July 15, 2024 • 58 mins
Our guest for episode 20 is Peter Rooney, a renowned creative portrait photographer originally from the UK, currently living in Thailand. He joins us to discuss his creative journey and his varied experiences as a British expat living and working overseas. Peter has won numerous accolades for his work, including a Fellowship with the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) and winning the MPA (Master Photographers Association) International Photographer of the Year in both 2018 and 2019. He has also represented his country on more than one occasion for the World Photographic Cup.
In this episode, Peter takes us through his journey from the UK to Brunei, Malaysia, Bahrain, and finally Thailand. He shares his experiences of living and working in different cultures, highlighting the challenges and unique aspects of each location. From the strict regulations in Brunei to the vibrant and multicultural scene in Malaysia, Peter explains how these environments impacted his photography.
Peter takes us through his creative process, from finding inspiration in unlikely places to his approach to lighting and retouching. He describes how he improvised models and materials to create composites during lockdown and talks us through a unique approach to a family portrait that became a hit among his fellow expats.
Finding clients for his work is quite a different process compared to many UK-based businesses. His frequent change of location has meant rebuilding his client base from scratch several times. Nevertheless, he has found ways of connecting with people through a creative, fun angle on portraiture, helping clients overcome the usual nerves or self-conscious feelings when sitting for a photographer.
Images © Peter Rooney (Used here with permission)
Discover more of Peter's work on his website at peterrooneyphotography.com or follow him on Instagram at peterrooneyart. His impressive portfolio showcases a range of creative images that reflect his unique style and vision.
Sponsored by The Society of Photographers
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Focused Professional Podcast, sponsored by the Society of Photographers.
I'm your host, Joe Lenton, and this is Episode 20.
Music.
(00:33):
Welcome to the focus professional podcast today's special
guest lives in thailand but he's from the uk he
joined me and various others this year for the uk team for the world photographic
cup he is qualified as a fellow with a bipp and in 2018 and 2019 he was the
mpa international photographer of the year and that's just a few of the accolades that he has won,
(00:59):
I'd like to introduce you to Peter Rooney. Hello, Peter.
Hi, Joe. How are you doing? Good. Thank you very much.
It's great to be able to talk to you, and thank you very much for coming on
to the podcast. Thank you for the invite.
So you've moved around a fair bit over the years, and you're now in Thailand.
What has led you to where you are now?
(01:21):
How have you ended up living in Thailand as a British expat?
That i was a qualified scuba diver
back in 93 and i'd always put it as one
of my bucket lists that i was going to go to the maldives so
when my wife and i got married in 2008 i said to her that we were you know i
wanted to take to the maldives and and we could just dive for two weeks straight
(01:47):
and check that list off so anyway we did that and then at the end of the two weeks when we
were coming home again she just said to me that you know I could live that kind
of lifestyle in that kind of climate I'd like to try living under a different
culture in a different country,
so by 2010 we headed off to Brunei and Borneo which was supposed to be for two
(02:11):
years but ended up three and a half and from there we then went to Malaysia
for seven and a half years and then And now we're in Thailand for about the last eight months.
The cultures then that you've experienced must be quite different to the UK,
having been both in the Middle East and in Asia.
(02:33):
Could you give some sort of examples of things that you've had to get used to
that people might be able to relate to?
Well, each one, again, is different.
Brunei, Malaysia and Bahrain are predominantly Muslim countries.
And so Brunei was quite tight.
(02:55):
That was very, as an example there, we would have like a yacht club where expats
would go. I mean, only expats would go there.
You wouldn't really get, the locals wouldn't go there. And it's all walled off
and it's just what it sounds like.
It's like an old British colonial type yacht club with a pool and that.
(03:15):
And everyone would go there, have lunch and have a swim. him so then
they would have ramadan come around and for that month it's
just like everything kind of shuts down
there's there's no right there's no kind of you know well non-muslims can do
this the muslims must do this it's just like you're here you you do how we do
(03:37):
so like for a period where we would normally go and have lunch and that on a
friday which was prayer day they would We'd shut down the pool.
We couldn't have the pool. We couldn't even eat, even though we were outside of other people.
So that, and then, you know, if somebody wore a crucifix, it would have to be
covered. You couldn't have it. So...
(03:58):
And if you had any parcels come in, because obviously when I got into photography
towards the tail end of Brunei, I was getting a lot of stuff off eBay.
You have to go to the post office and you have to open it in front of officials.
And if you get a book, you have to open the book in front of officials.
(04:20):
And just as another example is that I thought I'd do a steampunk shoot.
So i bought i bought off amazon
i bought it was like a model steampunk gun
now imagine something from bugs bunny
so it had like it was all a solid resin
piece there was no moving parts on
(04:41):
it the trigger and everything was all carved out of them a solid
mold but it had like 10 big barrels with bullets pointing out the end and a
pressure gauge on it it's a typical type of thing you'd see in Bugs Bunny and
I got my wife to collect it and when she went down and they opened it and it's
clearly a display piece they said oh it's a gun we have to hold it to the military.
(05:04):
So my wife then went down to the police station we had
to give it to the police sorry so my wife then went down to the police station
they said oh no we've handed it over to the to the navy
or the army or whatever and they need to check it out and
I never did get it back i never got it back so there
was really frustrating things like that then we got into malaysia which is extremely
(05:25):
multicultural i mean they're tolerant of i mean it was a different world i was
parcels turning up my door you know that i didn't have to go and collect every day,
so but yeah i mean that was it yeah i loved i absolutely loved malaysia i mean
it was it was It was just, you know, the people, so many friends,
(05:47):
the photography scene, it was just like,
and then we went, it was because of the pandemic.
And it was very, very tight in Malaysia at that time.
And our girls had gone back to the UK. So we figured if anything happened,
we couldn't fly out and see them.
Or if they came here, they would be caught.
(06:08):
So we had this kind of, and they'd only just gone back. So they were kind of feeling their way.
So we figured if we went to Bahrain, then we'd be not only six hours away from
the UK, but also the girls would be a lot easier to reach them.
They could come in and we could go out, because they didn't have those restrictions in Bahrain.
(06:30):
But I mean, I just remember the day we landed and,
And the trip to our house from the airport, I just wanted to go.
I just thought this is not for me. I mean, it's because my wife and I,
we like waterfalls. We like jungle hiking.
We like all of that outdoor kind of thing.
(06:50):
But in Bahrain, it was everything's internal.
So if you like to go for a drink down, you know, go to a bar or a restaurant
or do something inside, then it's fine.
And it's a tiny island. there was no photographic scene
whatsoever i didn't even find a makeup artist in
the two years i was there really wow and yeah
(07:11):
so we got to the end
of that contract and we thought no it's let's go
back to asia that is very very
very different than yeah it's yeah it's so hard to
it to to imagine because i mean in in the
uk just the photography industry feels quite
saturated and busy and every every young
(07:31):
lady wants to be a model and there's so many makeup artists
or people that you know put themselves out there as makeup artists that
it's actually really difficult to kind of narrow down who
you want to work for it's hard to imagine being in a
situation where there's just nothing yeah i mean malaysia malaysia was brilliant
i mean it's you know the huge photography scene there especially in the wedding
(07:54):
industry and yeah i mean i had i had girls that i I modelled for me and makeup
artists I worked with all the time.
So, yeah, that was a really good time. It was lots going on there.
I haven't quite found my feet here because we've only been here like eight months.
So a lot of settling in and I've been building qualification panels and stuff at the moment.
(08:19):
So I haven't really settled in to find out the scene here.
Yeah, well, that all takes a little bit of time and exploring.
How about then with your style of work that you do, then you will have been
before quite a lot of different audiences, really.
So you've submitted work for assessment in the UK, you will have entered tournaments
(08:41):
all around the world, you'll have had people see your work locally wherever you have lived.
Have you found that people respond differently to it in different places?
Not really i think it's i
think because asia is
is i mean if you if you take for argument's sake the wedding industry in asia
(09:04):
the actual wedding day itself which is a huge concern within the uk that's that's
that's the business day in asia it's not so much it's more a pre-wedding scene,
so they'll they'll go off and they'll have staged images and that's where you'll
see these when you see these images come into competition from asia these amazing beautiful wedding.
(09:28):
Images that is that is their predominant business right because
they it's a much bigger for the pre-wedding than
the actual wedding would just be like people you gather
the pictures that people take but you would hire a photographer so it's very
creative everything is like pushing the boundaries creative so especially in
(09:51):
Asia I found that my work was picked up a lot more than,
say the UK so internationally I did I did a lot better in competition because
I like to do I like to push the boundaries rather than traditional type portraiture,
(10:14):
which isn't really a thing in Malaysia either.
And a lot of these Asian countries, they don't have traditional portraiture.
They might go into a studio where
they've got a seat and they'll all sit around the seat and that's it.
But yeah, I'd probably say Asia.
America is quite... Is quite popular.
(10:40):
Yeah, I'd probably say Asia, the Asian countries, I think.
And that's probably where I got most of my ideas and concepts from,
I think, because that's where I was living when I started to fully go into photography.
Yeah, the wedding thing sounds almost as if it's what would be viewed in the
(11:00):
UK, more like a fashion shoot or something for these.
They're kind of pre-wedding shoots where you have a lovely location and you
take time over just the bride and groom together, but you don't have all the
herding of cats that goes on with the normal wedding day itself,
that would almost be enough to persuade me to consider weddings if that's all I had to do.
(11:24):
I mean, like you said, a lot of them will fly off.
They'll just say, oh, we'll go and do a shoot by a waterfall in Cambodia or
you know we'll fly off to bali and and
and you know the the bride and groom will
kind of pay for the package to go off with this photographer and
do location shoots and the work is
(11:45):
just phenomenal i mean it is just that's what i
mean i didn't i didn't go into that because
i just thought it was the competition there i mean i don't have that level of
experience and skill that these guys do but it never failed to blow my mind
so with your creative studio work how did you approach learning the lighting
because you've refined your lighting over the years to quite a sophisticated,
(12:10):
painterly sort of look to it all is that something that you had personal tuition
in or did you watch tutorials what was your approach to learning your lighting.
So everything I think I've done in life really has been kind of self-taught,
you know, even down to web development.
When I took that up in the mid-90s, there was no courses and no books or anything.
(12:33):
So I thought I want to become a web developer. So I started to look at the source
code in the back of browsers and learn that way because I'm not very good.
I get video, so many videos, but I don't have the patience to watch them.
