StyLitch Chats With Creatives
Hi I'm Charlotte, owner of StyLitch.
Join my guests and I as we chat all things creative; how to run a creative business, how to maintain creativity in an ever changing world and some crazy stories along the way. (Yes, all these weird stories are true!)
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StyLitch Chats With Creatives
S8, Ep 3: Neil Shearer, Chemist to Sports Photographer!
On this week's episode, I chat to Neil Shearer.
We chat about Neil's unusual path into photography, his love of sports, and how a passion project of his lead to paid work!
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Hello and welcome to Stylist Chats with Creatives. Today on the podcast, I'm chatting to Neil Shearer. He is based in Manchester and he is a commercial photographer and I believe we met on the Freelancer Tea Room Discord. I believe that's where you found the podcast.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:I love that Discord. I bang on about it all the time because I think it's really great. Are you finding it helpful?
Speaker 2:I am finding it really helpful. Actually, I don't post on there so much, but I'm lurking sort of in the background and nodding along at home, but yeah yeah really really useful it's so good.
Speaker 1:I love the portfolio thing, where you can like, um, showcase your work and then a lot of people are posting jobs, and it's just really great, I think yeah, I tell because I know a lot of freelancers, um, and I've told all of them about it. So hopefully, hopefully, a few new members come that way as well yeah, yeah, it's just grown massively, like it's got massive really quick, I feel I think every now and then they do a post on linkedin and there's like another 15, 20 people go.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is a great idea yeah, it's so good, considering it's free as well, and like everybody seems really friendly and you know. So how did you get into photography? Because I think you've got a really interesting story here well, it's very, it's very non-traditional, I guess.
Speaker 2:So when I was young, like, no one ever gave me a camera I never. I never had the classic. My grandfather gave me a camera and it was love at first sight. Um, well, probably when I was in college I hung out with a lot of photographers and artists. Um, but I was a scientist so I had no interest in art photography anything like that. And kind of every summer we'd go over to Paris and we'd just hang out in Montmartre and it was beautiful and it was surrounded by art and culture. And I was a musician at the time, so I was playing the drums just on the streets and we were always finding places to sleep.
Speaker 2:I'm not really sure how that worked. I don't think I can get away with that nowadays. But it wasn't until like maybe 10-15 years later that I got into photography and what really kick kickstarted it. I was going on a trip to Brazil with a bunch of friends to practice some martial art called capoeira, which very few people have heard about still, and I thought I'm only going to do this trip once, so really I want to get something to capture it. So I went out and bought a film camera which kind of showed my age a little bit, and I think I bought 10 rolls of film, so like 300 pictures.
Speaker 2:I ended up staying in Brazil for about six months and I maybe bought a couple more rolls of film, but that's all. I think maybe I had 500 photos in total. Now, wow, most of the photographers know that you can easily take that in a morning session without even trying. But no, I had 500 pictures, had to last me six months and I just kind of fell in love with it. So it was all the being able to capture the sights and the feeling and the mood and the emotion. And so when I got back from Brazil I got all the pictures processed slowly because it was really expensive, and so every week I'd get a new roll of film back and pictures would just be incredible. And for that whole, that whole time, I don't think I ever really took my camera off auto, auto settings, auto, everything, and. But I was. I was hooked and I still still think I've got some of the pictures up that I took on that trip around my house.
Speaker 1:Now this was, this was 20 years ago oh, man, and I think the time of film as well. I remember, from when I was younger too, that you had to be really considered with each shot you took, because you only had like one chance, whereas now with a digital camera, you can be like, take like 20 and you've definitely got one of the shots is definitely there yeah, absolutely so, and I didn't really know any of this at the time.
Speaker 2:It was just I'll wait until I found something that I really wanted to photograph and wait until, hopefully, the right moment. But I mean, I still had a lot of photos that didn't come out, or they were blurry or I didn't know what I was doing, but no, and it was still got some really great photos from it so what happened when you came back from Brazil was that it were you like, boom, I need to be a photographer.
Speaker 1:Or were you still a scientist for a while?
Speaker 2:I was still working. I hadn't really started my um scientific career by that point, because this was so just after I finished university, um, and then I came back and I would totally fall in love with photography, but not once did I consider that it could turn into a career. So it's still a real sort of slow burn. Um, I ended up getting a digital camera and then started off taking some photos and I had a friend who had a photography degree and so he'd sort of go through the pictures and say this is good, this is bad, why this worked, why that didn't work. And it was all absolute nonsense to me and none of it made any sense. But I was like, okay, all right, yeah, and I just kind of love learning new things.
Speaker 2:I still do and I think you know, slowly I got better and then I bought some lights and then I got a mentor and then I kind of I got the opportunity, uh, from being made redundant, to go full-time and give it a go, and I knew I had with my redundancy money, I knew I had sort of two years and give it a go, and I knew I had with my redundancy money. I knew I had sort of two years to give it a go and see if I could make it work, and that was 10 years ago now.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So it's your degree in a science-y kind of subject. It's chemistry.
Speaker 2:I've got a degree in chemistry which is an incredible career progression for any photographer.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really cool though, that you kind of it's almost like the universe was like do this for a little bit and you've got the eye for it, but it'll get there eventually, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:yeah I think, coming from a scientific background, I can see a lot of people don't see how sort of science and creativity can really exist in the same person. But for me it was. Everything was a process. By working through an experiment or working through a thesis, you know you've got you start with an idea and then you've got to go through several steps to prove that it'll work, and then you've got to go through several steps to prove that it'll work and then you've got to make it work. That's very much high approach, like if, especially if I'm shooting a personal project, I come up with the idea, come up with the concept and then I'll go right. What are the stages that I need to do to get through this, to make it work, to get the result at the end. So it's very process driven, still with with kind of areas for allowing creativity within that yeah, I think everyone has their own like process, don't they?
Speaker 1:their own way of doing things, and it sounds like you found yours because of your background as well. That's so interesting, I think. Isn't it interesting that brazil had such an impact on you at such a young age as well, and that that you've still got some of those pictures up in your house and it's clearly still having an impact on you today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'd love to go back there. I said when I first went out there, this is a once in a lifetime trip. I'm never going to get to do this again. And then, obviously, I went back the following year and stayed even longer, but those are the only two times I've been. I've still not managed to get back since.
Speaker 2:But I think because of what a capoeira was, it was a very sort of community. It was a real community, and I'd just finished university and all my friends had kind of gone off back to London or back to Scotland or wherever they came from, and so I was left in Manchester. I'm like, okay, well, I don't really know anyone. A friend of mine said why you come and try this, uh, martial art, and so I got involved with that and I'd say 90% of the front the people I'm closest to now I met doing capoeira people add up. I met my wife doing capoeira. Um, some of our best friends, um, all did, all did, all did capoeira. We've all, most of us have all stopped now because we're all in our 40s and you know you can do some real damage, um, yeah but yeah, yeah, real.
