I’m a ginger with a camera! 🙂 I’m 27, tall, devilishly handsome, and a bit of a liar when it comes to describing myself. I live in Melbourne, Australia with my lovely girlfriend Rani. I love taking photos, I REALLY love Photoshop, and I REALLY REALLY love indulging in my favourite weekend hobby with my girlfriend – jumping on a random train/bus/tram and seeing where it takes us, jumping off at the first interesting place we find & getting completely lost.

I have dabbled in other creative things – I’ve made 30 or 40 music tracks, played around with game design, designed quite a few websites. I made a huge bunch of Flash movies and games/websites (I still remember when you were cool, Flash). I really, really love making things, having an idea in my head and then making it into a tangible thing is so damn cool.

As for why photography is my main passion these days – it’s pretty much because I’m addicted! I never had any interest in it growing up – I didn’t even take photos on my mobile phone. That changed about 3 years ago when I was visiting my parents, laying out in their backyard staring up at the sky. I felt so utterly peaceful staring up at those clouds, and I wished there was some way I could capture that moment… It took me longer than it should have to realise, “Oh you dolt, there’s such a thing as photography…” I raced inside, grabbed my father’s old Minolta camera and played around with it. My first few (thousand) photos turned out horrible, but I couldn’t get over how frickin’ awesome it was to click a little button and an image would pop up on the screen. I was hooked.

When I first started playing around with Photoshop and manipulating my images, that opened up a whole new world to me. Suddenly I could attempt insane concepts that would never be possible in the real world, create surreal images and have so much fun doing so. I guess that’s what it all boils down to – I get SO much joy out of photography and Photoshop. That’s why I’m a photographer, that’s why we’re all photographers. It’s a beautiful medium 🙂

Oooh good question! I was in a funk with my photography at the time – I’d go out and shoot hundreds of photos and then come back, load them into Lightroom and delete every single one. Nothing I shot seemed worth keeping and it was INCREDIBLY depressing. At that point photography had been my passion for about 2 years, and I was in such a rut I was really really really close to giving it up and selling my gear.

By chance I started watching a few Youtube videos about photomanipulation, something I’d dabbled in a few times in the past. I also got hooked on Phlearn, and splashed out some coin for a few of their “Pro Tutorials”. The things he was able to do with Photoshop absolutely blew my tiny little mind, and I knew that was what I wanted to do. But there was a huge gap between my current skill level and where I wanted to be, and I had no idea how to bridge that gap. I played around for the next few weeks, and then by chance watched a couple of Phlearn’s videos on the topics of 365 projects and on doing hard rather than easy images. I really wanted to dive into a 365, but I was terrified. “I’m not good enough” entered my head. “I’ll never be able to do a photo EVERY day.” “People will laugh at my terrible photoshop skills.” “I’ll NEVER be able to think of an idea every single day, I don’t even have one single idea right now!”

Over the next few weeks those thoughts ate away at me and I was pretty convinced I’d never do a 365… But I really wanted to. More than anything. I was just scared. Then one day, for absolutely no reason at all, a thought entered my head: “Today is Day 1.” I can’t even tell you why I had that thought, or what prompted it. But I Photoshopped a bowling pin onto my head, uploaded it as “[1/365]: Pinhead” and I was on my way. I really struggled, especially during those first few weeks. But it’s crazy how you manage to find your feet, to learn as you go. If anyone’s thinking of starting a 365 Project but all those negative thoughts are in your head and you’re full of self-doubt… Just try it. Screw the doubt, just have a crack. I promise you won’t regret it 🙂

I generate new ideas by working hard at it; I’m always thinking, always writing ideas down in my digital notebook (I use Evernote, it’s awesome). All day every day I’m thinking of funny ideas, jokes, interesting concepts, challenging photoshop tasks, etc. After the first few weeks/months of a 365 project, your brain learns to see inspiration and ideas in almost everything around you. Creativity is a muscle that can be trained, for sure.

When I first started the 365, I was taking 8-12 hours per photo – holy cow! I was so insanely slow, half the time I had NO idea what the hell I was doing and I had so many nights where I didn’t get to sleep until 2am. I actually wondered how on Earth I would be able to keep it up for an entire year. Luckily, if you do something every single day, you become more efficient (thank god!) These days, for most photos it’s about 2hrs in Photoshop. The big concepts take longer, sometimes up to 8 hours. Shooting is usually a tiny fraction of that, maybe 15 minutes.

My routine? Spend 30 minutes complaining out loud that I can’t think of a photo idea. Go through my digital notebook where I have hundreds of ideas saved, hate all of them. Walk around the house for another 30 minutes complaining that I still can’t think of a photo idea. Sometimes at this point I go outside for inspiration, or open up my wardrobe and stare at my props, willing them to speak to me and give me an idea (they never do, the little buggers…) Sometimes I also look at my camera and yell at it, “WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME WHAT PHOTO TO DO, YOU STUPID LITTLE <censored>!”

Then I’ll have a little spark of inspiration and I’ll brainstorm and flesh out the idea over the next 20 mins or so, until I know exactly what I have to do. Set up the lights, get the props ready, dress myself (I don’t mean that to sound like I’m naked at the time, I’m *usually* not). Take the photos and extra elements I’ll need, with lots and lots of extra ones as backup. Then I get to sit down at the computer, sip my coffee, kick off my shoes, pull out my Wacom tablet, put on my little Smudgeguard glove and do my favouritest part of all – the Photoshopping! Finish that, smile at the screen and then kiss it, exclaiming “Damn, you’re a handsome devil” to my photo. Then I get to upload it and have a laugh with all the awesome people who comment and drop hilarious puns and silliness on my photos – we have a blast 😀

Then wake up and repeat the next day, woooo! 😀

Ahhhhhhhhhh you can’t ask me that! That’s like asking which of my children I like the best 🙁 The answer is none. Because I have no children. What were we talking about?

I have many images that mean a lot to me. My girlfriend and I call each other “Chocolate” and “Vanilla” as nicknames, so for one photo we covered each other in chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream – so much fun and very sentimental to us!

Another time I got a huge pile of newspapers and spent HOURS covering an entire room from floor to ceiling in newspaper. I made a newspaper suit and then sat down on a newspaper-covered chair to read the newspaper. Not only was that a lot of fun, but it was the first moment I realised, “Holy cow… I kinda really like this photography thing. This could be my life’s passion.”And no list of my favourite images would be complete without mentioning the first time I ever did a commissioned shoot. I shot some images for a young and very cool dude called Christian, for an album cover. I was so nervous about being able to produce something decent for he and his mum, and I was really happy with how the images came out. More importantly, Christian, his mum, Christian’s guitar teacher + girlfriend, and I had an absolute BLAST that day. Seriously the most fun I’ve had in ages, and I think that really came across in the images. I look back at those images and I’m filled with so much joy and nostalgia, it’s beautiful.

I don’t actually have a girlfriend. I’ve gotten decent at Photoshop so I’m able to just Photoshop a girlfriend into my images.

In all seriousness though, she loves doing the crazy images! We have a hell of a lot of fun doing them, it’s nice shooting them together. And it’s really cool to work on the shoot together, then I go and do the Photoshop work and a few hours later call her over and show her the finished image and (hopefully) hear her say she loves how it turned out 🙂

Plus, let’s be honest – looking through my stream, it’s clear that I am the one who suffers the most! 😀 Any time someone’s been covered in freezing cold water while standing outside on the windy balcony in winter… Or being drenched in sticky fake blood while cutting themselves with a kitchen knife… Or inflicting a terrible haircut on themselves just for the fun of it… That’s been me 😀 I even had an image where I had to drink whiskey while shooting – isn’t life hard?

Damn, this is a good question! You should be a paid interviewer. Quite a few of my messages have had very specific meanings, which I usually write in the description. Eg I did a recent one, “Soul for Sale” which was about not selling your soul by working a job you absolutely hate, and forgetting to enjoy life.

I’ve done images about how we all have this bad habit of comparing ourselves to others – a very harmful habit!

But if I take a step back and look at my photos as a whole… I guess the message I’m trying to get across is that life is fricking crazy, wonderful, sometimes sad, usually amazing, funny, beautiful… Perfect in its imperfection. I really, really, really love to have fun and be silly in my images, and any day someone writes, “This made me laugh”… Well, to me that’s bliss.

I don’t think all photographs need to have a “message”. But what I will say is for a photo to be a “success” it just needs to make you feel something. A photo of a beautiful sunset doesn’t necessarily have a mesage, but it definitely makes you feel something (happy! peaceful! in love with nature! warm!). And that, to me, is success 🙂

I listen to a lot of different music – 80’s hits, trance, drum and bass, rock, video game music, pop, soft stuff like chillout. Anything I can get my hands on really, I love most genres. A few of my photos have been created while listening to a particular song, eg “So Flows the Current” was created while listening to the very poignant and sad song “Beyond this Moment” by Patrick O’Hearn.

But generally speaking I love having a bit of music cranking while I’m shooting or Photoshopping – I love turning on Pandora and seeing what little musical nuggets it will serve up for me 😀

Damn, you’ve really thought about these questions, huh! 🙂 It’d be totally different, and it was a conscious choice for me to shoot mostly myself and a few of my girlfriend/other people. I really wanted to see how far I could push myself to come up with a new concept/idea every single day. If you’re shooting the exact same face every single day, pretty soon you really have to start thinking outside the box to keep it fresh and interesting and not “just another shot of Andy.” And by shooting mostly myself, the photos become less and less about me – I become like a mannequin to be dressed up by the concept itself.My 365 has also been a really really personal project, almost like a diary. I’ve shared a lot of myself – especially on the bad days. I’ve been very real about when things aren’t going so great in my life, and I wouldn’t be doing that if I was instead shooting a model.

