Stephen McLaren
Stephen McLaren is a Scottish photographer, writer, and curator, based in Los Angeles. He has edited various photography books published by Thames & Hudson—including "Street Photography Now" (2010)—and produced his own, "The Crash" (2018). He is a co-founder member of Document Scotland. McLaren's work has been shown at FACT in Liverpool as part of the Look – Liverpool International Photography Festival and in Document Scotland group exhibitions at Impressions Gallery, Bradford and at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. His work is held in the collection of the University of St Andrews. Career. McLaren made television documentaries  in Scotland and then in London, before moving to the USA and working as a photographer. In 2013 he was living in San Francisco and is now based in Los Angeles. Matt McCann wrote in "The New York Times" that McLaren's street photography "feels like a field guide to how normal things can be really odd, contradictory — and visually rich." He is a co-founder member of the Document Scotland collective, founded in 2012 to make documentary photography about Scotland. "Street Photography Now" (2010), co-edited with Sophie Howarth, is a survey book of contemporary street photography, in which  McLaren's photography is also included. "Photographers' Sketchbooks" (2014), co-edited and co-written with Bryan Formhals, gives insight into the work and methods of 50 photographers with a chapter by each of them. "Magnum Streetwise" (2019), edited by McLaren, contains images he drew from the Magnum Photos archive. McLaren's book of his own street photography, "The Crash" (2018), documents the City of London after the financial crisis of 2007–2008, made over five years. The work was shown at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) as part of the Look – Liverpool International Photography Festival in 2011. Made  in the run up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, McLaren's series "American Always, Scottish Forever" depicts Americans with Scottish ancestry attending the Highland games season in California—the athletes, musicians, artists, and visitors who hold a close affinity with Scotland. The work was shown in a Document Scotland group exhibition at Impressions Gallery, Bradford and at Berwick Visual Arts, Berwick-upon-Tweed. McLaren's "A Sweet Forgetting" was made after the Scottish National Portrait Gallery asked Document Scotland to produce an exhibition in response to the Scottish independence referendum. McLaren's series is concerned with the involvement of  Scots in the sugar economy of Jamaica in the 18th and 19th centuries, built on the slave trade. In Jamaica, he made photographs about the period's genealogical legacy, about the land which had once been owned by rich Scots, and what remained of their houses. He also photographed some of the country estates, mansions and schools built throughout Scotland with wealth amassed by Scottish sugar plantation owners that enslaved Africans generated for nearly 150 years. Collections. McLaren's work is held in the following permanent collections: