InFocus: Nicholas Bradley

Saints Sport Administrator Nicholas Bradley reflects on his career in photojournalism

It is a tired cliché, particularly in St Andrews, to observe that ‘everyone has a story.’ There is, however, no better adage with which to begin a profile on Nicholas Bradley, who has, for the past six years, been the Receptionist Administrator at Saints Sport. Bradley, who still works as a freelance photojournalist, has had a storied career ranging from the corridors of news agencies in Paris and New Delhi to documenting war, civil unrest, and everyday life across Asia and the Middle East. 

Bradley was born in the mill town of Bolton, just outside Manchester, but was quickly struck by wanderlust after leaving school with the intention of pursuing a foundation in fine art photography. These plans were soon put aside when Bradley, aged nineteen, found himself in Ramallah in 1987, witnessing the start of the First Intifada. 

With characteristic humility, Bradley told The Saint, “I got into journalism completely by accident. I was a nineteen-year-old guy with a couple of cameras and news happening around me.” He continued, “I went from being like every backpacker at the time, sleeping on the roofs of hostels, and suddenly I was in the annex of the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, sitting at the bar with all of the legendary reporters.” 

A recurring motif in Bradley’s life is his adaptability. Speaking on the precarity of freelancing as a photojournalist, Bradley said, “Particularly in journalism, if you can’t learn to just wing it, you are missing the point. Your technical abilities are one thing, but you have to be able to just do something regardless.”

Bradley left via Haifa after being informed by immigration agents that he had 48 hours to vacate the country, as he had not completed an Arabic course required to renew his visa. He vividly recalled feeling the weight of constant political tension “lift off my shoulders as I sailed out of Haifa.”

True to form, Bradley soon arrived in Hong Kong, where he “kept afloat” by teaching English but “hit a rich seam with a superb region, covering Iran, Oman, Egypt, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, and the Philippines.”

Through his trademark mischievous smile, Bradley preached, “Empathy among the people, cynicism with the politicians.” One of the many anecdotes that speaks to this commitment came in 2002, when he flew to Iran — entirely self-funded — on a tourist visa, astutely clarifying, “Not in the wake of 9/11, but in the wake of George W. Bush’s speech. I thought, I just don’t believe this country is the axis of evil.” 

He describes his experience of Iran as “joyous, fulfilling, incredibly cultured.” “It was such a f*** you to Washington,” he said. 

In Iran, Bradley’s open-minded approach once again led him to lock horns with received industry doctrine: “Publications have a clear demographic of their readerships and never want to buy a story which would be in conflict with those values [...] Stuff has to be so light that it’s essentially a travel feature, or it has to run with their readers’ views.” 

Reflecting on his experience freelancing, Bradley maintains that the business model of news agencies, which puts journalists “in the hands of market forces,” has tangible consequences for public accountability. “It’s too easy to forget that you are not a voyeur,” he said. “You are fulfilling a real function which has the capability to alleviate suffering, or at least show it to the world.”

The year 2003 was a “crucible moment” for Bradley — one which bore witness to the loss of a major client, the birth of his first son, and a job offer from Agence France-Presse in New Delhi. 

“For the first time in my life, I was an employee,” he recalled. 

Whilst nostalgic for the freedoms of freelance work, Bradley acknowledged that “an agency can get you into places, into situations that freelance [work] could never get to. It was no longer feast or famine.”

Unlike many of his peers, Bradley maintains the importance of not getting sucked into the “adrenaline whirlpool” of documenting war and civil unrest: “Some photojournalists essentially see themselves as soldiers with cameras strapped to their backs. My favourite assignments have been real human stuff without conflict involved.” 

He fondly recalled an assignment in Bangladesh in the early 2000s on the Grameen Bank, a microfinance community development bank. “I began touring around the villages and picked up stories of people whose lives had been turned around completely by these loans of twenty quid,” he recalled. “Gathering these stories is pretty magical — it’s a slow burn that you can never get from conflict or civil unrest.”

What is impossible to ignore whenever Bradley recalled a story from the field was the profound empathy he felt for each of his subjects. The experience of bearing witness to — and having the responsibility to capture — the most harrowing examples of organised human suffering had a deep impact on his life and worldview. 

“Whoever it was, I couldn’t separate their pain from mine, and I couldn’t step out of it. In a sense, that’s the Achilles’ heel of my experience of the whole industry. The reason I got out is because I could feel all the pain,” he said. “I think governments, movements, and individuals are capable of getting people to do horrendous things with some stated aim.”

In spite of this, however, Bradley is saddened by the corrosion of the public image of journalists: “Nobody believes the media anyway, and through successive figures both high up in the press and in government, ‘journalist’ has become a dirty word.” 

When asked about his career trajectory, Bradley admitted, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a career path; I just reacted to whatever I had to [...] I love to write, take pictures, and make music — those things have always been my centre, and anything I’ve done has been to feed those things.” 

He is even currently working on an ambient music project using found sound recordings from his time in the field.

Before moving to Crail six years ago, Bradley and his family lived in Paris, where he was working as the Deputy Chief of the Europe-Africa photo desk for Agence France-Presse. In spite of the move’s consequent change of scenery and pace, he maintains that “it feels like I haven’t left the international world.”

“St Andrews feels like a backwater for all of the right reasons,” he said. “I don’t think the madness that is engulfing the rest of the country has reached here — but all of the good stuff has.”

Images provided by Nicholas Bradley