So I'll sit there, I'll get 10, 15 minutes in and I'm like, I just want to shoot something.
So I don't have that kind of patience.
(12:55):
But yeah, I kind of cherry pick. I've cherry picked and I've seen what works.
It's like I've tried light meters, but I find that I just gauge everything by
eye so much now that if I use a light meter, it's too bright.
And I know what the end result I'm looking for. so
everything i do is kind of by eye and by
(13:18):
trial and error so i've looked at of
you know a cherry picked from the best out there to to
get a basic idea and and how things go and then
and then i just end up kind of playing until i get what it is that i'm looking
for so is it something that you then for each shoot you're then developing a
(13:40):
lighting setup for that or have you got one or two Do you kind of signature
setups now that you just have that ready when someone comes in the studio?
Depending on what I'm doing.
More often than not, like at the moment, I'm building a panel.
So what I'm doing there is I'm kind of using a similar setup because obviously
(14:04):
for the sake of the panel, it has to be cohesive lighting throughout the panel.
But then if I get kind of playtime, like, I mean, I don't use professional models.
I mean, I like to work with either friends or friends' kids.
(14:26):
So I've been touting all our friends here and that for their kids to come along
because I like the challenge of trying to pose and get a natural reaction out,
somebody who isn't predisposed to modeling or that kind of thing.
And I had one, but she didn't want to do the style
(14:47):
that I'm doing in the panel because I've chosen a particular style for my panel
but she didn't want to do that style so then I said oh well let's try something
else and then I thought I'll try a bit of white background with some shadow
and so then I just start to play with lighting there so it really depends on,
whether I'm in what I'm doing at the time as to as to where my lighting will
(15:12):
go but predominantly Commonly, if it's a portrait,
the lighting will be quite a similar setup.
I prefer to use one light, and so that's what I tend to do.
Well, I guess as well with some of your more creative composite images,
you've got to be quite careful with lighting because an image,
(15:34):
it can stand or fall to a certain extent on lighting, but also focal length
being right with the perspective because otherwise it just doesn't look real, does it?
It so you know how difficult is it
trying to get a lighting matched for like one of the
little models that you sometimes buy like your little model
animals or you know creatures that you've used how
(15:54):
difficult is it trying to get the lighting to look right when you put one of
them in with somebody a full-size you know normal human being for example yeah
well what i tend to do in that case is i replicate the lighting with a smaller
modifier so i'll always say okay i've I've got my subject here,
and I will use a large modifier,
(16:14):
slightly in front of the subject.
And then what I would do is I would go to like a mini box, a much smaller,
maybe sometimes even a small flash with a smaller modifier, but I'll put it
in a similar location to what I had. So there's subject blends.
Because it is quite difficult in that, you know, a lot of the stuff I did,
(16:36):
I don't like to use stock.
So if I needed mountains when I was doing the dinosaur stuff,
if I need mountains, what I would do is I'd buy aquarium rocks and then I'd
just shoot the aquarium rocks under the same lighting and then I'd rearrange
them to look like mountains.
So, yeah, I mean, it's like a mini-me. I just have a bigger setup for the subject
(16:59):
and then replicate that on a miniature scale for the model.
It's an interesting one there for the landscape landscape because normally speaking
when you're shooting real landscapes you're shooting much much wider than you
would be for when you're shooting your models and so on so trying to blend stuff
that's been shot with very different focal lengths is well it's more than a headache.
(17:24):
So that's quite an interesting sort of tip then really to yeah get these things
to sort of blend together as finding finding a way of thinking around the problem
and finding a different way
of shooting those images yeah i mean
that's that's really it's that was the best solution
that i found that worked for me yeah no
it's a it's a good idea i like the sound of that yeah so i presume with your
(17:49):
retouching it's it's been a similar sort of eclectic mix of bits and pieces
you've picked up from around the place is it have you been watching sort of
tutorials online to to learn how to do the various sort of retouching techniques?
Yeah, I mean, it's probably YouTube's my friend there.
So what I tend to do is I'll look for something that I'm trying to achieve.
(18:12):
So it might be like, I want to change the color of this top.
So then I'll just find tutorial videos,
quickly go through that find out how to to do that if you know if i needed to
but again it's it's i'll take certain techniques that somebody i might see somebody
use in one video and then i'll add it onto a technique that i see in another
(18:36):
video and then i'll blend the two together,
and i had to do that on on the panel that i'm currently working
on because i was trying to go for a kind of fine
art almost old master style kind
of look and feel so it was
a lot of playing around and color grading and
i try and do an edit the initial
(18:58):
edit within a 20 minute window with portraits
that's pretty quick so i have a
set system that i use and then i
will go back and then i may refine that or change
it but as you know with a panel it's difficult because once you've committed
to that first image everything else i have to have the same treatment so that's
(19:19):
why i try and do it in a fairly quick window in case i have to go back and start
again but yeah these are just techniques and and things that if you get it right
in camera i mean that's for me.
Is that i tether to a 27 inch iMac because
my eyes aren't what they used to be and i
can if the image on the screen looks like
(19:39):
it's been edited if it looks kind
of finished that's what i aim for so that i
know that i've got very little to do when i
actually get into photoshop so i'll spend i'll spend more time setting up the
lighting and what i tend to do is i have like a mannequin head and this kind
of thing so i'll put a mannequin head in a wig on the you know or whatever and
(20:01):
And then I'll set the lighting up with that so that when the subject turns up or the client turns up,
I just stand here and it's ready to go.
But, yeah, I mean, if I get as much done with the lighting as I can and then
I've just got minor tweaks in Photoshop.
Yeah, that makes sense. Rather than a lot of the time people do it the other
(20:22):
way around, they could chuck a light up there and then spend hours and hours
in Photoshop trying to dodge and burn things and trying to bring it all together.
Other and you think well you know you could have could have
done it with the lighting in the first place potentially yeah yeah i
think that was a lesson that i learned early on is that
you know if you get the lighting if you can perfect the lighting then your image
(20:44):
will look almost like it just needs minimal editing and and then you've just
got very little to do and then you don't have to worry about that correcting
yeah yeah good tip i think there yeah so if we think about your your
workflow when you create something like this.
I mean, let's start with what motivates you in the first place.
(21:05):
Why do you want to do that kind of image? What is it that sort of makes you
get out of bed in the morning to do that? Yeah.
Depends on what kind of image I'm doing.
I mean, I love portraiture, so I always try to just be a little bit different.
So, I mean, if it was something that was more creative, like a composite,
(21:31):
then generally that will come from something I've seen or a prop.
I mean, for example, when we lived in Malaysia, I was walking around,
we lived in a compound and I was wandering around one morning and I found like a skip.
And in this skip, somebody had thrown away a family of mannequins, complete mannequins.
(21:56):
It was a mother, a father, there was a son and a daughter.
So I went home, got the car, loaded these things in the back and I put them
in the back of the, under the carport. and they were sat under the carport for a week or so.
And I'd go out for a morning walk every morning and I'd sort of think,
what can I do with the mannequins?
You know, what can I do? There must be a concept or an idea.
(22:20):
And then one day I came back and I noticed that my daughter,
her Facebook profile picture was different.
Her face structure was different and her features were different.
And I said to her, are you using an app to change your features?
(22:40):
And she said, no, no, no, no, it's just makeup. I said, no. I said, you know.
So then that got me curious. So what I did was I just started to look up,
is there an app that can change features?
This was back in about 2018, I think.
And sure enough, there was this huge thing going around where everybody's changing
(23:01):
their faces in using these apps.
So then it hit me for the mannequin so I got one of my daughter's friends and
I came up with this concept that I would have her sat at the table.
Putting a makeup brush and
on the on the sorry let me explain more on the table i had
(23:22):
the top half of the mannequin and in the
mannequin i put a mobile phone and then
i had other applications like an
imac and an ipad laptop and that
kind of thing with facebook open and i put all these little love
hearts flying up all over the screen and what
i did was is i had her sit on the chair leaning towards the mannequin with a
(23:45):
makeup brush what i did was i then swapped the heads so i put the mannequin
head on her body and i put her head on the mannequin's body and the idea was
that for social media she was changing who she really was,
but at the same time she was losing her
own identity and becoming a mannequin
(24:06):
because you know so it that was the
kind of message that i put across in that
image but that's where it would come from so i would i would just see something
and i would just think i can make an image out of that so that's where the the
creativity might come from and portraits are obviously a lot easier what i would
do there is is in this case i wanted to do a range of portraits that would be.
(24:31):
As i said a kind of like an old masters kind of look so that the images would
either be like like Renaissance or Victorians in style,
the posing would be how they would have posed back in the day where they wouldn't
smile and they would have a stern look.
So, and then what I would do is I'd find props and bits and pieces around the
(24:52):
house and I'd build costumes and stuff out of that.
So, and then from that, then I will sort of think of another project.
So sometimes it's creating a narrative and other times it's more sort of creating
a scene that evokes a period or whatever then perhaps.
(25:13):
Yeah, yeah it's just really trying different things, just trying to trying to
come out with different concepts,
different ideas and put them into another scenario I mean like,
you know, the thing that started off all my dinosaur collection,
was I saw a model, like a toy model of a rhino so I wanted to to provoke the
(25:38):
thought of rhinos becoming extinct through human intervention.
And so then I found a shark and then I found an elephant.
And then I used the same little girl in each one. Each one, she's holding a
cuddly toy of that animal.
And you may have seen the images I'm speaking of. So that then became a series.
(26:00):
And then I just thought, well, okay, I could do this because I saw this really cool dinosaur.
And I thought, how can I collect these without my wife knowing I want to collect them?
So I thought, well, what I'll do is I'll come up with an idea where I have to use one of these.
So now I have this massive collection because they're just, they're really, really cool.
(26:21):
And i've just recently taken they just recently come out with a limited edition
king kong which i've got now so that will be a future so yeah i mean on the
dinosaur ones i've still got about 11 or 12 that i never actually i've got all
the poses did all the posing and everything,
so i have all the images i just haven't built them yet but that was brought
(26:42):
on by the pandemic that's that's why i went that route well it's a handy thing
with uh with being a photographer in those sort of times is that you can find
a way of putting some strange things on expenses.
I'm sure there are plenty of food photographers that have tried to get chocolate
bars and cakes and all sorts of things, you know, bottles of wine on expenses.
(27:06):
Yeah, dinosaurs and gorillas, well, give it a go, see what the accountant says. It works for me.
