Episode 35

So, Steve, so the first thing I saw on your Instagram feed was some pictures of a man called Michael.

And that really sort of drew me in.

And reading about his story on your Instagram site took me to your website.

And there's lots of other stories.

And so you're a documentary photographer.

but you also are, or were, I'm not sure if it's are or were, a director first and then sort of came into photography sort of like in about 2018, according to your website.

Can you tell us a bit more about, you know, how you got started in photography and what drew you to photography from directing films?

Yeah.

Well, I never really sort of I was never much of a fan.

I like photography books and I like looking at photography, but I never really, never really thought much about taking photos myself because I was making moving images and I love telling stories and the moving images are sort of best way to tell the story still to me anyway.

Um, But then my wife bought me a camera and it was a tiny little Fuji X100F.

And because it was such a small camera,

I started to sort of carry it around with me.

And I think that's what got me into it.

It was like the sort of technology had got caught up with what I wanted, which was a camera I could hold in my hand and get good pictures.

And prior to that, sort of digital cameras had to be a lot bigger cameras.

um and i was never really a fan of film photography it just felt way too much effort um for me to sort of get it all developed and and stuff so this camera came along it was just perfect you had a fixed lens and i used to just go out and it made me sort of see the world a bit differently because i kind of kind of took it everywhere walking my dog going to work uh going to shopping and because it was so small, I'd just take the odd candid shot and I got really into it.

I really enjoyed taking sort of candid shots of people out on the street And that's how it kind of started really, just as a sort of, as a hobby really, I suppose.

And as my sort of photography career has sort of taken off a bit, my film career has sort of slowed down a bit because AI, Brexit, lots of things.

And there's a massive amount of competition now.

for um between directors and um so i still work i still do a couple of jobs this year and four or five jobs last year but it's not as time consuming as it was so i've got more time to sort of pursue this photography part of my life really yeah