How did you end up directing The Dead Wretched music video for 'Ain't Through With You By A Damn Sight' and as this is different to your photography world, what do you think you learnt the most from this process? Having studied film years before I was very eager to get back into it and I had been looking for a band to work with on a video. I had been speaking to Dario (TDW) for a while and when he mentioned they were looking to do a video I jumped at the chance. To be honest it wasn’t a huge leap from my photography. I have always used cinema style lighting in my work so it was fairly simple to translate that across to film. It has the same principles as photography technically aperture, shutter speed etc and having a good eye for composition. It certainly helped having made short films and worked on productions in the past. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t all plain sailing, last minute plot changes, locations falling through, asbestos on set!! I would say the biggest learning curve was the planning process. You had to be prepared for long shooting days and last minute changes.
You also set up a time lapse video for Bridgend Tattoo Studio, so how did this idea come about, and how fun was this process for you? I was asked to do this by Chris Harrison & Nipper so they could use it at a Tattoo Convention that was coming up to showcase their work. I had worked with Chris on his clothing line InkBred that he runs with Moose from Bullet from My Valentine so he thought it would be an awesome thing to try out. It certainly wasn’t the usual kind of time-lapse I do but it was a lot of fun and I am really happy how it turned out. I am looking forward to doing a lot more and working with Chris, Nipper & Ronnie again. They do such incredible work and it’s awesome to be a part of it.
So what band have been the most rewarding for you to shoot, and why? That is a really tough question, I guess I find every shoot as rewarding as the next. Each band I work with or shoot brings out something new creatively. I see my body of work as something that is evolving and as I evolve as a photographer and director my standard and style of work improves and that would not happen without the countless shoots before it. I guess two shoots that stood out for me this year would have to be The People the Poet and The Dead Wretched video, because they were shoots that took my work to another level. I had been waiting to get back into filming and directing and shooting the video with TDW was amazing and a turning point for me. I have a lot more film work in the pipeline. At the moment I am in pre production on a new music video for The Dirty Youth so I am stoked to be getting my teeth into that. It’s not separate to my photography it’s all part of the same creative outlet for me and I love it. It’s all about kicking it up a notch so there will be more of that to come for sure.