Speaker 2:It was a real like formative time in my life and then to discover photography at that time, I think just kind of solidified it all.
Speaker 1:It's all, everything feels connected yeah, it definitely sounds like it's all connected. And you're so right about martial arts, about stopping before you start to hurt yourself. I used to do um kickboxing in my late 20s, early 30s and then I rolled my not rolled my ankle. I sprained my ankle from my toes to my knee not at kickboxing, but then have never been able to go back.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, life, yeah well, during university I did. I tried so many different martial arts, uh, and I was really bad at all of them. I just ended up getting kicked in the head quite a lot and I was really bad at all of them.
Speaker 1:I just ended up getting kicked in the head quite a lot. Yeah, been there too.
Speaker 2:The unique thing about capoeira is it's supposed to be non-contact, so it's actually more like a dance. So if you do end up kicking somebody, it's kind of everyone go. Oh, you know, that wasn't really the point of it. You want it to be beautiful and you want it to flow. So it's like back and forth movement. Oh, you want it to be beautiful and you want it to flow.
Speaker 1:So it's like back and forth movement. Oh nice, it sounds really good. I've never heard of it before, but it sounds. I've got an image in my head of kind of what it's like.
Speaker 2:So there've been a couple of little indents on the BBC over the years where you'll see people sort of like cartwheeling around each other and doing handstands and things like that.
Speaker 1:So it's a lot of like acrobatics and kicks and things like that.
Speaker 2:Nice, that's really cool.
Speaker 1:Very different. It's very unique and it was very cool. Yeah, I love that you had like a martial art kind of that community. You're so right as well. There is definitely community around martial arts, and how do you find the community within the creative scene? I quite like it up north. Yeah, I feel like everyone's super duper friendly yeah, I have found that.
Speaker 2:Actually, I think when I started out I didn't really know many other creatives, didn't really know many other photographers, and I saw it more as like a bit of a competition, like I was trying to beat people to get the jobs and you know, I was trying to win the jobs. But then, kind of as I got to know more people, it turns out that everyone was just really friendly and really nice and it's like, oh, it's not really that much of a competition, it's just everyone sort of wanting to help each other out and that's actually really nice. So it took a while to kind of figure that out, but yeah, everyone that I've met, everyone that I've worked with, has been brilliant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've definitely found the different because I'm originally from down south, so I have seen the difference and I feel like people up north are way more like open to like, oh I can't do a job, can you do it?
Speaker 1:or, like you know, yeah, absolutely stuff shared a bit more yeah, so that doesn't happen down in London, I guess well, I was kind of in Milton Keynes up to Leicester way kind of that, the Midlands I guess but I found it didn't happen as much. But then also, like that was, oh god, I'm to show my age 12, 13 years ago. So you know, stuff might've changed now, but that's how I felt. But definitely, up here it's more like, oh, people ring, like oh, I can't do this, can you do it? Or like, do you know someone who can? And like everyone's trying to help each other out? Yeah, I do like the community. I think it's nice up here. Yeah, I've also got noted down that you work with like athletes, dancers and also shoes. I think we've probably going to have a special mention of the trainers that you um take pictures of?
Speaker 2:we absolutely do. Yeah, so I started off working with. Well, when I very first started, uh, running my own business, I was shooting fashion and sports and weddings and portraits and headshots and everything. I was just kind of spreading myself in all directions all at once and within about three months I was on the point of burnout because I was trying to market myself in like five or six different avenues. I just never wasn't really getting anywhere with any of them, uh.
Speaker 2:And then I had a sit down with a friend of mine who was in comms at the bbc, uh, and she's since gone to start her own agency, and her and her partner at the time were like right, let's have a full-on day, one day session. What do you actually want to do? You know what do you like doing. You can't keep doing all these things. You've got a niche down, you've got to specialize in something.
Speaker 2:And pretty quickly we came to the conclusion that that should be sport, because manchester I mean outside of london manchester's the biggest sporting city in the uk. Sorry to anybody but I might offend um, I say I say that sometimes when people from birmingham are like, no, no, but you know, I'm from manchester, so I can get away with that. So I started focusing on sport and I did that probably for six, seven years, pretty much exclusively were shooting like crossfitters, uh, runners, cyclists, mountain bikers, um, but predominantly it was crossfit and fitness bodybuilders, people like that. And then during covid, obviously everything changed and got uprooted and all the athletes were stuck at home and I, well, I was also stuck at home.
Speaker 2:So I had to pivot pretty quickly and, yeah, and I discovered shoes nice, so I'd always kind of been into shoes in a small way and I'd always had quite a lot of pairs of shoes quite light shoes, um and I sort of looked around my office from my studio and was like, right, what can I actually photograph? That is here that I can try and have a bit of a play with, have a bit of fun with. And so I started photographing shoes and very quickly it snowballed and I started getting jobs and I started getting paid for it, and then I started getting more creative and now one of the biggest parts of my business is shooting commissioned pieces of art for private clients who will then put up a huge picture of this really creative shoe in their office or in their like headquarters of their bank, which is really bizarre. If you'd asked me five years ago if that was something I was going to be doing, I would have laughed you out of the room that's mad, that people want a big picture of a shoe people are crazy.
Speaker 1:People are crazy into their sneakers because I know that there's like there's a couple of tattoo artists that I know that are well into their shoes like heaven forbid if they get a crease that kind of like full-on. You know it's proper their passion. Yeah, but I had absolutely zero idea that people like massive pictures of artwork of their shoes.
Speaker 2:That's insane yeah, it was. It was kind of news to me as well. When the first person called up and said it's a bit of a strange one, but do you do commissions? I was like, uh, yeah, I guess so, because you know, never say no to anything. Yeah, and he's like I've got this pair of shoes. They're really rare, what would? What would you do with them? And it kind of like threw me. I was like, um, I don't really know, but you know, let me think about it. So I kind of went away and then came back with a couple of ideas and I was like you know, how does this look? And he's like, oh, that's brilliant, oh amazing, fantastic. And so we then developed this idea a little bit and, yeah, I went off and shot it that's insane.
Speaker 1:Isn't it weird how, as creatives, we say yes to stuff, especially when you're freelance. You just go yeah, right, oh, yeah, yeah, I can do something you know where it's gonna go no. And then all of a sudden you're doing something that five years ago you never thought you'd be doing.
Speaker 2:That's insane and you obviously can't see, but on my the wall behind me, I've got a shelf, like shelves, full of shoes. I've maybe got 70 pairs of shoes now that have been sent to photograph by different brands. Um, and sometimes they ask for the shoes back, sometimes they don't, and always, conveniently, they send them in my size, which is really helpful oh, that's nice, isn't it?
Speaker 1:a little shoot um shoot loot yeah absolutely that's so cool. So how did you find, like once you niche down because you were saying there that you got like really burnt out when you're trying to do like juggle too much and I think we've all been there how did you find was it like kind of a business, um mentorship that you kind of had, that you just kind of like focused in?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I've had a mentor for probably about 10 years now the same guy and meet up every couple of months and we talk business, we talk photography, creative ideas pretty much nothing, you know, nothing's off the table and I get my photos critiqued by him.
Speaker 2:And again, it's great having this one continue, one consistent voice throughout all that. And yeah, and when I decided to sort of niche down into sports, you know, having someone there that's shot things like this and worked with like big names before, it was really helpful in kind of getting started. Because even niching down and saying, right, I'm just going to focus on sports and like studio sports, not even live sports, even within that you've got people who will niche down further and be like, oh, I'm a taekwondo photographer, I'm a martial arts photographer or I just photograph footballers and so, yeah, even within that it's like what, what's your niche? Oh, sports, well, that's not niche enough, you've got to go down further. And so I kind of found myself. My niche was sort of crossfit and, uh, fitness, and I say, even within that there are people who will go even more niche. But that was that was enough for me at the time.
Speaker 1:So it kind of gave me a good starting point of uh, things to focus, things to focus on and people to target to get work yeah, and I think it's quite important to find that focus and kind of cut, as my friend says, like sometimes you've got to cut away the noise of other stuff that's going on, and kind of cut, as my friend says, like sometimes you've got to cut away the noise of other stuff that's going on, and kind of just zone in and be like right, okay, this is what I'm going for, and kind of be driven to go full force into it yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:You know, as we said before, you say yes to everything. You kind of got to come to the point where you've got to start saying yes to the right things for you. It got to a point where I was I would be asked to shoot a sport that I'd never done, never even really heard of or seen, or you know. I wouldn't know when to take the picture, because for me it's crucial when you're shooting sports is to know when to take the picture, like the crucial moment that makes the movement look dynamic and for, like certain sports, like I tried photographing fencing once and it looks amazing when you see it on the tv and I tried to photograph it and I tried to photograph it live and it was just horrible. I just couldn't get it. I couldn't't get my timing right, I couldn't anticipate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did some really nice portraits of the guy out there. Left it at that.
Speaker 1:I think isn't that interesting that you're, that's something. A point that I'd never actually thought of before is that knowing the sport means that you're kind of ready to kind of take a picture of the shot that you're kind of anticipating happening. I'd never even thought that was. I just kind of took for granted that sports photographers could do it all. But yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2:I think I could probably turn my hand to most sports now if I took the time to study them and watch it. But if someone calls me up and says we've got to shoot tomorrow for you know badminton, can you come and do it? It would probably have to be a no, because I don't think I could do it justice to shoot in the style that I'm kind of known for and to get the pictures like as kind of as quickly as I'm known to be able to get them. I think I shot a. I did a project a couple of years ago, just a personal project, called the Long Road and it was focused on athletes who were getting ready to go to the Olympic Games in Tokyo and so I was trying to focus on athletes and sports that didn't get as much exposure. So I did a lot with wheelchair basketball.
Speaker 2:I shot a couple of taekwondo guys, the National Taekwondo Center in Manchester and all sorts of like different sports and the idea is I would take like a portrait shot of them, kind of in like an old master style. So I really sort of Rembrandt lighting and really nice like dappled backgrounds and stuff like this and taekwondo guy. So I shot a really nice portrait of him and he's like like you think we could get some action shots as well. It's like, yeah, okay, we'll give it a try. Uh.
Speaker 2:So he's like he talked me through what he's gonna do. I'm gonna do this jumping, spinning, kick and I'm gonna hit up here and you know, you've got to be really quick to get this shot. It's like, oh, okay, all right, and I shoot with medium format, so my camera maybe does three frames a second. It's absolute fastest, which is glacially slow compared to the cameras nowadays. Um, I was like okay, so I know I've got like one chance to get this picture each time he does it and within two, within two attempts of him doing it, we've got the perfect moment of him like absolutely at the apex of his kick and his everything's tensed and his muscles are looking primed and ready to go. And he said you know that's it's very rare that someone can get it in that that few attempts.
Speaker 2:So uh, wow, that's insane I think that comes from shooting crossfitters and when they do like olympic lifting, you know, there's a point where, if you can get it at that split second, everything just looks like it's moving. Everything feels dynamic. But a split second after or a split second before looks pretty awful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I'm also glad that you weren't in the gym taking pictures of me the other day, because I think it'd just be me gurning. So I think you must be doing a great job if you're getting these guys at their peak moment.
Speaker 2:There's still plenty of gurning.
Speaker 1:That gives me a bit of comfort. It not just me. Guns, that's really good, that's, that's so cool. Like I say it's not something I'd ever kind of like really thought of that. If you're doing shots of a taekwondo match, like it's, you're kind of going right, okay, cool, like it's got to be here, it's got to be here and you kind of got to be quick, yeah, like you just. I guess you just take for granted that pictures are shot nicely in the paper on like line and you know yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's one of the reasons that I don't photograph live sport, because I'm really like quite a massive control freak when it comes to getting the shot that I want. And if you're, you know, if you're photographing a live boxing match, they're unlikely to go. Oh sorry guys, can you just go back and do that again? I missed, I missed. I'm so sorry. It would have been a great shot, but it's just a fraction of a second out yeah, yeah you see people covering these events and they shoot thousands and thousands of photos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I have to wait until I've got the light right. So I'll set up all my lights really carefully. I'll give them a little sort of area that they can be in and it's like, right, you've got that two meter by two meter square, you do whatever you want in there. If you go out of there, the light will look rubbish and the picture will be horrible. But within that, go for your life, do what you want, and then you'd be able to go back time and time again and say, okay, change this, change this, change the angle.
Speaker 1:Right, there you go, there's the shot yeah, I think that makes all the difference as well, especially when it's like like you're looking for dynamic shots and especially if you've got your light in as a certain, a certain way. I also noticed your uh, tiny dancers project as well, which evoked kind of quite a lot of emotion. Actually, I don't have kids, but also, like I can see these kids absolutely fucking love what they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely so. This kind of came off the back of the whole backstory about how I got into shooting dance. I'm sure that we'll get to that later, but I found a lot of pictures of, like, little ballet dancers were all shot on a white background, beautifully lit. Everything was like really clean and almost like sterile and they were all in these beautiful white tutus and it was all very, you know, beautiful and lovely and calm. But that's not really what I'd like to shoot. I like to shoot slightly more dark and moody. You know, I shot crossfit for six years and everything was dark and grungy and gritty and moody and you got to see the drama and the emotion.
Speaker 2:And so I decided that I wanted to shoot these uh ballet dancers, young ballet dancers and I've got a tiny studio at home but it's perfect for shooting kids because you know, that's about as much height space as I've got.
Speaker 2:I've got a load of these, as I said before, like the old master style backdrops.
Speaker 2:So I kind of set up a little corner set, just threw some hard lighting in there, uh, and got these uh kids to come in and I had to be totally honest with them and say, you know, I'm not a dancer. I don't dance, I don't know the names of all the positions, but if you, if I gave you this little space, what are your favorite things to do? And they'd always be like, okay, right, great, because they're so little, there's no kind of self-consciousness about them, so I can show them the pictures and like, even straight out of camera they look great because you've got a dark background, you've got this like really colorful, uh, tutu maybe and you've got them doing this amazing move. Their eyes just light up and it's like, wow, brilliant, and that kind of sells the picture already with the parent, and so they kind of feed off that because they can see and go, okay, well, I can try this, I can try this, I can try that, can I do this?
Speaker 1:and yeah, we've shot all sorts it's almost like it gives them the confidence to show off a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, it gives them, give them the permission as well, because obviously ballet is such a rigid sport, like when the sport yeah, there's a sport, yeah, when they're learning, you know everything is so your foot has to be this exact angle, your hips have to be exactly here, and they'd be asking me, you know, was that okay? Was my foot in the right place? I don't, I don't care about that, that's not. I'm not shooting for a ballet school, I'm shooting for you. So I want you to just kind of go with it. If it feels good, if it feels right, then great, obviously. You know, if I was shooting portfolio pictures for a ballet school, then that would be a totally different thing. Yeah, I think they love the freedom to kind of just be themselves and do what they wanted to do yeah, they were just so.
Speaker 1:You just captured some kind of emotion and they just all look so happy and I think there was a shot with one of them kind of flinging their arms up and like, oh, they just look great yeah, I know the shot.
Speaker 2:You mean that was actually the very first shoot that I did. Oh, really, first time I've ever shot a child ballet dancer, first time I'd ever kind of tried it in the studio. I was like let's see if this works. And a friend of a friend said oh, my friend's daughter does ballet. She's pretty good. You know, she'd love to have a shoot. So I was like, okay, great, it turns out she's one of the best dancers in the country. She's it turns out she's one of the best dancers in the country. She regularly goes overseas to compete and is on the Royal Ballet Scholarship Programme, aged seven or eight now. So she was absolutely amazing and she was absolutely brilliant and it was the first shoot she'd ever done. So she was really nervous until she saw the first couple of pictures shoot she'd ever done.
Speaker 1:So she was really nervous until she saw the first couple of pictures. To get that. That backstory, then, is even. That's even more amazing that you've got such a good shot out of somebody who was nervous.
Speaker 2:And that was your first shoot with kids doing yes, ballet thing as well so I was obviously nervous, because I'm always nervous when I shoot something new for the first time yeah, um yeah, I just I think I've been very lucky in certain respects when I've had, like, the right people come into my, into my life, into my professional life at the right time yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's so cool as well that the little girl was like with the royal ballet and stuff, insane yeah, I follow her on Instagram now and it's just like every week.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh, I got a scholarship for this. Oh, I'm doing a weekend class here. It's like, wow, I need to get you back in the studio now.
Speaker 1:That's insane. A makeup artist colleague of mine, her son, has just won a scholarship, I want to say, in Arizona and he's a ballet dancer and he's a teenager, so yeah, I think he's going to go far. Like every time I see on Instagram he's like in a different yeah, different country, different competition, different thing yeah, insane, absolutely insane. Good on him as well If he's got the drive, if they've got the drive, that young to do something and the passion to do it, then, bloody, go for it.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's so many one of those. Yeah, there's so many things I wish I'd got into when I was a teenager, other than the things I actually got into when I was a teenager.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same, to be honest, all the lost potential. So why is it that you love sports photography? You're clearly very, very good at it and very passionate about it. Is it because of your, of your? I'm gonna get the pronunciation wrong capoeira, capoeira, close, capoeira. Oh, it's close, um, is it because of that? Is it like where kind of passion come from?
Speaker 2:I think really, it's just I like I really like shooting people and I really like helping people tell stories. I love capturing the emotion and the drama of sport, because there's nothing more emotional than people at the highest level of sport trying to be the best they can be and like how much they struggle and when they finally get through that and they get the rewards, it's just, it's just brilliant.
Speaker 1:I just love it yeah, it must be really cool to see the journey of people as well, especially if you photograph them at like several times throughout their career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's a couple of people I've worked with when they were sort of just just starting crossfit um, I won't name any names, but there was a girl who came to our gym when she was 13 or 14 and she started doing CrossFit kids and you could see straight away that she was strong and she was determined and she was, you know, passionate and she went on and then she's represented England in weightlifting and she's also gone on to do some other absolutely mega things and she's now like 21. And to see that progression in seven years, it's like you could almost tell when she was a kid that she had so much potential.
Speaker 1:That's insane. To start CrossFit at 14 is insane.
Speaker 2:They do kids' classes from age six or seven. Really Kind of that age. It's more sort of like jump on this, run over this, just just getting kids moving, getting them into exercise at a young age.
Speaker 1:So are you part of a crossfit, is crossfit part of your life? You're part of a crossfit community yeah.
Speaker 2:So when I uh left my uh job in science I joined the crossfit gym, a friend of mine uh introduced me to the coach at the local crossfit box and he said you should, you should, meet this girl. She's amazing, she's incredibly fit, she owns her own gym, uh, and I think I think you'll really get on and turns out we did get on and we're still like very good friends. 10 years later she's opened up a gym around the corner from my house, which is fantastic, very convenient. Um, that's good. And I remember walking into a crossfit gym the first time without having no expectations, didn't know what to expect and my mouth, my jaw, just hit the floor. It was like there were like beautiful men and women, just like shirts off, muscles rippling everywhere, throwing weights around, like grunting and swearing, and it was just like, oh, my god, this is amazing. I could photo. I could. There's a hundred different photographs I could take here. I was absolutely just like, wow, this is this, is it?
Speaker 1:here. I was absolutely just like wow, this is this, is it brilliant? I've never done it. I've seen the. There was like a crossfit competition wasn't there in manchester recently. Yeah, there's no, there's hundreds yeah, I think I think I saw one come up on my instagram. I don't know whether it's through a friend or a colleague does it or something. Anyway, I saw it and I was like these guys are insanely fit.
Speaker 2:They just look insane yeah yeah I've heard as well that as soon as you get into it, that's it like people are there for life yeah, you can tell the people that that's going to happen to you, because they'll come in and like on their first session, be like I don't really know what I'm doing, and then within three weeks, they're like getting head to toe in all the crossfit gear and they've got this. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna ace it, and that's great. You love to see. I love to see people are that passionate that quickly, and it is. It's such a community as well yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 1:I love kind of like the sports community. I grew up um swimming my mum was a swimming coach like we swam a lot, and then I ended up drifting off going to martial arts. The martial arts was happening at the same time as swimming and I got more interested in the other and, um, I love the community that. I still feel like I could probably walk in the pool now in my hometown and people would still know that my mum's a swimming coach 30 years ago. You know, that kind of community is all still there and there. There's something special about that. Actually. It's like really nice. It's really it's kind of comforting, isn't it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally get that. Yeah, I think there's a sense of community with so many different sports as well. You know, it doesn't really seem to matter what sport you do. There will always be that sense of community around it if you do it for long enough.
Speaker 1:I think like um, it's quite a funny story. I was getting tattooed and this, the tattoo artist said I recognize your last name. I think your is your mum, a swimming teacher. And I went yeah, and she went your mum taught me and my sisters to swim. And I was like I went home and went mum, do you know Lucy? And she went yeah, I taught her and her sisters to swim. And I was like, oh god, there's no escape.
Speaker 2:I get. I get that quite a lot because I've photographed quite a lot of CrossFit competitions just at my local gym. Uh, that's kind of like the only live sport that I do. Uh, yeah, and people come from all around the northwest, all around the country to take part in these competitions and I'm quite I don't want to say memorable, but I've got bright red hair so people tend and I'm usually got my face behind the camera, so people generally tend to remember who I am and like, so often, like if I'm just like walking down the street or something, people will be like oh, it's Neil, isn't it? Yeah, it always makes me a little bit nervous. It's like, what have I done for this person to remember me? Is it good or bad? And I'd say 99 times out of 100 it's like, oh, I do crossfit. I was at the competition at m squared. It's like, oh, okay, right, great, thank goodness yeah, that's, that's it.
Speaker 1:When you're um, when you've got a distinctive, look, people remember you. And because you're only one person, and then you're like, oh, I've shot like a hundred people since you, I don't remember who you are.
Speaker 2:And I never get to know their names because they're competing. I get introduced at the start of the day. Then they're like right, that's the photographer. I need to make friends with him because then I'll get good pictures. He won't get me gurning, that's true.
Speaker 1:I mean, I absolutely will, but we just delete those ones if we're friends. Oh, that's really funny. So what's the? This is probably quite a big question, but what do you think is the best thing about being your own boss?
Speaker 2:That is a big question, well, for me. So I had a career in science before photography, and I had bosses, plenty of bosses. I had some really good bosses and some not so good bosses. But I think when I started as a freelancer, I definitely missed it At first. I missed having that structure and having someone to say you know, this is what you need to do, this is the right thing to do. Go off and do this. And so at first I kind of like really didn't like that, that I could just do what I wanted to. I could go in any direction. I didn't have anyone to tell me if it was right or wrong.
Speaker 2:But as I've gone on, as I've become a bit more confident in my own abilities and knowing what I want, gone on as I've become a bit more confident in my own abilities and knowing what I want to do, the fact that I can just go off and do whatever I want is so it's just, it's so freeing.
Speaker 2:It's such a great feeling, cause I'm a big advocate of shooting personal projects. At least once a year I will go off and shoot a project that has nothing to do with anything in my portfolio, because I want to try something new. I want to explore different techniques or I want to shoot in a completely different way. Pretty much every creative personal project that I've shot has then led on to paid work afterwards, because I structure it in such a way that I will get like six, seven, eight, ten, twenty pictures in a particular style I can then put into a separate section on my website called personal projects. And then when I go and meet art directors and creative directors, more often than not the thing that they're most interested in is the personal work. It's kind of seeing what I do when there's no constraints or when I put the constraints on myself. So I think having the ability to just go off and have ideas and try something and figure out if it's going to work is what I love most about being my own boss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love doing personal projects as well, when I get the time. I just did one three months ago, I'd say, now maybe even less, maybe, yeah, november time, and actually the photographer and I. It's led to paid work for the photographer and I. So it is like taking that time to kind of go and pursue those things that really make your heart sing, and then you you can always drag parts of it into paid work absolutely how interesting that creative directors find that those pieces pull them in over your commercial work.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting, I think what it is, because when I, if I get a call to go and meet a creative director, they've got a shoot in mind and maybe, if it, maybe it's a crossfit shoot, for instance, and they'll come and they'll see the crossfit section on my website and go yeah, that ticks all the boxes.
Speaker 2:I know that he can fulfill the brief, but maybe if we wanted to go in a different direction or we wanted to try something a bit more creative once we've got all the safe shots then actually seeing that he can do the creative things as well as just capturing the clean, you know, shots on the shot list if we wanted to try something a bit different, maybe with motion blur or maybe with adding cgi it, then you've got that option as well. And I find I talk far more passionately about my personal projects than I do my client projects, because it's something that came from me. I was, I took up all aspects of that. I was the creative director, I was the client, I was the stylist lighting photography, the client, I was the stylist lighting photography. Every, everything was me and so, yeah, I've got much more of a broad kind of understanding of what it took to put that shoot together and what it took to kind of get the results out yeah, I understand that.
Speaker 1:I think I quite like doing them as well for a similar reason, because then you're in control of everything and you can go. Actually, I really want to do that idea or a pinch a bit of this idea, a bit of that idea and kind of bring them all together. So what's your favorite passion project so far that you've done?
Speaker 2:that is. That really is a tough one, um, I think my favorite one would have to be so. I did a project called just dance. Um, probably about two years ago now, two and a half years ago, and I'll go back a little bit.
Speaker 2:So I was, like I said, been shooting crossfit dark, moody images for about six, seven years and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, I got a message from a guy in hong kong. A couple of guys in hong kong who'd seen my work had been recommended to me by a different client, and they were. They had a brand new product for the fitness market. It was basically a smart mirror that kind of would track your body position in real time in 3d and give you instant feedback on your form. So if you're doing deadlifts or squats or something like that, it would analyze your form and give you feedback. And so that was the product. And they said and we put together this mood board to give you some ideas of where we want to go. So I was like, yeah, fantastic, send it over. So they sent this mood board over and it was the brightest, most colorful, dynamic looking thing I'd ever seen and I was like totally wowed, going wow, this is fantastic, this looks amazing.
Speaker 2:But then I looked at my portfolio and was like that is not what I've. Have they seen my portfolio? Have they, you know? So I had to be honest with and say to them you know, I love it, but my portfolio does not represent any, anything like this. And every time I talk to photographers I say you won't get hired for work that isn't in your portfolio. And this is obviously just made me out to be a total liar, because I did that and they said, no, we want you. We've heard good things. Uh, we want you, we want you to shoot in this way, and so, obviously, you know, say yes to everything. So I said yes and got the job done. I did a load of practice, a load of prep, far more than I actually got paid for.
Speaker 2:But I kind of went into the studio the week before. I was like, right, this is what I'm trying to do, using colored lights and motion blur and you know all this and came away and I had this great set of images that just looked so out of place in my portfolio. So I was like, right, okay, let's do a personal project, let's shoot something different, something colourful, something vibrant and not sure how it came about, but someone suggested why don't you shoot dancers? Never shot dancers before, because I know an awful lot of dancers from doing capoeira and that brings an awful lot of people with a dance background into it. And so I was like, right, okay, well, I'll shoot dance and I'll do it in really like a colorful way and we'll add things like motion blur and cgi and like stroboscopic effects with the camera and I just kind of leant into it.