Yeah, and why not? so sometimes then
you've got an idea in in mind already when you do
these and sometimes you're sort of seeing a model that you think actually that
might be useful for something so like with the mannequins you
(27:28):
didn't know exactly what you wanted to do to begin with but you
saw the potential and held on to them for a while until the idea developed yeah
precisely i mean it's exactly that i just see something and i just sort of think
well that would be interesting concept to use in a shoot so you know how do
i how do i incorporate that and i'll just give it some thought,
(27:51):
And usually something will pop in. I mean, I had another, this kind of went a bit mad.
I heard when we were in Malaysia, my wife gave a friend of ours a photo shoot
with me for her birthday.
But she was not into your traditional type.
Not many expats are, but she's not into the traditional type family shoot.
(28:15):
And she said, I don't want to sit there and pose and do all of that.
That so i said we'll leave it i'll get i'll think of some ideas so i said well look can you get
and she said plus her husband sean will never go in to a photograph so i said
okay leave it me and then i went back and i just said look so i've got an idea
i said how about what if we do an image.
(28:37):
Where it's like a day in the life because they were a crazy family it's just
like a hectic family so i said we'd do a day in the life okay what we'll do
if you can get sean to just sit in a chair
and look at his phone and his his son finn to stand behind the chair i'll take
a shot of that you to stand in front of the ironing board and i'll take a shot
(29:02):
of that and then you'd the girls to be in a third shot and then i'll stitch
the whole thing together as one scene,
so what it ended up with was the husband was sat in the chair looking at his
phone in his work clothes like he's just got home and relaxed he's reached out
for a bottle of beer but what's happened is his son has swapped the bottle of beer,
(29:23):
from behind the chair for a bottle of chili sauce so his dad's got a bottle
of chili sauce that he's just about to swig from the son's got the bottle of
colesberg swigging that behind the chair the mum has seen what's going on and
looks scared but she's but the thing is that she's ironing and.
Kim doesn't iron it's one thing that all her friends know before she does not
(29:47):
do his iron so i said well let's stick you behind an ironing board because that
will raise a question of why are you ironing?
And so I had like dirty washing in front of the ironing board.
Then behind the ironing board, I had clean washing on a chair.
The elder daughter had come in holding out her makeup as if to say.
My sister has been in my makeup and she's, you know, wrecked it all.
(30:10):
And the sister is sat on the floor covered in war paint.
So she's done herself up like Indian war paint and she's wiping it off on the mum's clean washing.
So we've got this narrative story and
then she when i when i finished that i mean we
had a big canvas printed and she was just oh my
god this is my family this is my life and then
(30:33):
all of a sudden i had a queue of people out the door i even had a
ceo of a company come up so i want
one of these for my management team so we
got them so it's just like give me a story about
each the character of of each person and then
we'll build up this story and then they had a huge
canvas printed hung in the office and she
had a mini canvas made for each of the the team
(30:56):
members it's so much more interesting
that than the usual let's march everybody in
front of a big white wall and get them to lie down
with their chins on their on their you know on their knuckles or something like
that the usual cheesy family photos it's so much more interesting something
like that and i I should think the families must be so much happier with it
(31:18):
because they can identify with it rather than it just being,
you know, just a cheesy snap.
You know, it's actually really crafting around their story, someone showing a real interest in them.
Well, this is it. I mean, the key thing was to actually get something that was
relevant to each person so that, you know, whatever they were doing in the image,
(31:41):
it relates to them in real life.
And yeah it was it was it was just
that especially with expats they're
a funny breed i think it's because
there is a kind of a nomadic lifestyle so you might have a contract for two
years here and two years there so it's very much like well i don't really want
(32:03):
to ship loads of prints and and stuff around with me and so you don't tend to
get you have to try and find something that's different.
And so as soon as this idea came out and then other people saw it,
as I say, I literally had people queuing out the door wanting to have one of
these done. And of course it's fun.
(32:24):
They love doing it because they don't feel self-conscious. They don't sort of
feel awkward and how do I sit or whatever.
And it's a lot of fun to do and everybody is relaxed.
And then what often happens is you do that and then after that they'll say,
oh, can we just do some family shots while we're here together?
Other and by that time they're in that zone
where they're you know they're all
(32:46):
relaxed and and they know what's going on so you end up getting a family shoot
out of that anyway so yeah and it's always a lot of fun yeah well it sounds
like it's fun for you and for them really and it's a good example of getting
to understand the client and then providing something that really connects with
that client like that i think it's when you
(33:08):
just get all these generic things all the time that's one
of the things that i find disappointing in product photography is that
so often people just want generic shots they don't
necessarily want something creative and you think if you've got something a
little bit different you stand out and it's that bit more fun for the brand
and do you really want to just look like everybody else you know yeah well i
(33:32):
think i think that's That's why it came out in Asia,
I think, because a lot of people think like that in Asia.
It's like what's different, what's creative, what's different.
So, yeah, I think you get that. People will go for that over a traditional style shoot.
(33:53):
Yeah, I think it's become much more of a commodity in British culture in all
aspects, really, for photography.
It's uh it seems whether it's you know
products or weddings or family images and so on
it it's it's so often it's just
well everybody wants wants it but they just want it cheap they don't really
too worried beyond that and the the skill
(34:13):
level that's often required the entry level
for being a professional is quite low in many respects
because they're they're not pushing for that highly
creative unusual sort of thing so it's quite
an interesting difference then between the between the markets
have you have you dipped into the uk
market at all in recent years and felt that difference not
(34:35):
really i mean i i didn't i didn't take up photography until 2000 late 2013 when
i when we moved from brunei i had a go at it in about 1980 but that was a bit of a disaster faster.
So when I decided to go this route, that's when I thought, well,
(34:59):
I need to take this seriously if I'm going to do this.
So what I haven't really been or done any work in the UK.
I've only ever done this since I've been working overseas.
Yeah, I can't really say much about that one because I haven't had that experience.
(35:20):
Well, I suppose the great thing there with some of what you're doing is you
can enter stuff which you've actually been commissioned to do,
whereas all too often you'll find that a lot of photographers,
the more creative stuff, is not what they've been commissioned.
They get commissioned to do the routine, the fairly dull, mundane stuff,
and then they create something else for competitions
(35:41):
because like like for me most of my everyday work
is not exactly competition work it's it's
not the sort of thing anybody would be interested in seeing so you
kind of have to do it separately but the nice thing i suppose with yours
is you're you're bringing the two together a bit more you're perhaps being a
little bit more able to be more consistent as an artist yeah well i mean it
(36:02):
was because you know i i had the idea like as i said i had a whole range with
the dinosaurs source and the mother of the child who was in she just bought
massive canvases of everything.
So those that's where too that i've got work that i can enter into competitions
and at the same time i've got work a client support so yeah i get the best of
(36:24):
of both worlds in in that part,
so how do you then market yourself it's is it something where you go the digital
route is it It's something where you go more of a traditional sort of personal relationship route.
How do you market your work when you're living with an expat community sort
(36:44):
of not too long in one place, you know?
Yeah, I mean, it's basically word of mouth.
Right. I mean, we don't have any way to advertise like you would in the UK.
So you know this is it
is pretty much word of mouth because you've you've got a small
(37:05):
pocket so if you take like malaysia
for example you've you've got the malaysians who have very traditional style
shots as i say they'll go to a little shop on the high street and and they'll
get them done in the back room that kind of thing um there's no there's no no
embellishment there's no there's no
(37:26):
interest in anything creative and then you have the the
predominant chinese market is big chinese market and that's where all the wedding
photography will come in and wedding photography is very big in asia huge but
portraiture isn't but then if with the chinese market a lot of the time because
there's cultural differences they will want a chinese photographer.
(37:50):
To do the wedding or whatever as opposed to a
western photographer so that kind
of just leaves the expat market and what you tend to do is like what i'm doing
here more like doing in malaysia is i do creative shoots with people and and
(38:12):
their teenage kids and this kind of thing
and I do the creative work and then what will happen
is off the back of that they will show that to other people and then other people
will come forth oh you know I could do with a family shop being done or I you
know I'd love my family to do this or that so it's very much a very much a word
of mouth it is difficult especially when you keep moving because I just about.
(38:38):
Got where I wanted to be in Malaysia and then we're off to
Bahrain when nothing happened and now we're back in Thailand so
I'm trying to build again but you know
I'm fortunate in the position that I'm in that my
wife is a sage of principle so we could
survive off of her work and my
stuff comes in as pocket money so I don't have that pressure but
(38:59):
we knew that when we decided to stay in Malaysia when we
decided to move to Malaysia because I would have to give
up the job i was doing at the time so we
knew what was coming and yeah it's so
i'm not under that pressure but it's just
building a community and of expats who
then you know your work gets passed on and on and on and then you build it from
(39:23):
there yeah because establishing a brand establishing a business that people
know you exist and you're the person to go to always takes time so when when
you're moving that regularly,
that that's really against you, isn't it? Very much so.
Yeah, it's not. And as I say, I mean, it's, it's, that's why I focus a lot on
(39:44):
creative work or competition work or something, you know, and then I use that to entice people in.
Yeah, it sounds like that your kind of method is much more about,
okay, you're not necessarily making a loss, but you're just initially just creating
like portfolio work, competition work that shows what you can do and getting
(40:08):
that into the community.
So rather than worrying about building social followings, rather than building
a website with all the funnels to bring people through and everything,
it's much more a case of, look, this is what I can do.
Do you like it and that seems to be working for you yeah yeah just having to start again.
(40:31):
Yeah so would you would you say that you've got a very sort of determined mindset
then because some people might find that that continual having to rebuild the
business just exhausting do you feel you're very competitive or very determined,
i'm only really competitive i would say with myself i'm not i'm not a competitive
(40:52):
person by nature when it comes to competition or anything like that i'm competitive with myself,
so yeah it's i i what i try to do is i just try to create and as as long as i can create,
then I take it in my stride so I don't really get frustrated by it at all this
(41:17):
is just one of those things that you you have to go so yeah I mean I do just
reset almost and say okay time to start again time to rebuild so but I don't
try to let it frustrate me or or affect the work that I do.
And I think I'm quite lucky because I don't have that pressure that a lot of
people would have in that, you know, I need to make an income from this.
(41:41):
So I have that time that I can to build again.
And, you know, in a way, it's quite fun. I quite enjoy it.
It's nice to, you know, meet different people, new people, and,
you know, come out with concepts and ideas and, you know, work with different styles.
