work, you’ll see us picking up the pace a little with the podcast.

Dan and Paul talk to the Documentary Photographer, Ed Thompson. We talk about publishing photography books and crowd funding for his new book In-A-Gadda-Da-England, how the next big thing for Ed might be a trippy documentary film, living in the moment and visualisation, lucid dreaming, and cave paintings.