Speaker 2:And this project took over my life for about a year shot wow answers from like ballet dancers, belly dancers, uh break dancers. And I ended up shooting for a ballet school in warrington with like 25 year two ballet dancers who'd never, had never been on a photo shoot before, I'd never shot ballet before. I walked in there and they were like, right, what do you want us to do? It's like god, I've got no idea. Here's a mood board. Can you do something like this?
Speaker 2:And the very first picture I took it was this guy sort of jumping up and like spreading his arms out behind him, and that was so what I did with this project. I turned it into a qualification panel for one of the societies that I'm with and I actually gained fellowship with this set of 20 images of dancers. Wow, everyone was like totally had no idea it was me, because it was 100 different to everything I've shot before and I kind of kept this project under wraps from everyone but like a few people, and when I brought out, no one, no one had any clue. It was me and that was. That was all came from just having having an idea, having a personal project and wanting to try something a bit different, and that is now again makes up a lot of what I shoot that's so cool that you there's something about keeping stuff under wraps a little bit and then going surprise yeah that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Every january there's a photography convention down in london. That's so cool. Every January there's a photography convention down in London. The site is called the SWPP Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers. Now, I am neither a wedding nor a traditional portrait photographer, so I'm a little bit of an outlier within that group because I take pictures of sneakers down and pictures of dancers that are covered in CGI. So I'm a bit bit bit different in that respect. It just it seems to fit in so well there and people love it. Um, cause it? Cause it's so different to everything else.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. That's really really cool. I can hear the passion as well about the dancer project and kind of how it propelled you to where you are now as well. Yeah, absolutely, dancer project and kind of how it propelled you to where you are now as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely I think. I came away, so I got my qualification, I passed my fellowship and I was like, right, the world needs to see these pictures of the royal ballet, is going to love this national theater amazing. And so I went and had meetings with these people and they were like, oh, we love the pictures, they're fantastic, but we can't use them in our marketing, because our target market is not going to interact with pictures that are this bright and this wild and out there. So, like, oh, oh, right, okay, it kind of like knocked me a bit, and so I spent like about a year like pitching this work to all sorts of different people and then, I think it was through a contact on LinkedIn I got in touch with this choreographer and sent her the link and as soon as she saw it, she called me up and said what, what is this?
Speaker 2:She's like I've been forwarded this by my colleague. What talked me through it? I got started to like get a little bit excited because I could hear the passion in her voice and she's like this is exactly what I've been looking for. It's like, oh, brilliant, this is, this is fantastic. And it turns out that she works for a non-profit in America who help dancers all around the world with kind of marketing and funding. I've had a bunch of meetings with them now and we are going to be working on a big project, uh, all this year, uh, to create a piece of immersive dance and behind filming, behind the scenes, uh and everything. So that's kind of really come from this one project and again, it's just come from finding the right person that really loved what I did. Instead of trying to dilute what I was offering to fit in with, like the Royal Ballet and National Theatre. Eventually I found the one person that was absolutely blown away by it.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes it's kind of biding your time, is it having a bit of a bit of patience and kind of not not rushing?
Speaker 2:I would say that is that that would be great advice, which I am terrible at taking. I've got. I've got zero patience. I've got. If I've got an idea, I want to get it out there and I want to photograph this and I want to do this, but I think it's. Yeah, you say it's definitely being patient and it's knowing that there are people out there that will love your work, whatever you shoot, whatever style you shoot in. You know the world is a big place. There are. You don't need that many people to absolutely that absolutely love your work and they get it and are totally on your wavelength. They're your kind of people to make any business a success. You just need to find them and oftentimes it's finding them that is the hard part. But yeah, you just you've got to be patient and you've got to know that they are out there and they will find their way to you eventually you're 100% right.
Speaker 1:I also have no patience, but I also have patience as a virtue tattooed on me.
Speaker 2:So make of that what you will this is like just a reminder every now and again. But oh yeah, I should.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my own advice, yeah yeah, like slow the fuck down, it's fine I'm terrible at taking my own advice I give.
Speaker 2:I give like this to photographers a couple of times a year and then I was like, yeah, that was really good advice. It's like, yeah, yeah, it was, should really really do that myself.
Speaker 1:I think we all do that, though. I get stylists ask me advice and I'm like, yeah, so if I was in your position basically 10 years ago, when I was in your position, I didn't listen to the person who was in my position. However, you should definitely listen to the person who was in my position. However, you should definitely listen to me now. Yeah, yeah, listen to me now because I am a wise old sage. So what do you find the hardest thing about being self-employed and freelance?
Speaker 2:I think before COVID, you know, I'd got to a point where I knew kind of when the highs in a year were going to come, when the lows were going to be, and I can you know sort of budget for that. And I knew that, you know, january was always going to be quiet because no one's got budget, no one wants to do anything, and you know you would pick up by february, and then it's that the other and it was. You know, I'd had a couple of years of doing it and I was getting pretty good at knowing when that was going to come. And then since covid it's just been all over the place.
Speaker 2:I think maybe last year I shot four or five of the biggest jobs I've ever had, both in terms of money and in terms of scope, and then in between those jobs it was just crickets.
Speaker 2:There was nothing. You know, emails were not being answered, clients were ghosting me after I'd sent in, quotes not being answered, clients were ghosting me after I'd sent in quotes and it was just like I was totally unable to properly plan for what was coming. But I think, to sort of balance that out, I had started quite a few little side hustles last year, one of which was selling limited edition prints of sneakers and that kind of was a fairly constant. I mean, I wasn't making millions but it was selling a couple of prints. A couple of prints a week was kind of just enough to kind of keep it ticking over in the background. It didn't require me to do a whole load of stuff, so kind of having that little side hustle income was enough to kind of like fill in, hopefully, and sort of smooth out the peaks and troughs a little bit you're so right as well.
Speaker 1:I've been freelancing for over a decade. I want to save 13, maybe 15 years, maybe not 20 years, but definitely somewhere, you know. And I think COVID fucked up quite a lot of our industry. So, like years ago pre-COVID, pre-covid, in air quotes I used to be booked two, three months in advance for studio work, like product styling, that people knew the product was coming, it was regular. It was very much like that.
Speaker 1:Now it's like I maybe get booked a month in advance at the very least, at very most sorry, and the rest of it's like a free next tuesday, free next thursday. You know, there's no kind of consistency to it anymore. I do feel it's coming back a teeny little bit, but it used to be way, way, way more consistent. I also think that the economy as it ebbs and flows, people get made redundant, try their hand at freelance, then they go back into full-time work and then there's kind of this core of freelancers who just kind of stay drifting somewhere in the middle and we kind of have side hustles, like you say, that kind of keep us going, or I don't know.