Styles yeah and have a new audience appreciating your
(42:03):
work and yeah that's all that's all good i should
think yeah do you feel you've
had to reinvent yourself much throughout your your photography career already
as you as you're moving forward so you're saying you're competitive with yourself
do you have do you do you see some targets for yourself that you want to get
to and then sort of evolve to reach those targets or is it is it more natural a natural process,
(42:28):
process it's it's more of a natural process i don't i don't set myself a goal
i kind of i'll make things up as i go a lot i think well what do i want to do
next what would i like to try next.
I mean when i when we were in malaysia and we had the
pandemic hit you couldn't move you couldn't travel more than 10 kilometers from
(42:50):
your home you could only have one person in the car they had roadblocks everywhere
where you'd have to take your passport so you literally I couldn't get people
to me I couldn't get to people so I thought well how do I how do I continue to do,
to create when I've got no subjects and I've got no makeup artists and that's
when the idea of using the dinosaur range came up and those creative shots I
(43:14):
did then because of my neighbor's daughter so I could get my neighbor's daughter
to come in and then I you know so I took a trip into composites.
Which I think started with the Toymaker. I think that was my first trip into composites.
And then what happened was is I then just followed that through with the whole
(43:37):
range because I couldn't do anything else, but I was desperate to get back to
portraiture because there's less work involved in that.
So, yeah, I mean, I just concentrate on what I'm doing at the moment,
which is coming to the tail end of a panel for several qualifications.
(43:58):
And then after that, I'll probably just sort of say, well, what would I like
to try now? Something, another theme.
I just love to do themes. I love to do storytelling.
So sets of images on a theme. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I went through the creative where I did like insanely different
(44:21):
types of creative process.
And then I went through the composites and now I'm back into more traditional
portraits, but I still want them to kind of tell a story.
So, you know, I don't know where it will go from there. Once I've got this done
and dusted, I'll then just think, OK, well, what's my next project?
And then meantime what happened is i i carry
(44:44):
on using these people and then eventually they'll come back
and say to me okay can we do a family shoot or can we do you
know some client work and then then
it just spreads word of mouth because once it gets back to because predominantly
they're all schools so once it gets into a school you get all the parents school
so it's a good target audience yeah so it's experimenting seeing what's going
(45:06):
to connect with people's imagination
i mean I've seen your recent profile image that you just changed.
That is, you can very much read a story out of that.
You know, the character that you've made yourself in there with the background
behind it. Tell us a little bit about that image.
That was, well, because what I was trying to do is, I have, for me,
(45:30):
creating a panel is the worst, really, really, because I go off my own work very, very quickly.
So I'll shoot image number one and I'm like, okay, yeah, that's what I'm after. I've nailed that.
By the time I get to image number three, I'm like, I don't like image number
one. I've got to change image number one.
(45:52):
So then I do another reshoot. So I just get in this endless circle of trying
to find images to replace images I've already shot. up.
So hence it's taken me a long time. And I got a neighbor of mine to come over
and I did crazy tattoos and blackened his face up with coal and put him in some
(46:14):
armor and set him up as like a medieval warrior.
And then I said to him, I said, actually, what I want to do as well is I want
to do like a Mary Poppins kind of...
A Victorian chimney sweep. So he said, yeah, I'm a bit busy at the moment because
I've got all work and all this sort of thing, but, yeah, we'll do that.
And then I just sort of felt, oh, why can't I just do myself as that?
(46:38):
So then I thought, okay, I'll just do a session with myself as a Victorian chimney sweep.
And why not? Absolutely. So why not? Absolutely.
That's not something everybody's got. No, so that's where that kind of comes
from. But I just love trying to put together different pieces of stuff from
(47:00):
around the house and generate a costume from it.
Or rather than go out and buy, I mean, that jacket that I was wearing there
was initially, I'd got it for a Peaky Blinders kind of shoot,
like an overcoat, but it was kind of too small.
And I never used it. So I took it outside, set fire to a load of paper.
(47:22):
And I just completely doused this thing in soot from the paper. I got a Stanley knife.
As you do. And I ripped him up with a Stanley knife just to give it that really
aged look that it had been up a few chimneys.
And then my wife saw it and she said, have you cut that up?
Because I'm notorious for that. I think the worst one I ever did was I was doing
(47:48):
– I was in Malaysia And I was doing a kind of creative portrait and I needed
a red veil to set off this video.
So I found this piece of material and I thought, oh, that'll do.
So I just cut the section off of this material and I used that.
And when I'd finished an edit, I'll send it to my wife. I said, this is my latest work.
(48:10):
And she said, is that my new curtains?
I'd cut a brand new pair of neck curtains that I did cut in half.
So, yeah, I'm a bit notorious for put everything away because it could end up
getting cut up and used in a shoot.
So, yeah, that took a lot of time to get forgiveness for that one.
(48:32):
Yeah, I had the look on my wife's face when she came home one day and I'd been
photographing splashes.
So throwing red paint around in my
studio there was this sort of inflatable swimming
pool thing and in the middle of the studio floor with red paint like everywhere
and sheets of plastic covering up all the lights to stop it all getting on there
(48:55):
and all that her face oh goodness me oh yeah i think that's the closest i got
to sleeping in the shed doing that that was.
Well i i learned early on that
actually getting my wife to be my assistant
and she's absolutely brilliant as an
assistant now helps because i get away with a lot more now yeah she's involved
(49:20):
then yeah yeah yeah so it's like i then can't make a mistake of doing something
or cutting something up that i shouldn't be and uh yeah yes,
So you say, no, you'll have to stop me if you want to keep it.
You'll have to stop me. It's down to you.
(49:41):
Yeah, it sounds to me really with your creativity, there's kind of two sides
to it. On the one hand, the sort of problem solving.
So you come across an obstacle and think, how can I get round this? So I can't shoot people.
Well, let's shoot dinosaurs and that kind of side.
And then the other side of it, which just seems to me, play and having fun, really.
(50:02):
I think that's the key thing to it. I mean, especially from a client's perspective,
because if you get somebody that comes in who's self-conscious,
a lot of people are self-conscious.
They kind of, how am I going to look? I feel awkward or whatever.
And my wife's a lot of fun she's a
great people person and she'll just dance around do crazy things and and you
(50:26):
know say oh try this and try that and that puts people at rest because she's
being silly so they kind of they don't feel so self-conscious and then when
you do something creative,
As I say, they're just more switched on to that.
So it's all about having fun at the end of the day.
(50:47):
You know, you want somebody to go away and just say, you know,
that was great. If you ever need me to come back and do another one,
you know, give me a shout.
And that's kind of what I look for at the end of it.
And, you know, I mean, especially with, I mean, I had when I was in,
when we were in Malaysia, I had, I wanted to do like, I'd seen American horror
(51:09):
episode, you know, the freak show, American horror.
And there was like a two headed woman as one of the characters.
And I thought I really wanted to do something like that.
But what I wanted to do was like a Jekyll and Hyde.
So I use, I use one of my friend's daughters for it.
She was about, I don't know, 11, 12, something like that, I suppose.
(51:32):
Very shy quite reserved
and so i got my
makeup artist in who's brilliant and she she painted
like stitches on the neck on one
half of the neck and then blackened the eye and
all this and then we did the other makeup which where she was very pretty so
we had this kind of jekyll and hyde thing going on with this double head but
(51:57):
what happened was is that the i did a couple of shoots on that and then the
mum come back and said she's changed so much when she goes back to school,
she's so much more confident so you know you have elements of things like that
that you can bring out and i've got another mother here with and her daughters
and it's just like they didn't want to do it the first time they're really apprehensive
(52:19):
and then she'll message me so the girls are asking when they can come back and
they've been back like four times.
Towards the panel but i like to do that as well
because i like to especially on the
kids side of things to to get them to feel confident and
and photography is a great way of doing that if
it makes them feel good about themselves so yeah
(52:41):
i've had some positive outcomes on things like that as well
well that's really great to be
able to have that sort of income on a young life you know to help
them to gain confidence and you know to feel
that you can make a contribution like that as well as creating
art together yeah that must be really encouraging for
you yeah this is it but it's the creative element of it it's it's the creative
(53:03):
element of i mean i combine the two when i when i first started in to look into
photography and we got to malaysia and i was like well i need to join an organization
and i need to get a qualification i you know i didn't know what to do.
So it was very much i've
viewed i was trying to view how would i do competition to client work so the
(53:28):
way that i actually view is i think of competitions as if people ask me i'll
say that i've seen competitions as a fashion show imagine that is a fashion
show so what you would have
is that the designer would have a range of clothes that they sell in H&M or
(53:48):
Topshop or whatever, which are just your normal, average, everyday style of clothing.
And then you'll have.
The fashion show where the same designer will create
something that only lady gaga would wear
in public you know yeah you
(54:09):
might have bin bags hanging off the back or bats stuck on the head or you know
people hanging off of each other complete things that you just wouldn't not
wear but the way that it is is that it gives that designer the opportunity to
push the boundaries boundaries of their creativity.
So that what they would do is they would use that to just say,
(54:32):
okay, this isn't something I'm going to sell.
So that would be, that's just to show the judges, et cetera, my out of the box.
You're thinking out of the box, whereas this is my high street.
So I see fashion shows as competition work, and I see the high street stores as your client work.
But where I'm quite lucky is that my designer on my fashion show has my client
(55:01):
work because they're more interested in that than they are the traditional.
So I'm kind of lucky that I get a lot of this playtime.
And, you know, I just think people, especially in this part of the world,
are just more open to that than a traditional family shoot.
So i've i've had it uh yeah i'm
(55:24):
quite lucky in that respect lots of play time
so there could soon be a
huge influx of british photographers in your area
or all coming over to explore their creativity after
having listened to this yeah it's
it's really great to get a little bit of a glimpse behind some of the images
i've seen some of your images over the years but it's really really interesting
(55:47):
to to hear a little bit of what's behind them now for those who aren't familiar
with your work where's the best place if they want to get a taste of what you
do where's the best place for them to go to see some of your work,
Well, I have a website which has some of my work on there, which is peterrooneyphotography.com,
and also on Instagram, which is peterrooneyart.
(56:11):
Find me on there. There's some of the newest stuff I haven't put up there yet
because it's obviously panel work and stuff like that.
But, yeah, between those two is where I tend to put most of my work.
Great. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how the panel work all turns
out. It's nerve-wracking stuff, having been through that kind of thing myself. It's challenging.
(56:35):
It's an opportunity to develop, do something different. Well,
this is it. I mean, it's exactly that.
It's not about winning. It's not about first place. It's not about goals.
