Q: What first sparked your interest in photography, and how has your background shaped the way you approach your work today?
I guess like so many of us, I first really picked up a camera whilst on my travels in my twenties – and I quickly fell in love with street portraiture whilst riding a motorcycle around India. For years after this, I continued to enjoy photography purely as a hobby before even considering it a profession and was working full-time as an engineer.
I found myself living in Toronto in 2011 and decided that I’d take a break from engineering for a year – and through a little bit of luck and hustle, I found myself assisting a handful of solid advertising & fashion photographers there.
I had no photography formal training, but looking back, I think my engineering background helped me navigate & learn the technical side of advertising photography in a rather unusual way – which then heavily influenced the technical way I shoot to this day.
Q: What motivated you to participate in the IPA competition, and how has winning influenced your growth as an artist and photographer?
The IPA Awards have always appealed to me, as the awards always had some of the biggest names in the ad photography world winning & participating – and of course, who doesn’t want to try to run alongside some of the world’s best photographers?
Winning ‘Advertising Photographer of the Year’ has certainly made me hungry for the next personal project, and made me start to think about how I could better ‘The Second’.
Q: What were some of the most memorable or challenging moments you encountered while working on the image(s) that won?
Oh man, there were a lot of moments that were challenging in this project – taking the photos is the easy bit, it’s finding the subjects and talking your way into their lives that’s the hard bit – especially when you‘re doing it solo with no fixer or people lined up in advance.
I had flown to Arizona with only a few days of planning prior after a conversation with an old schoolmate that sparked my interest in the subject of the normalization of firearms ownership in the US. I had created a route south from Phoenix to the Mexican border that stopped at every gun shop & outdoor shooting range I could find on Google. Of course, like any adventure, I ended up meeting locals, learning about places I had never heard of – and changed plans & ended up going north to Prescott, and never made it close to the Mexican border.
I knew that I needed to find a ‘patient zero’ to help me start getting into people’s homes – a person that I’d won the trust and friendship of—a person who would then put their name to my project and tell their friends and family that they should be a part of the project and that I was to be trusted.
It took almost 5 days to find this person, from that point forward, everyone I met was in some way linked. A chance meeting with gun store owner Garrett led me to Lew Johnson – and as they say, the rest is history.
I’ll be honest, by the start of day 5, I was starting to worry I wouldn’t pull it off – but I’m a pretty stubborn person and was adamant that if I kept talking to people and making friends, it would all work out somehow.
Frankly, I still can’t believe that I pulled it off with no fixer & no local contacts. Just ten days of (probably hundreds) of conversations.
I knew it wasn’t going to be that simple, but before you know it, you’ve befriended a guy in a local bar & are shooting semi-automatic rifles in the desert at 6:30 am.
True story.
I don’t think I’ll ever adequately be able to explain how this all came together, as in all honesty, the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction – and I took a lot of twists & turns along the way.
Q: In your view, what key elements make for a truly impactful photograph, and how do you strive to incorporate those into your work?
I guess this differs a little from personal work to advertising campaign work – the two primary aspects I bring to both personal & campaign are:
- Interesting & authentic narrative-driven performances from the talent
- Beautifully crafted images – from considered compositions to beautiful lighting that creates intrigue and depth to the images.
For my personal work, I always try and show the audience an insight into the lives of others that are different to my own – be that rodeo riders of central Australia or firearms owners of Arizona- but shot in a style that feels cohesive with my commercial work.
Q: What aspects of photography push you the most, either creatively or technically, and how do you overcome those challenges?
I love the technical challenge of advertising campaigns, especially those that require large on location sets with intensive lighting setups to create a particular aesthetic that is crafted using lighting, art dept & talent direction.
I’ll always enter any of these jobs with a highly detailed plan of how we’re going to achieve whats required – from lighting diagrams for the team, so carefully planned recce’s with an understanding of where the sun will be positioned at any point of the day.
I find the more I plan, the easier it is to sidestep on the day when you come across client or physical challenges.
Q: What drives your passion for photography, and where do you draw inspiration from for your projects?
I guess my curiosity of the world influences my personal world the most – often I find myself wanting to know what it would be like to hang out with people whose lives are different to my own, and learn about them. The camera is really just the device I use to tell the story of those I meet on these adventures.
There’s so many other shooters that I can draw inspiration from for my personal work, but to name a few: Todd Anthony, Alex Telfer & Joey L would be up there.
Q: Looking ahead, what goals or projects are you most excited to pursue in the next phase of your photography career?
I’m always most excited by the next project, whatever that may be. I find I look back on whatever my last personal project was and continually think that it wasnt good enough, and then obsess over how I can outshine it in the next project. Outside of personal work, I’d like to direct some more TVC’s to sit alongside my photographic campaign work in the coming year, and try and get some overseas work.