Finding Direction

3 game changing questions

If you’ve ever had a kitchen, house or garden renovated (or done it yourself), you’ll know that you have to get the master plan right first before focusing on whether the bench tops are stainless steel or marble, or the steps are made of sleepers or stone (or the wall is pink or red). In

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How well are you acclimatised?

I’ve been thinking recently about acclimatising. If you want to climb Everest, you have to start training regularly at high altitude, and gradually get used to the lower oxygen levels. The same applies to your photography career. If you want to shoot global campaigns for multi award winning advertising agencies and inspiring brands, you have

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Lessons from the Olympics

I’m torn. I’ve lived in New Zealand for 28 years, and Australia for 4 years prior to that. Plus I’m married to an Aussie. But I’m a Brit with a Brit passport. Who to support in the Olympics? Then I received some imagery of athletes from UK photographer Sam Riley, and I found myself rooting

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Post review blues

If you’ve ever had your folio reviewed, whether at an event, online, or done the rounds of ad and design agencies, you may have experienced that wonderful post review euphoria. (They LOVED my work! They even contacted me! I am complete! ) But after the trillions of briefs failed to fly in the door (wait

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Who are your people?

As I write this Email I’m sitting at the Sherwood Hotel in Queenstown, New Zealand. The mountains beyond the veggie garden are snow clad. Firewood is being chopped somewhere in the distance. The music is damn good. I could have stayed at the more expensive Hilton Resort and spa. But this is my kind of

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Charisma is overrated

There’s a rumour out there that building great relationships with people in the ad world, getting them across the line on estimates, and continuing to work with them requires a certain amount of charm. It explains why I hear lots from photographers who curse their genetics and wish they were more charismatic. But it’s not

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You don’t know what you’re doing

I was sitting in a dark theatre, entranced by the black and white portrait on the screen. A freckle-faced Irish child with wonky teeth and a cloth cap crinkled his eyes as he looked into the lens of Dorothea Lange. It was 1954 and Lange had been on assignment for Time Life Magazine when she

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