It's about whatever it takes for you to create and to put your work out there.
And yeah because i've got the feb coming
(56:57):
up in next month and
then hopefully the swpp after that and
then a few more further down later in
the year so yes a nerve-wracking few months ahead of you then by the absolutely
yeah yeah it's the odds are if i throw it in the pot a lot of times hopefully
one of them will come out yeah i like that play play the odds absolutely.
(57:25):
It's been really good um being able to talk to you peter thank you so much for
coming on the podcast really appreciate you sparing the time for it that's great
joe i'm just so much for inviting me on it's been an absolute pleasure thank you,
no worries and thank you everybody for listening to the focus professional podcast
Get connected, trained, supported and qualified with the Society of Photographers.
(57:50):
Sponsors of the Focus Professional Podcast.
Music.
Welcome to the Focused Professional Podcast, sponsored by the Society of Photographers.
I'm your host, Joe Lenton, and this is Episode 20.
Music.
(00:33):
Welcome to the focus professional podcast today's special
guest lives in thailand but he's from the uk he
joined me and various others this year for the uk team for the world photographic
cup he is qualified as a fellow with a bipp and in 2018 and 2019 he was the
mpa international photographer of the year and that's just a few of the accolades that he has won,
(00:59):
I'd like to introduce you to Peter Rooney. Hello, Peter.
Hi, Joe. How are you doing? Good. Thank you very much.
It's great to be able to talk to you, and thank you very much for coming on
to the podcast. Thank you for the invite.
So you've moved around a fair bit over the years, and you're now in Thailand.
What has led you to where you are now?
(01:21):
How have you ended up living in Thailand as a British expat?
That i was a qualified scuba diver
back in 93 and i'd always put it as one
of my bucket lists that i was going to go to the maldives so
when my wife and i got married in 2008 i said to her that we were you know i
wanted to take to the maldives and and we could just dive for two weeks straight
(01:47):
and check that list off so anyway we did that and then at the end of the two weeks when we
were coming home again she just said to me that you know I could live that kind
of lifestyle in that kind of climate I'd like to try living under a different
culture in a different country,
so by 2010 we headed off to Brunei and Borneo which was supposed to be for two
(02:11):
years but ended up three and a half and from there we then went to Malaysia
for seven and a half years and then And now we're in Thailand for about the last eight months.
The cultures then that you've experienced must be quite different to the UK,
having been both in the Middle East and in Asia.
(02:33):
Could you give some sort of examples of things that you've had to get used to
that people might be able to relate to?
Well, each one, again, is different.
Brunei, Malaysia and Bahrain are predominantly Muslim countries.
And so Brunei was quite tight.
(02:55):
That was very, as an example there, we would have like a yacht club where expats
would go. I mean, only expats would go there.
You wouldn't really get, the locals wouldn't go there. And it's all walled off
and it's just what it sounds like.
It's like an old British colonial type yacht club with a pool and that.
(03:15):
And everyone would go there, have lunch and have a swim. him so then
they would have ramadan come around and for that month it's
just like everything kind of shuts down
there's there's no right there's no kind of you know well non-muslims can do
this the muslims must do this it's just like you're here you you do how we do
(03:37):
so like for a period where we would normally go and have lunch and that on a
friday which was prayer day they would We'd shut down the pool.
We couldn't have the pool. We couldn't even eat, even though we were outside of other people.
So that, and then, you know, if somebody wore a crucifix, it would have to be
covered. You couldn't have it. So...
(03:58):
And if you had any parcels come in, because obviously when I got into photography
towards the tail end of Brunei, I was getting a lot of stuff off eBay.
You have to go to the post office and you have to open it in front of officials.
And if you get a book, you have to open the book in front of officials.
(04:20):
And just as another example is that I thought I'd do a steampunk shoot.
So i bought i bought off amazon
i bought it was like a model steampunk gun
now imagine something from bugs bunny
so it had like it was all a solid resin
piece there was no moving parts on
(04:41):
it the trigger and everything was all carved out of them a solid
mold but it had like 10 big barrels with bullets pointing out the end and a
pressure gauge on it it's a typical type of thing you'd see in Bugs Bunny and
I got my wife to collect it and when she went down and they opened it and it's
clearly a display piece they said oh it's a gun we have to hold it to the military.
(05:04):
So my wife then went down to the police station we had
to give it to the police sorry so my wife then went down to the police station
they said oh no we've handed it over to the to the navy
or the army or whatever and they need to check it out and
I never did get it back i never got it back so there
was really frustrating things like that then we got into malaysia which is extremely
(05:25):
multicultural i mean they're tolerant of i mean it was a different world i was
parcels turning up my door you know that i didn't have to go and collect every day,
so but yeah i mean that was it yeah i loved i absolutely loved malaysia i mean
it was it was It was just, you know, the people, so many friends,
(05:47):
the photography scene, it was just like,
and then we went, it was because of the pandemic.
And it was very, very tight in Malaysia at that time.
And our girls had gone back to the UK. So we figured if anything happened,
we couldn't fly out and see them.
Or if they came here, they would be caught.
(06:08):
So we had this kind of, and they'd only just gone back. So they were kind of feeling their way.
So we figured if we went to Bahrain, then we'd be not only six hours away from
the UK, but also the girls would be a lot easier to reach them.
They could come in and we could go out, because they didn't have those restrictions in Bahrain.
(06:30):
But I mean, I just remember the day we landed and,
And the trip to our house from the airport, I just wanted to go.
I just thought this is not for me. I mean, it's because my wife and I,
we like waterfalls. We like jungle hiking.
We like all of that outdoor kind of thing.
(06:50):
But in Bahrain, it was everything's internal.
So if you like to go for a drink down, you know, go to a bar or a restaurant
or do something inside, then it's fine.
And it's a tiny island. there was no photographic scene
whatsoever i didn't even find a makeup artist in
the two years i was there really wow and yeah
(07:11):
so we got to the end
of that contract and we thought no it's let's go
back to asia that is very very
very different than yeah it's yeah it's so hard to
it to to imagine because i mean in in the
uk just the photography industry feels quite
saturated and busy and every every young
(07:31):
lady wants to be a model and there's so many makeup artists
or people that you know put themselves out there as makeup artists that
it's actually really difficult to kind of narrow down who
you want to work for it's hard to imagine being in a
situation where there's just nothing yeah i mean malaysia malaysia was brilliant
i mean it's you know the huge photography scene there especially in the wedding
(07:54):
industry and yeah i mean i had i had girls that i I modelled for me and makeup
artists I worked with all the time.
So, yeah, that was a really good time. It was lots going on there.
I haven't quite found my feet here because we've only been here like eight months.
So a lot of settling in and I've been building qualification panels and stuff at the moment.
(08:19):
So I haven't really settled in to find out the scene here.
Yeah, well, that all takes a little bit of time and exploring.
How about then with your style of work that you do, then you will have been
before quite a lot of different audiences, really.
So you've submitted work for assessment in the UK, you will have entered tournaments
(08:41):
all around the world, you'll have had people see your work locally wherever you have lived.
Have you found that people respond differently to it in different places?
Not really i think it's i
think because asia is
is i mean if you if you take for argument's sake the wedding industry in asia
(09:04):
the actual wedding day itself which is a huge concern within the uk that's that's
that's the business day in asia it's not so much it's more a pre-wedding scene,
so they'll they'll go off and they'll have staged images and that's where you'll
see these when you see these images come into competition from asia these amazing beautiful wedding.
(09:28):
Images that is that is their predominant business right because
they it's a much bigger for the pre-wedding than
the actual wedding would just be like people you gather
the pictures that people take but you would hire a photographer so it's very
creative everything is like pushing the boundaries creative so especially in
(09:51):
Asia I found that my work was picked up a lot more than,
say the UK so internationally I did I did a lot better in competition because
I like to do I like to push the boundaries rather than traditional type portraiture,
(10:14):
which isn't really a thing in Malaysia either.
And a lot of these Asian countries, they don't have traditional portraiture.
They might go into a studio where
they've got a seat and they'll all sit around the seat and that's it.
But yeah, I'd probably say Asia.
America is quite... Is quite popular.
(10:40):
Yeah, I'd probably say Asia, the Asian countries, I think.
And that's probably where I got most of my ideas and concepts from,
I think, because that's where I was living when I started to fully go into photography.
Yeah, the wedding thing sounds almost as if it's what would be viewed in the
(11:00):
UK, more like a fashion shoot or something for these.
They're kind of pre-wedding shoots where you have a lovely location and you
take time over just the bride and groom together, but you don't have all the
herding of cats that goes on with the normal wedding day itself,
that would almost be enough to persuade me to consider weddings if that's all I had to do.
(11:24):
I mean, like you said, a lot of them will fly off.
They'll just say, oh, we'll go and do a shoot by a waterfall in Cambodia or
you know we'll fly off to bali and and
and you know the the bride and groom will
kind of pay for the package to go off with this photographer and
do location shoots and the work is
(11:45):
just phenomenal i mean it is just that's what i
mean i didn't i didn't go into that because
i just thought it was the competition there i mean i don't have that level of
experience and skill that these guys do but it never failed to blow my mind
so with your creative studio work how did you approach learning the lighting
because you've refined your lighting over the years to quite a sophisticated,
(12:10):
painterly sort of look to it all is that something that you had personal tuition
in or did you watch tutorials what was your approach to learning your lighting.
So everything I think I've done in life really has been kind of self-taught,
you know, even down to web development.
When I took that up in the mid-90s, there was no courses and no books or anything.
(12:33):
So I thought I want to become a web developer. So I started to look at the source
code in the back of browsers and learn that way because I'm not very good.
I get video, so many videos, but I don't have the patience to watch them.
So I'll sit there, I'll get 10, 15 minutes in and I'm like, I just want to shoot something.
So I don't have that kind of patience.
(12:55):
But yeah, I kind of cherry pick. I've cherry picked and I've seen what works.
It's like I've tried light meters, but I find that I just gauge everything by
eye so much now that if I use a light meter, it's too bright.
And I know what the end result I'm looking for. so
everything i do is kind of by eye and by
(13:18):
trial and error so i've looked at of
you know a cherry picked from the best out there to to
get a basic idea and and how things go and then
and then i just end up kind of playing until i get what it is that i'm looking
for so is it something that you then for each shoot you're then developing a
(13:40):
lighting setup for that or have you got one or two Do you kind of signature
setups now that you just have that ready when someone comes in the studio?
Depending on what I'm doing.