Speaker 1:We pull something else out that I call it when, when you throw shit to the wall and see what sticks there's often like so absolutely yeah you've got so many ideas going on being a creative, you're just like right, let me try that, let me try that, let me try that, let me put my energy into this and just see what happens. But yeah, I think you're. You're so right, it's so unpredictable. Like I've had my busiest January and February for maybe 10 years this year and I looked at my husband and went shit, I've got five days a week in in January. I'm gonna die. What's going on? Yeah, I was like holy shit, nearly had a heart attack, tell me, but I think it's. There's no tellings to it anymore and I think that my best advice to people is to save what you can, because the dry times happen and you just got to do the best you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think before I was full time, I would buy a new camera every couple of years and I'd upgrade my lights and I'd change this and I'd change that all the time, because I had like a proper job, a proper regular salary, uh, and so I had like money that I could just spend on frivolous things like a new camera. Whether I know it or not, I needed it. And the camera that I'm shooting with now and have no plans to change, I've had for seven, eight years and people are like, are you going to get the new shiny thing from this? And it's like, well, no, because I don't need it.
Speaker 2:It doesn't do anything that my current well, it does, it does. It doesn't do anything that my current well, it does. It. There's a lot that my current camera won't do. It doesn't do anything that will help make me more money, and when something comes along that will tick that box, then, yeah, maybe I'll think about upgrading, because the camera that I've got is a medium format camera so it wasn't cheap to invest in and to upgrade it. You're talking tens of thousands, so it's gotta to be a real kind of like something it's got to be.
Speaker 1:This camera's got to do something really snazzy to uh warrant that sort of investment yeah, I think that's it and I think it is a massive investment and it is a massive decision to go and spend. Even if you're spending, I was gonna say, a handful of thousands on a camera, it is easily a handful of thousands. It's a lot of money and you know, you start heading into the phase one world or Hasselblad and things like that, and that's, that's several handfuls of thousands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean they're're fantastic. But I suppose as well, once you've got one, you know not much is going to change, is it? I wouldn't have thought, but I've shot with it.
Speaker 2:I've shot with a phase one once and it was it was. The pictures look great. The system itself was really hard to use. I mean, we're talking, we're going back, say, maybe eight, nine years, and medium format back then was a lot slower, a lot harder and a lot more expensive. The system that I got into, I think probably cost about five grand to get the camera and lenses and it was the only affordable, even at five grand, medium format system on the market. And since then Fuji have brought out a fantastic medium format system on the market and since then they've been uh, fuji have brought out a fantastic um medium format range which gets updated all the time. Um, and the system that I've got hasn't been updated in probably five years and there's no roadmap for updating it. So it's a bit of a shame, um, but it is. It's a great camera and I love the files that come out of it. Yeah, I mean no hurry to change it.
Speaker 1:And I think if you love what's coming out of the camera and not just your skill within the camera, the camera does quite an integral part of the job as well. So if you're enjoying the kind of pictures that you're achieving with this camera, then why change it?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no point. Yeah, I think it's interesting cameras because I know minimal about them, but I can also because I'm a visual person. I can tell what's shot on film, what's you know what's shot on different things. And it's so interesting how everyone every photographer I speak to has got their own preference. And then if you're thrown in a studio where they've got a Canon and some people really don't like shooting on Canon, some people really don't like shooting on Nikon, and like there's this big thing there and you know yeah, well, let me let me tell you a funny story.
Speaker 2:When I was down in London for the convention in January, I was asked to do a live shoot on the for Elinchrom, who are a lighting manufacturer. I said can you come on stage and do a live shoot with some sneakers? Because that's something a bit different, something we've not had before. We never had a product photographer do a live shoot. So I was like, yeah, okay, great, I mean, I really like presenting and I really like talking to people, but most of the time I'll be sort of huddled behind my laptop reading my slides, because I'm really not a massive extrovert and people kind of look at me and think I am because I've got bright red hair and I seem really bubbly and really out there. But it's totally an act because that's kind of how I've got to be. And so they said, yeah, come on, come on stage, and it's just 40 minutes of you talking to actual people in front of you with a camera in your hand, taking pictures, talking about your lighting, it's that. And the other. I like, okay, yeah, I can do that, I can do that. And it was absolutely terrifying for one because I had no notes, no slides, nothing. Um, and I got on stage and I was going to tether your camera. So I put it straight into the laptop. So I did that and of course it wasn't tether because it was an older camera. So, like, have you got another camera? So I was like I actually do have another camera.
Speaker 2:So I ran back upstairs to my hotel room, grabbed my spare camera, plugged that in also didn't work and they're like okay, have you ever shot with, uh fuji? I was like, no, never shot with a fuji. Okay, okay, great, we'll get a Fuji. So they went off to one of the trade stands, came back and handed me this camera I've never shot with in my life. I couldn't see through the viewfinder. So I was just on stage in front of maybe 20 or 30 people talking as if everything was fine and normal, shooting with the camera I've never used in my life, couldn't see anything through the viewfinder. It was only when I took the picture and then it appeared on the big screen, I was like, oh yeah, there you go. That's exactly what I meant to do. Fantastic, it was like, you know, all the things that could go wrong went wrong yeah, and I think I actually learned more from that than if everything had gone perfectly and everything had been really rehearsed and scripted.
Speaker 2:It made me think on my feet and I had to kind of like just like engage with the audience and ask some questions while people behind the scenes were like scrambling like a duck, like a duck's legs underwater, to try and get things working. And eventually they got the viewfinder working and I could actually see what I was shooting and produce some pretty good pictures in front of a live studio audience, if you like it's.
Speaker 1:I mean you had me. When you said they asked you to do 40 minutes, I'd be like shitting myself there's a lot of that too yeah, isn't that amazing as well, how you just think on your feet and you're like yeah, okay, cool, let's just. We're here, I'm, I'm, I'm being baptized, fire, so we may as well just go for it.
Speaker 2:I mean, what's the alternative? Just run off stage and hide? It's like that wasn't really an option. I mean, if it was an option, I would absolutely have done that. But no, I think, because I'd kind of I knew a few people who were in the crowd and I'd kind of asked, you know, if anybody was in sneakers expecting them to be no? And a few people put their hands up and it's like, okay, okay, maybe this could work. And then I was like, are any product photographers expecting it to be? No? Because you know, it's a wedding and portraits. And there were a few people who were product photographers and it's like, okay, right, I can pick on those people, ask them some questions. And it relaxed me a little bit knowing that I wasn't pitching to like a totally cold audience and people appeared to be hanging around and like actually listening to what I have to say, rather than just kind of seeing that I was on stage shooting shoes and then be like, yeah, that's not for me.
Speaker 1:Were you intimidated by the fact there was other photographers? You were saying it was comforting, though I think I'd be intimidated if it was other product stylists.
