I landed in the photographic world at the age of 20 and started my career as an assistant, in time-honoured fashion. Those early years found me making the tea, sweeping the studio and carrying the bags but gave me the opportunity of learning about photography and, more particularly, the business of photography from the ground up. It was what you might call a good, old-fashioned apprenticeship.
Before the age of 21, I had successfully completed several commissioned jobs and, some 3 years later, was able to wave goodbye entirely to the assisting but, to this day, can still make a fabulous cup of tea!
Many of the early years were spent in the Corporate area of life which gave me fantastic experience in how to work quickly, to expect the unexpected, to keep everyone happy and, most importantly, to get a great result. Everyone will forget the fact that the Chairman only had two minutes to spare before heading into the Board meeting and judge the outcome on the final images. And digital cameras had not yet been invented!
My breakthrough came out of the blue one day when I rang a design agency to introduce myself in the hope of arranging a portfolio meeting. Some months later, I finally went to see the creative team and the art buyer who looked at my portfolio said that he had a project in mind for me but could see nothing in my portfolio which suggested I could do it! But, he said, there is something about you that I trust and I am going to give you the opportunity to quote! That job was for Bally and, needless to say, I won the work, made a real success of the job and got to shoot all the imagery for their corporate catalogue - the first time, I was told, that it had ever been photographed outside Switzerland!
And I never looked back.
I love the advertising and design work but it is also nice to be involved still in the corporate side of life - back to my roots you might say. I love the variety of the different areas of photography and can apply skills traditionally associated with advertising photography to the corporate area and vice versa. Best of both worlds I say!
So whether I am on a beach in Europe with a team of models, make-up artists, production crew, art directors, assistants and clients or just me, my assistant and the CEO, I am just as happy and just as determined to get a first class result!
Oh, and did I mention that I do all my own retouching and post-shoot file optimisation? You shouldn't have expected anything else.....!
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| Advertising |
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| Lifestyle |
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| People |
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| Corporate |
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| Architecture / Industrial |
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| Fashion |