More often than not, like at the moment, I'm building a panel.
So what I'm doing there is I'm kind of using a similar setup because obviously
(14:04):
for the sake of the panel, it has to be cohesive lighting throughout the panel.
But then if I get kind of playtime, like, I mean, I don't use professional models.
I mean, I like to work with either friends or friends' kids.
(14:26):
So I've been touting all our friends here and that for their kids to come along
because I like the challenge of trying to pose and get a natural reaction out,
somebody who isn't predisposed to modeling or that kind of thing.
And I had one, but she didn't want to do the style
(14:47):
that I'm doing in the panel because I've chosen a particular style for my panel
but she didn't want to do that style so then I said oh well let's try something
else and then I thought I'll try a bit of white background with some shadow
and so then I just start to play with lighting there so it really depends on,
whether I'm in what I'm doing at the time as to as to where my lighting will
(15:12):
go but predominantly Commonly, if it's a portrait,
the lighting will be quite a similar setup.
I prefer to use one light, and so that's what I tend to do.
Well, I guess as well with some of your more creative composite images,
you've got to be quite careful with lighting because an image,
(15:34):
it can stand or fall to a certain extent on lighting, but also focal length
being right with the perspective because otherwise it just doesn't look real, does it?
It so you know how difficult is it
trying to get a lighting matched for like one of the
little models that you sometimes buy like your little model
animals or you know creatures that you've used how
(15:54):
difficult is it trying to get the lighting to look right when you put one of
them in with somebody a full-size you know normal human being for example yeah
well what i tend to do in that case is i replicate the lighting with a smaller
modifier so i'll always say okay i've I've got my subject here,
and I will use a large modifier,
(16:14):
slightly in front of the subject.
And then what I would do is I would go to like a mini box, a much smaller,
maybe sometimes even a small flash with a smaller modifier, but I'll put it
in a similar location to what I had. So there's subject blends.
Because it is quite difficult in that, you know, a lot of the stuff I did,
(16:36):
I don't like to use stock.
So if I needed mountains when I was doing the dinosaur stuff,
if I need mountains, what I would do is I'd buy aquarium rocks and then I'd
just shoot the aquarium rocks under the same lighting and then I'd rearrange
them to look like mountains.
So, yeah, I mean, it's like a mini-me. I just have a bigger setup for the subject
(16:59):
and then replicate that on a miniature scale for the model.
It's an interesting one there for the landscape landscape because normally speaking
when you're shooting real landscapes you're shooting much much wider than you
would be for when you're shooting your models and so on so trying to blend stuff
that's been shot with very different focal lengths is well it's more than a headache.
(17:24):
So that's quite an interesting sort of tip then really to yeah get these things
to sort of blend together as finding finding a way of thinking around the problem
and finding a different way
of shooting those images yeah i mean
that's that's really it's that was the best solution
that i found that worked for me yeah no
it's a it's a good idea i like the sound of that yeah so i presume with your
(17:49):
retouching it's it's been a similar sort of eclectic mix of bits and pieces
you've picked up from around the place is it have you been watching sort of
tutorials online to to learn how to do the various sort of retouching techniques?
Yeah, I mean, it's probably YouTube's my friend there.
So what I tend to do is I'll look for something that I'm trying to achieve.
(18:12):
So it might be like, I want to change the color of this top.
So then I'll just find tutorial videos,
quickly go through that find out how to to do that if you know if i needed to
but again it's it's i'll take certain techniques that somebody i might see somebody
use in one video and then i'll add it onto a technique that i see in another
(18:36):
video and then i'll blend the two together,
and i had to do that on on the panel that i'm currently working
on because i was trying to go for a kind of fine
art almost old master style kind
of look and feel so it was
a lot of playing around and color grading and
i try and do an edit the initial
(18:58):
edit within a 20 minute window with portraits
that's pretty quick so i have a
set system that i use and then i
will go back and then i may refine that or change
it but as you know with a panel it's difficult because once you've committed
to that first image everything else i have to have the same treatment so that's
(19:19):
why i try and do it in a fairly quick window in case i have to go back and start
again but yeah these are just techniques and and things that if you get it right
in camera i mean that's for me.
Is that i tether to a 27 inch iMac because
my eyes aren't what they used to be and i
can if the image on the screen looks like
(19:39):
it's been edited if it looks kind
of finished that's what i aim for so that i
know that i've got very little to do when i
actually get into photoshop so i'll spend i'll spend more time setting up the
lighting and what i tend to do is i have like a mannequin head and this kind
of thing so i'll put a mannequin head in a wig on the you know or whatever and
(20:01):
And then I'll set the lighting up with that so that when the subject turns up or the client turns up,
I just stand here and it's ready to go.
But, yeah, I mean, if I get as much done with the lighting as I can and then
I've just got minor tweaks in Photoshop.
Yeah, that makes sense. Rather than a lot of the time people do it the other
(20:22):
way around, they could chuck a light up there and then spend hours and hours
in Photoshop trying to dodge and burn things and trying to bring it all together.
Other and you think well you know you could have could have
done it with the lighting in the first place potentially yeah yeah i
think that was a lesson that i learned early on is that
you know if you get the lighting if you can perfect the lighting then your image
(20:44):
will look almost like it just needs minimal editing and and then you've just
got very little to do and then you don't have to worry about that correcting
yeah yeah good tip i think there yeah so if we think about your your
workflow when you create something like this.
I mean, let's start with what motivates you in the first place.
(21:05):
Why do you want to do that kind of image? What is it that sort of makes you
get out of bed in the morning to do that? Yeah.
Depends on what kind of image I'm doing.
I mean, I love portraiture, so I always try to just be a little bit different.
So, I mean, if it was something that was more creative, like a composite,
(21:31):
then generally that will come from something I've seen or a prop.
I mean, for example, when we lived in Malaysia, I was walking around,
we lived in a compound and I was wandering around one morning and I found like a skip.
And in this skip, somebody had thrown away a family of mannequins, complete mannequins.
(21:56):
It was a mother, a father, there was a son and a daughter.
So I went home, got the car, loaded these things in the back and I put them
in the back of the, under the carport. and they were sat under the carport for a week or so.
And I'd go out for a morning walk every morning and I'd sort of think,
what can I do with the mannequins?
You know, what can I do? There must be a concept or an idea.
(22:20):
And then one day I came back and I noticed that my daughter,
her Facebook profile picture was different.
Her face structure was different and her features were different.
And I said to her, are you using an app to change your features?
(22:40):
And she said, no, no, no, no, it's just makeup. I said, no. I said, you know.
So then that got me curious. So what I did was I just started to look up,
is there an app that can change features?
This was back in about 2018, I think.
And sure enough, there was this huge thing going around where everybody's changing
(23:01):
their faces in using these apps.
So then it hit me for the mannequin so I got one of my daughter's friends and
I came up with this concept that I would have her sat at the table.
Putting a makeup brush and
on the on the sorry let me explain more on the table i had
(23:22):
the top half of the mannequin and in the
mannequin i put a mobile phone and then
i had other applications like an
imac and an ipad laptop and that
kind of thing with facebook open and i put all these little love
hearts flying up all over the screen and what
i did was is i had her sit on the chair leaning towards the mannequin with a
(23:45):
makeup brush what i did was i then swapped the heads so i put the mannequin
head on her body and i put her head on the mannequin's body and the idea was
that for social media she was changing who she really was,
but at the same time she was losing her
own identity and becoming a mannequin
(24:06):
because you know so it that was the
kind of message that i put across in that
image but that's where it would come from so i would i would just see something
and i would just think i can make an image out of that so that's where the the
creativity might come from and portraits are obviously a lot easier what i would
do there is is in this case i wanted to do a range of portraits that would be.
(24:31):
As i said a kind of like an old masters kind of look so that the images would
either be like like Renaissance or Victorians in style,
the posing would be how they would have posed back in the day where they wouldn't
smile and they would have a stern look.
So, and then what I would do is I'd find props and bits and pieces around the
(24:52):
house and I'd build costumes and stuff out of that.
So, and then from that, then I will sort of think of another project.
So sometimes it's creating a narrative and other times it's more sort of creating
a scene that evokes a period or whatever then perhaps.
(25:13):
Yeah, yeah it's just really trying different things, just trying to trying to
come out with different concepts,
different ideas and put them into another scenario I mean like,
you know, the thing that started off all my dinosaur collection,
was I saw a model, like a toy model of a rhino so I wanted to to provoke the
(25:38):
thought of rhinos becoming extinct through human intervention.
And so then I found a shark and then I found an elephant.
And then I used the same little girl in each one. Each one, she's holding a
cuddly toy of that animal.
And you may have seen the images I'm speaking of. So that then became a series.
(26:00):
And then I just thought, well, okay, I could do this because I saw this really cool dinosaur.
And I thought, how can I collect these without my wife knowing I want to collect them?
So I thought, well, what I'll do is I'll come up with an idea where I have to use one of these.
So now I have this massive collection because they're just, they're really, really cool.
(26:21):
And i've just recently taken they just recently come out with a limited edition
king kong which i've got now so that will be a future so yeah i mean on the
dinosaur ones i've still got about 11 or 12 that i never actually i've got all
the poses did all the posing and everything,
so i have all the images i just haven't built them yet but that was brought
(26:42):
on by the pandemic that's that's why i went that route well it's a handy thing
with uh with being a photographer in those sort of times is that you can find
a way of putting some strange things on expenses.
I'm sure there are plenty of food photographers that have tried to get chocolate
bars and cakes and all sorts of things, you know, bottles of wine on expenses.
(27:06):
Yeah, dinosaurs and gorillas, well, give it a go, see what the accountant says. It works for me.
Yeah, and why not? so sometimes then
you've got an idea in in mind already when you do
these and sometimes you're sort of seeing a model that you think actually that
might be useful for something so like with the mannequins you
(27:28):
didn't know exactly what you wanted to do to begin with but you
saw the potential and held on to them for a while until the idea developed yeah
precisely i mean it's exactly that i just see something and i just sort of think
well that would be interesting concept to use in a shoot so you know how do
i how do i incorporate that and i'll just give it some thought,
(27:51):
And usually something will pop in. I mean, I had another, this kind of went a bit mad.
I heard when we were in Malaysia, my wife gave a friend of ours a photo shoot
with me for her birthday.
But she was not into your traditional type.
Not many expats are, but she's not into the traditional type family shoot.
(28:15):
And she said, I don't want to sit there and pose and do all of that.