Killer question! The people I’d pick would actually be other photographers rather than models, because it’d be so dang cool to have a conversation with them while shooting them. First choice is Aaron Nace from Phlearn – he’s the ENTIRE reason I didn’t quit photography. He’s also the entire reason I started my 365. His videos taught me most of what I know about photoshop, and I draw a lot of inspiration from his photos. I think we’d have a crazy time taking pics and shooting the breeze together!

Another choice would be Brooke Shaden – huge inspiration to me, and she seems like a pretty cool chick to boot. I’d also really love to shoot any of the Flickr/G+/FB/Twitter friends I’ve made, all of them are so awesome, fun, friendly and fabulous photographers themselves! 🙂

I dabbled in Facebook ads a year or two ago – DON’T DO IT! Serious waste of money and a lot of your new likes will be from fake accounts. There’s plenty of Youtube vids and articles around the place about how much of a scam Facebook ads are, so I won’t link to ’em here. These days I stick to emailing online portfolio sites, blogs, magazines, etc. I share in G+ communities and Flickr groups. It took me a long, long time to start “marketing” myself and my photography – really, I’ve only been doing it the last few months. I still struggle to not feel “guilty” about “bothering” people and saying “Hey there, I know you’re super busy with thousands of other photographers emailing you, but check me out!” But nobody will notice you if you don’t – the internet is too big and there’s too many photographers out there. And the vast majority of people I have emailed have been absolutely LOVELY (yourself included, Aaron!) and I’ve made a number of awesome friends 😀

To that end, if you’re thinking of emailing your work to blogs/portfolios/magazines but feel nervous about doing so – just try it! As long as you’re geniune and you care about meeting people and making friends rather than spamming your photos and getting more likes, most people will reply back and be incredibly awesome 🙂

Great questions!  I don’t feel that way anymore, and haven’t for about 6 months or so – I have my 365 project to thank for that. Creating this many images means you’re bound to make a huge, huge bunch of really crappy ones, so I’m well and truly over the fear of being judged. I already know I have crap photos floating around out there, so there’s nothing to fear! 🙂

I could write a thousand essays on why I think there’s such a demand to be perfect in photography… Where to start! There’s a myriad of reasons. One is that photography is such a visual medium and is so widely available thanks to the internet, so you can click a few times and instantly see thousands of other photographers’ work… Which means that’s thousands of people to compare yourself to. So there’s HUGE pressure to not make a mistake, since there’s so many people out there we perceive to be “better” than us.

Another reason is photography can be a pretty geeky hobby – there’s so many settings and numbers and new lenses with fancy f stop numbers and fancy new cameras with bigger megapixel numbers. People take a lot of pride in that – the hobbyists I mean. There’s also a lot of settings and numbers that go into making a photo – set your f stop incorrectly and your photo will be under/over-exposed. Get the shutter speed wrong and your image might be blurry. Dial in the wrong settings on your flash and your exposure won’t be as you wanted. So what all that means is people take a LOT of pride in getting everything perfect (because it does take quite a bit of work) – and they can be quite critical of anyone who misses the exposure/shutter speed/focus/etc by even just a little.

I think all that can be bloomin’ terrifying for new photographers! It certainly was for me when I first started shooting. If you’re a new photographer and photography is something you really want to keep pursuing, you have to take a deep breath and say to yourself, “Listen, self. Photography is hard at the start. There’s a lot to learn. I am going to SUCK sometimes, I’m going to make mistakes. And that’s ok. I don’t have to be perfect. I’ll get better.” And then just have fun, learn, experiment, talk to newbie and experienced photographers alike, make friends. Never forget that photography is supposed to be FUN, not daunting 🙂

I’m sure you’ll agree with me here: It’s just so much fun hearing other people talk about their passion! I’m usually the one thanking them profusely for the interview, I feel like I get more out of it than they do! It’s fascinating hearing other people talk about their process, their inspiration, what makes them tic, etc. The people I’ve interviewed have all been bloomin’ brilliant at their craft, not to mention lovely to talk to. I’m grateful they let me interview them 🙂

As for the right questions… I research! 🙂 I dive right in to their photos, I try to look at every photo they’ve ever put up. I try to get a sense for what they’re all about, who they are both as a person and as a photographer. The people I’ve interviewed have actually already been good photography friends of mine, so I’m able to ask them deeper/more personal questions, which is awesome fun 🙂 If the questions I ask them are even half as well-thought out as the ones you’re asking me now, I think I’m doing alright.

I’ve done lots of image requests from people, it’s so much fun!

But the most fun I had was when I held a vote and asked everybody if I should either dye my hair blue, or shave it bald. The blue hair won narrowly, and so photos #266 -> #314 feature me with blue hair :)I’ve got a lot of ideas I want to shoot! I have a digital notebook where I keep all my ideas, it’s fat and juicy right now with 229 ideas in there. I’ve got one where I’ll get my girlfriend to chop off my head, one where I’m going to be mugged by a tiny little plush toy and one where a good friend of mine is going to fart rainbows and glitter and flower petals (because as we all know, girls don’t fart).