“I get to Berlin and meet up with all these other stock photographers from around the world who were also working in isolation. It was a huge game changer for me. In 2012 we organised to do shoots together and remotely and suddenly I had a new direction. Stock photography used to be of business people shaking hands in a suit, lifestyle stuff was families and people, generally blue eyes and blonde hair. There’s been this whole change in the advertising industry in the last 10 years. Now they want diversity and real people, they are screaming for people of colour, people of size and people with different abilities. The people I’m shooting now are real people and I love it. Indigenous people are in high demand for all kinds of advertising. You’ll see the same faces again and again in ads because it’s really hard to get people.
When I returned from Berlin I travelled regularly doing shoots all over the world. Before Covid if there was a shoot requiring Asian models it was easier for me to fly to Singapore to do the shoot. I was going overseas 3 to 4 months of the year but only in short stints where I would produce a whole pile of content, come home and be behind a computer for a couple of months.
I have 2 daughters. My eldest just turned 17 today and my youngest is about to turn 15. They grew up with me travelling all the time. I’d come home and bring them presents. As they got older their idea of presents got harder and harder (laughs).
Before I’d head overseas I would tee everything up for the shoots, models hired, locations scouted, etc. The technology now compared to 20 years ago is incredible. Even just using Google Maps to check locations. Some of the places overseas have studios set up that look like a place that would normally be difficult to access. You can hire a studio that looks like an aeroplane. It’s in a high rise building. I shot in a studio in Tokyo that was set up as a hospital. This whole floor of this office building had been transferred into a hospital with all the equipment, X-ray machines, defribulators with the batteries removed, everything you would see in a real hospital. You just hire the location and bring models in.
I now have great mates all over the world who I can work with and stay with. Since Covid there’s been no travel as you know but there are places I’d love to go to. I get to go and do this stuff I love with real people. I’m moving in different circles to what I was used to, normal, everyday people and they are fascinating and they tell me stories and I get to learn about their lives. I’ve got a really a skewed view of some of these places because I’ve been to so many different places but never done any of the touristy things in those places. Going with those people to restaurants in their country for example Taiwan and having them order the food. Don’t ask what you are eating until you finish. That’s been really interesting and learning bits of language because sometimes I’m working with models with no English.
Since Covid hit and I haven’t been able to travel, I’ve had to do my shoots here in Lismore so there’s stuff I can’t do like big city sky scraper scenes. Getty Images put together briefs for what they need for the collection. The hardest thing is getting locations and because of Covid, doors were closed. I’ve only been able to use models of people I encounter anyway such as friends or people in the gym I go to so I’ve limited my exposure. I’m looking for models and I’m looking for locations so let me know. I want normal, everyday people. There was a modelling agency out of New York called Ugly Models and they went nuts when they started up. They were unusual people, not ugly just super different, face tattoos and weird piercings. wild hair, morbidly obese and rake thin, just people with really different looks to them. If you look now at TV commercials they are using more authentic people, the mannequins in stores are now different sizes and we have more people with disabilities in ads which is how it should be. All people should be represented. It makes being on set so much more interesting when you’re dealing with a broad range of people with diverse looks and ideas.
We bought a house here, did a massive renovation which started when Covid hit so that was full on. In the end it all worked out. When we first moved here I wanted to live in Lennox but as my father in-law pointed out if you live there and you have kids, you either have to live across the road from the beach or you will still have to pack the car up and drive to the beach plus you will be replacing all your electrical appliances because of rust. In the end we bought our house here and it’s close to everything. It’s a great place to live.”