That so i said we'll leave it i'll get i'll think of some ideas so i said well look can you get
and she said plus her husband sean will never go in to a photograph so i said
okay leave it me and then i went back and i just said look so i've got an idea
i said how about what if we do an image.
(28:37):
Where it's like a day in the life because they were a crazy family it's just
like a hectic family so i said we'd do a day in the life okay what we'll do
if you can get sean to just sit in a chair
and look at his phone and his his son finn to stand behind the chair i'll take
a shot of that you to stand in front of the ironing board and i'll take a shot
(29:02):
of that and then you'd the girls to be in a third shot and then i'll stitch
the whole thing together as one scene,
so what it ended up with was the husband was sat in the chair looking at his
phone in his work clothes like he's just got home and relaxed he's reached out
for a bottle of beer but what's happened is his son has swapped the bottle of beer,
(29:23):
from behind the chair for a bottle of chili sauce so his dad's got a bottle
of chili sauce that he's just about to swig from the son's got the bottle of
colesberg swigging that behind the chair the mum has seen what's going on and
looks scared but she's but the thing is that she's ironing and.
Kim doesn't iron it's one thing that all her friends know before she does not
(29:47):
do his iron so i said well let's stick you behind an ironing board because that
will raise a question of why are you ironing?
And so I had like dirty washing in front of the ironing board.
Then behind the ironing board, I had clean washing on a chair.
The elder daughter had come in holding out her makeup as if to say.
My sister has been in my makeup and she's, you know, wrecked it all.
(30:10):
And the sister is sat on the floor covered in war paint.
So she's done herself up like Indian war paint and she's wiping it off on the mum's clean washing.
So we've got this narrative story and
then she when i when i finished that i mean we
had a big canvas printed and she was just oh my
god this is my family this is my life and then
(30:33):
all of a sudden i had a queue of people out the door i even had a
ceo of a company come up so i want
one of these for my management team so we
got them so it's just like give me a story about
each the character of of each person and then
we'll build up this story and then they had a huge
canvas printed hung in the office and she
had a mini canvas made for each of the the team
(30:56):
members it's so much more interesting
that than the usual let's march everybody in
front of a big white wall and get them to lie down
with their chins on their on their you know on their knuckles or something like
that the usual cheesy family photos it's so much more interesting something
like that and i I should think the families must be so much happier with it
(31:18):
because they can identify with it rather than it just being,
you know, just a cheesy snap.
You know, it's actually really crafting around their story, someone showing a real interest in them.
Well, this is it. I mean, the key thing was to actually get something that was
relevant to each person so that, you know, whatever they were doing in the image,
(31:41):
it relates to them in real life.
And yeah it was it was it was just
that especially with expats they're
a funny breed i think it's because
there is a kind of a nomadic lifestyle so you might have a contract for two
years here and two years there so it's very much like well i don't really want
(32:03):
to ship loads of prints and and stuff around with me and so you don't tend to
get you have to try and find something that's different.
And so as soon as this idea came out and then other people saw it,
as I say, I literally had people queuing out the door wanting to have one of
these done. And of course it's fun.
(32:24):
They love doing it because they don't feel self-conscious. They don't sort of
feel awkward and how do I sit or whatever.
And it's a lot of fun to do and everybody is relaxed.
And then what often happens is you do that and then after that they'll say,
oh, can we just do some family shots while we're here together?
Other and by that time they're in that zone
where they're you know they're all
(32:46):
relaxed and and they know what's going on so you end up getting a family shoot
out of that anyway so yeah and it's always a lot of fun yeah well it sounds
like it's fun for you and for them really and it's a good example of getting
to understand the client and then providing something that really connects with
that client like that i think it's when you
(33:08):
just get all these generic things all the time that's one
of the things that i find disappointing in product photography is that
so often people just want generic shots they don't
necessarily want something creative and you think if you've got something a
little bit different you stand out and it's that bit more fun for the brand
and do you really want to just look like everybody else you know yeah well i
(33:32):
think i think that's That's why it came out in Asia,
I think, because a lot of people think like that in Asia.
It's like what's different, what's creative, what's different.
So, yeah, I think you get that. People will go for that over a traditional style shoot.
(33:53):
Yeah, I think it's become much more of a commodity in British culture in all
aspects, really, for photography.
It's uh it seems whether it's you know
products or weddings or family images and so on
it it's it's so often it's just
well everybody wants wants it but they just want it cheap they don't really
too worried beyond that and the the skill
(34:13):
level that's often required the entry level
for being a professional is quite low in many respects
because they're they're not pushing for that highly
creative unusual sort of thing so it's quite
an interesting difference then between the between the markets
have you have you dipped into the uk
market at all in recent years and felt that difference not
(34:35):
really i mean i i didn't i didn't take up photography until 2000 late 2013 when
i when we moved from brunei i had a go at it in about 1980 but that was a bit of a disaster faster.
So when I decided to go this route, that's when I thought, well,
(34:59):
I need to take this seriously if I'm going to do this.
So what I haven't really been or done any work in the UK.
I've only ever done this since I've been working overseas.
Yeah, I can't really say much about that one because I haven't had that experience.
(35:20):
Well, I suppose the great thing there with some of what you're doing is you
can enter stuff which you've actually been commissioned to do,
whereas all too often you'll find that a lot of photographers,
the more creative stuff, is not what they've been commissioned.
They get commissioned to do the routine, the fairly dull, mundane stuff,
and then they create something else for competitions
(35:41):
because like like for me most of my everyday work
is not exactly competition work it's it's
not the sort of thing anybody would be interested in seeing so you
kind of have to do it separately but the nice thing i suppose with yours
is you're you're bringing the two together a bit more you're perhaps being a
little bit more able to be more consistent as an artist yeah well i mean it
(36:02):
was because you know i i had the idea like as i said i had a whole range with
the dinosaurs source and the mother of the child who was in she just bought
massive canvases of everything.
So those that's where too that i've got work that i can enter into competitions
and at the same time i've got work a client support so yeah i get the best of
(36:24):
of both worlds in in that part,
so how do you then market yourself it's is it something where you go the digital
route is it It's something where you go more of a traditional sort of personal relationship route.
How do you market your work when you're living with an expat community sort
(36:44):
of not too long in one place, you know?
Yeah, I mean, it's basically word of mouth.
Right. I mean, we don't have any way to advertise like you would in the UK.
So you know this is it
is pretty much word of mouth because you've you've got a small
(37:05):
pocket so if you take like malaysia
for example you've you've got the malaysians who have very traditional style
shots as i say they'll go to a little shop on the high street and and they'll
get them done in the back room that kind of thing um there's no there's no no
embellishment there's no there's no
(37:26):
interest in anything creative and then you have the the
predominant chinese market is big chinese market and that's where all the wedding
photography will come in and wedding photography is very big in asia huge but
portraiture isn't but then if with the chinese market a lot of the time because
there's cultural differences they will want a chinese photographer.
(37:50):
To do the wedding or whatever as opposed to a
western photographer so that kind
of just leaves the expat market and what you tend to do is like what i'm doing
here more like doing in malaysia is i do creative shoots with people and and
(38:12):
their teenage kids and this kind of thing
and I do the creative work and then what will happen
is off the back of that they will show that to other people and then other people
will come forth oh you know I could do with a family shop being done or I you
know I'd love my family to do this or that so it's very much a very much a word
of mouth it is difficult especially when you keep moving because I just about.
(38:38):
Got where I wanted to be in Malaysia and then we're off to
Bahrain when nothing happened and now we're back in Thailand so
I'm trying to build again but you know
I'm fortunate in the position that I'm in that my
wife is a sage of principle so we could
survive off of her work and my
stuff comes in as pocket money so I don't have that pressure but
(38:59):
we knew that when we decided to stay in Malaysia when we
decided to move to Malaysia because I would have to give
up the job i was doing at the time so we
knew what was coming and yeah it's so
i'm not under that pressure but it's just
building a community and of expats who
then you know your work gets passed on and on and on and then you build it from
(39:23):
there yeah because establishing a brand establishing a business that people
know you exist and you're the person to go to always takes time so when when
you're moving that regularly,
that that's really against you, isn't it? Very much so.
Yeah, it's not. And as I say, I mean, it's, it's, that's why I focus a lot on
(39:44):
creative work or competition work or something, you know, and then I use that to entice people in.
Yeah, it sounds like that your kind of method is much more about,
okay, you're not necessarily making a loss, but you're just initially just creating
like portfolio work, competition work that shows what you can do and getting
(40:08):
that into the community.
So rather than worrying about building social followings, rather than building
a website with all the funnels to bring people through and everything,
it's much more a case of, look, this is what I can do.
Do you like it and that seems to be working for you yeah yeah just having to start again.
(40:31):
Yeah so would you would you say that you've got a very sort of determined mindset
then because some people might find that that continual having to rebuild the
business just exhausting do you feel you're very competitive or very determined,
i'm only really competitive i would say with myself i'm not i'm not a competitive
(40:52):
person by nature when it comes to competition or anything like that i'm competitive with myself,
so yeah it's i i what i try to do is i just try to create and as as long as i can create,
then I take it in my stride so I don't really get frustrated by it at all this
(41:17):
is just one of those things that you you have to go so yeah I mean I do just
reset almost and say okay time to start again time to rebuild so but I don't
try to let it frustrate me or or affect the work that I do.
And I think I'm quite lucky because I don't have that pressure that a lot of
people would have in that, you know, I need to make an income from this.
(41:41):
So I have that time that I can to build again.
And, you know, in a way, it's quite fun. I quite enjoy it.
It's nice to, you know, meet different people, new people, and,
you know, come out with concepts and ideas and, you know, work with different styles.
Styles yeah and have a new audience appreciating your
(42:03):
work and yeah that's all that's all good i should
think yeah do you feel you've
had to reinvent yourself much throughout your your photography career already
as you as you're moving forward so you're saying you're competitive with yourself
do you have do you do you see some targets for yourself that you want to get
to and then sort of evolve to reach those targets or is it is it more natural a natural process,
(42:28):
process it's it's more of a natural process i don't i don't set myself a goal
i kind of i'll make things up as i go a lot i think well what do i want to do
next what would i like to try next.
I mean when i when we were in malaysia and we had the
pandemic hit you couldn't move you couldn't travel more than 10 kilometers from
(42:50):
your home you could only have one person in the car they had roadblocks everywhere
where you'd have to take your passport so you literally I couldn't get people
to me I couldn't get to people so I thought well how do I how do I continue to do,
to create when I've got no subjects and I've got no makeup artists and that's
when the idea of using the dinosaur range came up and those creative shots I
(43:14):
did then because of my neighbor's daughter so I could get my neighbor's daughter
to come in and then I you know so I took a trip into composites.
