The Photography Journey
- This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated Mar 4, 2009 at 12:38 am by
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The condensed version:
In the late 80’s I was working in a huge record and musical instrument shop and doing a bit of weekend warrior camera stuff with friends bands for free beers.
On day Aerosmith came to the record department to sign records & hang out and the guy from the store that organized it only allowed me to shoot it, the rest of the Sydney media was furious.
(my first rock exclusive ;D)One of the picture agencies in England found out and asked if they could sell the shots for me and I sent them a big pile of B&W prints surprised they would be worth anything to anyone.
He sold them all over Europe and a heap of them in Japan.
The local music press also bought a few of the shots from me and ended up asking me to shoots some bands and shows for them.A couple years later after some success shooting gigs for next to nothing for the music mags and selling the odd shot through the agency, People magazine in the US launched a local version called WHO weekly and the agent got me a meeting with the new picture editor.
I scattered my B&W stuff out for her and she pointed to the Aerosmith stuff and said “I love those guys’ and I did hundreds of jobs for them over the next 10 years..Work with them got me great exposure and by 1995 I was working for almost everyone in the music biz here and getting stuff published worldwide.
When the music industry started to splutter (round 2000) I had to do a lot of outside work to survive and ended up a little jaded with the business and tired of taking pictures.
To re-ignite the passion I started shooting some fishing stuff and now feel like I have another 20 years in me..
(my knees and old mans taste in music would argue about that ;))
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Few years ago, I started wildlife photogrpahy. Something Id always wanted to do since I was a kid, drooling over images in my favorit mags.
Haven’t “made it”, nor do I think I ever will.
However I have realised something of a dream thats been with me for most of life. Contributing to hook and bullit mags. If I get a few images published each year, that fits my definition of making it.
Last X-mas (2008) my wife convinced me to get out of my comfort zone and send a CD to my favorite mag. Started by emailing the associate editor, sent the CD to him, mostly it was Falconry images and some fishing images. A month later the Art Director contacted me asking me for more. By May I started shooting a couple assignments for them and started looking at getting my foot in the door with another of my favorite mags.
In June the Editor of that magazine saw some of images online, contacted me asking for them and more. By July I was in touch with that mags AD and working towards to getting my first images with them published.
2009
I’ll have a bunch published from assignments shot last year and stock sales. With luck I should have a couple covers and I hope to find a 3rd magazine hopfeully in the US.3 mags are probably as much as I can handle. I dont want this to be a busniess per se, but rather an outlet for something I love doing.
I also hope to work more with the Pro Bass series up here. Not sure if theres really a market for it, although I have had talk with the publisher of the magazine up here, and I should be contributing a bit to them as well.
But its more just doing the stuff and industry contacts that are developing as a result. I was pretty tickled and flattered when asked to supply images for their trade show this Feb.
Freelancing for this market (hunting/fishing/fly fishing) is as much about networking than what you produce.
Two 10ft x 4ft banners on either side of a stage
I started out as a writer and pretty quickly realised that its much easier to sell stories if you can back them up up with images. I bought a Nikon FE2 second hand from a friend and its the camera I learned with. Nothing quite like manual techniques for a good grounding. Progressed through F601, F801’s and eventually F90’s then to Canon when I went digital.
Published in the US, Europe, and Australia in magazines, books, and newspapers.
I would not classify myself as a technical photographer but have a pretty good eye and I think that’s more important than anything. Train your eye and for this stuff (fly fishing) learn to put the rod down, or even better leave it at home.
Morsie
It’s been a long, strange trip…
This recent interview saves me the typing, which is difficult at the moment with an infected finger…
Some great work on your website and DA gallery Richard – lovely stuff.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
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