Issue 16 of Stencil Mag

So when did you decide that becoming a professional photographer is what you wanted to do with your life?

I was always into taking pictures when I was a kid but it was film making that was my first love. I always had grand ideas of becoming a big Hollywood Director even as a young kid of about 10 years old. Photography wasn’t something I really thought about as a career. I remember writing a letter to Steven Spielberg when I was about 15 and was amazed when he actually wrote back. That cemented the idea in my mind that anything was possible and I still hold on to that idea today.

I went on to study Film Making and photography in college and that’s when I really got into photography and started experimenting with different styles and loving other photographers work.

I had always been in bands, playing guitar and singing etc so I started taking pictures of local bands, and I thought to myself “Hey I could do this” Living in the deepest darkest valleys of Wales didn’t offer much in the way of opportunities so when I came across an article in the local newspaper about a local man setting up a recording studio. I thought it would be perfect, so I marched on up there with my Canon SLR in hand and told him I was a photographer and that I wanted to take pictures of his bands. He looked at me for a second and said “Well I can’t really help with that, but seeing as you’re a musician you could train to be a studio engineer” So I said why not and I put my Idea’s of becoming the male Annie Leibovitz on the back burner and that was the beginning of my career in the music industry.