Which I think started with the Toymaker. I think that was my first trip into composites.
And then what happened was is I then just followed that through with the whole
(43:37):
range because I couldn't do anything else, but I was desperate to get back to
portraiture because there's less work involved in that.
So, yeah, I mean, I just concentrate on what I'm doing at the moment,
which is coming to the tail end of a panel for several qualifications.
(43:58):
And then after that, I'll probably just sort of say, well, what would I like
to try now? Something, another theme.
I just love to do themes. I love to do storytelling.
So sets of images on a theme. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I went through the creative where I did like insanely different
(44:21):
types of creative process.
And then I went through the composites and now I'm back into more traditional
portraits, but I still want them to kind of tell a story.
So, you know, I don't know where it will go from there. Once I've got this done
and dusted, I'll then just think, OK, well, what's my next project?
And then meantime what happened is i i carry
(44:44):
on using these people and then eventually they'll come back
and say to me okay can we do a family shoot or can we do you
know some client work and then then
it just spreads word of mouth because once it gets back to because predominantly
they're all schools so once it gets into a school you get all the parents school
so it's a good target audience yeah so it's experimenting seeing what's going
(45:06):
to connect with people's imagination
i mean I've seen your recent profile image that you just changed.
That is, you can very much read a story out of that.
You know, the character that you've made yourself in there with the background
behind it. Tell us a little bit about that image.
That was, well, because what I was trying to do is, I have, for me,
(45:30):
creating a panel is the worst, really, really, because I go off my own work very, very quickly.
So I'll shoot image number one and I'm like, okay, yeah, that's what I'm after. I've nailed that.
By the time I get to image number three, I'm like, I don't like image number
one. I've got to change image number one.
(45:52):
So then I do another reshoot. So I just get in this endless circle of trying
to find images to replace images I've already shot. up.
So hence it's taken me a long time. And I got a neighbor of mine to come over
and I did crazy tattoos and blackened his face up with coal and put him in some
(46:14):
armor and set him up as like a medieval warrior.
And then I said to him, I said, actually, what I want to do as well is I want
to do like a Mary Poppins kind of...
A Victorian chimney sweep. So he said, yeah, I'm a bit busy at the moment because
I've got all work and all this sort of thing, but, yeah, we'll do that.
And then I just sort of felt, oh, why can't I just do myself as that?
(46:38):
So then I thought, okay, I'll just do a session with myself as a Victorian chimney sweep.
And why not? Absolutely. So why not? Absolutely.
That's not something everybody's got. No, so that's where that kind of comes
from. But I just love trying to put together different pieces of stuff from
(47:00):
around the house and generate a costume from it.
Or rather than go out and buy, I mean, that jacket that I was wearing there
was initially, I'd got it for a Peaky Blinders kind of shoot,
like an overcoat, but it was kind of too small.
And I never used it. So I took it outside, set fire to a load of paper.
(47:22):
And I just completely doused this thing in soot from the paper. I got a Stanley knife.
As you do. And I ripped him up with a Stanley knife just to give it that really
aged look that it had been up a few chimneys.
And then my wife saw it and she said, have you cut that up?
Because I'm notorious for that. I think the worst one I ever did was I was doing
(47:48):
– I was in Malaysia And I was doing a kind of creative portrait and I needed
a red veil to set off this video.
So I found this piece of material and I thought, oh, that'll do.
So I just cut the section off of this material and I used that.
And when I'd finished an edit, I'll send it to my wife. I said, this is my latest work.
(48:10):
And she said, is that my new curtains?
I'd cut a brand new pair of neck curtains that I did cut in half.
So, yeah, I'm a bit notorious for put everything away because it could end up
getting cut up and used in a shoot.
So, yeah, that took a lot of time to get forgiveness for that one.
(48:32):
Yeah, I had the look on my wife's face when she came home one day and I'd been
photographing splashes.
So throwing red paint around in my
studio there was this sort of inflatable swimming
pool thing and in the middle of the studio floor with red paint like everywhere
and sheets of plastic covering up all the lights to stop it all getting on there
(48:55):
and all that her face oh goodness me oh yeah i think that's the closest i got
to sleeping in the shed doing that that was.
Well i i learned early on that
actually getting my wife to be my assistant
and she's absolutely brilliant as an
assistant now helps because i get away with a lot more now yeah she's involved
(49:20):
then yeah yeah yeah so it's like i then can't make a mistake of doing something
or cutting something up that i shouldn't be and uh yeah yes,
So you say, no, you'll have to stop me if you want to keep it.
You'll have to stop me. It's down to you.
(49:41):
Yeah, it sounds to me really with your creativity, there's kind of two sides
to it. On the one hand, the sort of problem solving.
So you come across an obstacle and think, how can I get round this? So I can't shoot people.
Well, let's shoot dinosaurs and that kind of side.
And then the other side of it, which just seems to me, play and having fun, really.
(50:02):
I think that's the key thing to it. I mean, especially from a client's perspective,
because if you get somebody that comes in who's self-conscious,
a lot of people are self-conscious.
They kind of, how am I going to look? I feel awkward or whatever.
And my wife's a lot of fun she's a
great people person and she'll just dance around do crazy things and and you
(50:26):
know say oh try this and try that and that puts people at rest because she's
being silly so they kind of they don't feel so self-conscious and then when
you do something creative,
As I say, they're just more switched on to that.
So it's all about having fun at the end of the day.
(50:47):
You know, you want somebody to go away and just say, you know,
that was great. If you ever need me to come back and do another one,
you know, give me a shout.
And that's kind of what I look for at the end of it.
And, you know, I mean, especially with, I mean, I had when I was in,
when we were in Malaysia, I had, I wanted to do like, I'd seen American horror
(51:09):
episode, you know, the freak show, American horror.
And there was like a two headed woman as one of the characters.
And I thought I really wanted to do something like that.
But what I wanted to do was like a Jekyll and Hyde.
So I use, I use one of my friend's daughters for it.
She was about, I don't know, 11, 12, something like that, I suppose.
(51:32):
Very shy quite reserved
and so i got my
makeup artist in who's brilliant and she she painted
like stitches on the neck on one
half of the neck and then blackened the eye and
all this and then we did the other makeup which where she was very pretty so
we had this kind of jekyll and hyde thing going on with this double head but
(51:57):
what happened was is that the i did a couple of shoots on that and then the
mum come back and said she's changed so much when she goes back to school,
she's so much more confident so you know you have elements of things like that
that you can bring out and i've got another mother here with and her daughters
and it's just like they didn't want to do it the first time they're really apprehensive
(52:19):
and then she'll message me so the girls are asking when they can come back and
they've been back like four times.
Towards the panel but i like to do that as well
because i like to especially on the
kids side of things to to get them to feel confident and
and photography is a great way of doing that if
it makes them feel good about themselves so yeah
(52:41):
i've had some positive outcomes on things like that as well
well that's really great to be
able to have that sort of income on a young life you know to help
them to gain confidence and you know to feel
that you can make a contribution like that as well as creating
art together yeah that must be really encouraging for
you yeah this is it but it's the creative element of it it's it's the creative
(53:03):
element of i mean i combine the two when i when i first started in to look into
photography and we got to malaysia and i was like well i need to join an organization
and i need to get a qualification i you know i didn't know what to do.
So it was very much i've
viewed i was trying to view how would i do competition to client work so the
(53:28):
way that i actually view is i think of competitions as if people ask me i'll
say that i've seen competitions as a fashion show imagine that is a fashion
show so what you would have
is that the designer would have a range of clothes that they sell in H&M or
(53:48):
Topshop or whatever, which are just your normal, average, everyday style of clothing.
And then you'll have.
The fashion show where the same designer will create
something that only lady gaga would wear
in public you know yeah you
(54:09):
might have bin bags hanging off the back or bats stuck on the head or you know
people hanging off of each other complete things that you just wouldn't not
wear but the way that it is is that it gives that designer the opportunity to
push the boundaries boundaries of their creativity.
So that what they would do is they would use that to just say,
(54:32):
okay, this isn't something I'm going to sell.
So that would be, that's just to show the judges, et cetera, my out of the box.
You're thinking out of the box, whereas this is my high street.
So I see fashion shows as competition work, and I see the high street stores as your client work.
But where I'm quite lucky is that my designer on my fashion show has my client
(55:01):
work because they're more interested in that than they are the traditional.
So I'm kind of lucky that I get a lot of this playtime.
And, you know, I just think people, especially in this part of the world,
are just more open to that than a traditional family shoot.
So i've i've had it uh yeah i'm
(55:24):
quite lucky in that respect lots of play time
so there could soon be a
huge influx of british photographers in your area
or all coming over to explore their creativity after
having listened to this yeah it's
it's really great to get a little bit of a glimpse behind some of the images
i've seen some of your images over the years but it's really really interesting
(55:47):
to to hear a little bit of what's behind them now for those who aren't familiar
with your work where's the best place if they want to get a taste of what you
do where's the best place for them to go to see some of your work,
Well, I have a website which has some of my work on there, which is peterrooneyphotography.com,
and also on Instagram, which is peterrooneyart.
(56:11):
Find me on there. There's some of the newest stuff I haven't put up there yet
because it's obviously panel work and stuff like that.
But, yeah, between those two is where I tend to put most of my work.
Great. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how the panel work all turns
out. It's nerve-wracking stuff, having been through that kind of thing myself. It's challenging.
(56:35):
It's an opportunity to develop, do something different. Well,
this is it. I mean, it's exactly that.
It's not about winning. It's not about first place. It's not about goals.
It's about whatever it takes for you to create and to put your work out there.
And yeah because i've got the feb coming
(56:57):
up in next month and
then hopefully the swpp after that and
then a few more further down later in
the year so yes a nerve-wracking few months ahead of you then by the absolutely
yeah yeah it's the odds are if i throw it in the pot a lot of times hopefully
one of them will come out yeah i like that play play the odds absolutely.
(57:25):
It's been really good um being able to talk to you peter thank you so much for
coming on the podcast really appreciate you sparing the time for it that's great
joe i'm just so much for inviting me on it's been an absolute pleasure thank you,
no worries and thank you everybody for listening to the focus professional podcast
Get connected, trained, supported and qualified with the Society of Photographers.
(57:50):
Sponsors of the Focus Professional Podcast.
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