Speaker 2:Well, luckily for me, I didn't know what level they were at oh, that's, true actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, it's just a show of hands. I mean, I mean, there's a couple of product photographers that I know, who I absolutely sort of worship the images that they make and if I'd seen them in the audience it would have had the absolute opposite effect and I'll be like shit, why are you here? I can't, I can't teach you anything, but no, I didn't, because I didn't know anybody, um, and I didn't really know what level people were at and it was. It was a pretty basic, um kind of setup that I was going through, but it was all about sort of like how, how you can get more creative in product photography rather than just shooting on white background. You know, that's absolutely got its place, but I'm far more like right, how can I take this barely inanimate shoe and make it into something that people will connect with and some people will, you know, understand?
Speaker 1:how did you get into the cgi side as well, because you've mentioned cgi a couple of times. Is that something that you've just kind of explored and kind of developed in your own time?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I love to learn and I love trying new things. And if I've not got something on the go which I'm learning, which is hard and which is like stimulating me in a different way, then I find I get quite bored quite quickly. And I started I know we talk about lockdown quite a lot but I started, uh, playing about with cgi then and there was a, an american company, who were doing a set of tutorials for a set fee. You got access to this like three-week course there's only like 10 people on it and you got access to a piece of software which would normally cost about 800 pounds a year and so you got a license for this for a year. So I was like, oh well, you know I'm not really doing anything else, so I'll have a play with this and see how it goes. And I was.
Speaker 2:It was. It was a really steep learning curve. Even being able to get like my first like shape out was like okay, wow, that was really hard. But then the kind of the more I played with it, the better I understood it. I wouldn't say the better I got, because I'm still absolutely barely scratching the surface of what you can do with 3d. I am by no means a 3d artist at all, but I can make interesting shapes and I can have good effects that I can then overlay my photos onto. So a lot of the sneaky photography that I do will have like a cgi background. And there's a picture I made a couple of months ago that's kind of got a jordan 1 sneaker like, with a load of shattered plexiglass kind of like bursting out of the frame and it looks. It looks 3d and um yeah, and that was all done in cgi and I just find it's such a great outlet for my creativity because if I can imagine it in theory, I can make it, I can do it.
Speaker 2:It often takes me a really circuitous route to actually figure out how to do it, because the only formal training I've had was like five years ago and things yeah, things move on pretty quickly and I'm sort of like I've got this idea. I'll be like right straight onto YouTube how can I do this, find tutorials for this. And then I'll pick up little bits and go, okay, well, I knew how to do that, but I can try and do this, or maybe that would work. Oh, it does work, oh, no, it doesn't work. And then it's like right, how can I sort of muddle through and make something that suits me? You know, a professional 3D artist is probably doing about five minutes, whereas it took me three weeks.
Speaker 2:But I came to it. I came to it my own way and it's like, right, okay, now I know that's repeatable and I could do it again, which I think is important, because I'm starting to get clients now who are like oh, we really like that paint splash pitch that you did. Um, and I did one paint splash pitch where I was literally in my garden throwing paint around in my grass red. My wife was not too happy about that and I've got one which looks very similar, which was created all in 3d, and it's hard. It's hard to tell the difference between them. That's like if I were to go and do it again, if a client would come and say you know, can, can you create a paint splash images with these, with these colors for a shoe? Then I'd be like yes, absolutely I can. I can do it in 3d and it'll take me a fraction of the time and it'll cost you a fraction of my time as well. So I think it's definitely opened up new avenues and new creative outputs for me.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. I think the I was saying this to somebody the other day that a lot of these programs they have a multitude of ways of getting to the same result. It's just finding the way that is comfortable for you, yeah it's exactly the same with photoshop.
Speaker 2:I use photoshop every day for hours at a time. I can go and like do classes on photoshop, and there'll be people in the audience that have used photoshop for longer than me and they'll come up to me then going I've never, I've never realized you could do it that way, I do it this way. I'll be like oh, I didn't know you could do it that way. And, like you say, there's so many ways of doing the same thing and it doesn't matter how long you've been doing something. You can always pick up new, new little tips, new little things that might improve your workflow and things that just make things a bit easier yeah, a hundred percent, I, I think, and again, it's that not gatekeeping, isn't it?
Speaker 1:So you're still learning from other people. Even though you may be teaching a class, you're still learning. We're all teachers and all still students right at the same time.
Speaker 2:So when I was down in London, they do like four or five days of masterclasses, which is like hour and a half classes, and I gave a couple of those and there were people in my class that the next day I was sort of sat next to them on the back row of someone else's class and they're like why are you here? It's like because I want to learn as well, but you, you're like one of the one of the lect, one of the lecturers. It's like so yeah, yeah, there's, I'm there frantically scribbling down like pages of notes in my notebook. It's like it's like so, yeah, yeah, there's, I'm there frantically scribbling down like pages of notes in my notebook.
Speaker 1:It's like it's great, I love it yeah, you've got like I think that's the only way we expand. Right, it's the only way to expand our knowledge is by learning.
Speaker 2:Even if you think you know everything, you really don't and the time that you think you know everything is the time to quit yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So I've got one final question for you, neil. Okay, answer it however you want. I have people answering all different manners, but what inspires you?
Speaker 2:I think this. There's so many different things, but for me it's seeing people's reaction to my work. I don't mean that in a big-headed way, people going, oh my God, I love this picture. It's fantastic. It's when I can show someone a picture of themselves in a way that they don't see themselves, if you kind of see what I mean.
Speaker 2:So I did shoot this Olympic athlete Olympic wheelchair basketball athlete and we sort of styled her up and made her look absolutely fantastic and like really powerful. She was sat in a chair and just holding the ball, looking like a total badass, and I showed her the picture and she was just like oh my God, I've never really seen myself like that before, and it's it's things like that that really kind of motivate me to do better and to keep pushing to help tell people's stories. I think so what inspires me is people, the people that I'm photographing, the people I get to photograph. They're the ones that inspire me to to do better and to be better and to push harder to help like get their stories out. There, I think, would be my short answer.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it and I think you can see your passion for getting people's story across in your images and you can definitely hear it, as you were just telling me then about the basketball player and like just you can feel the passion there and like I can just completely understand how you draw inspiration from seeing people. A different side isn't it?
Speaker 2:And they're just like looking powerful and you know, yeah, what a great thing that you're doing. I mean, I love. I love what I do because I get to meet so many incredible people, whether they're an olympic athlete they've been to the power olympics four or five times or whether it's like a teenage ballet dancer who's really passionate about what they do. I love getting to meet people and hearing their stories and just being able to, like, share a little, a little bit of what they do and why they're passionate about something you know, being able to get that out and share that with the world or anybody who sees my Instagram, which is not the world.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been such a the podcast. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been such a great chat. I've really enjoyed myself.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Thank you so much for having me.
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