From Lens to Likes: Unraveling the Social Media Paradox with Photographer Luke Jackson-Clark, E013

The why behind what you do.
I ended up falling in love, i guess, with the art of photography, but that was mainly.
The Photography was the vessel to allow me to travel.
Ha ha ha, it's a man, you want to.
What does success look like in yours?
Happiness and love and connection.
Ha ha ha.
Oh God, with the expanse and the speed at which AI is now moving, where did editing tools fit into that?
Oh, can you tell us anything about Lightroom that we don't know?
Welcome to the podcast.
We're finally cheers.
Thanks for having me Pleasure.
I think it's pleasure We'll see.
No, I'm joking Of course, it's been a while we've been going back and forth because obviously both kind of busy schedules for one reason or another.
Yeah, i was looking at your Instagram.
Actually, i mean, i see your Instagram all the time And it was The first thing that comes to mind is, wow, amazing.
But I've seen your content for a long time so I know how good you are, i'm pretty sure.
But one thing I always think of like being more involved in the kind of the tasks of being a photographer and being on social media and stuff, and even with my small following, it's like comments, messages, like you know, it's.
I love getting questions or comments or just interaction.
I love getting that, but then it can become an effort and part of the job, essentially.
So when I look at your account, i think You have so many comments, and justifiably so.
I don't know how many messages you get on a daily basis.
It must be a lot.
How do you even strategize?
you know engaging and replying and being the polite Luke that we all know.
So Oh, that's very kind of you, mate.
So, So he's posh, i mean Mike Keening.
I love that.
I've been doing Instagram not professionally, but full-time photography, almost posting every single day for about 10 years, wow.
So I've deleted a lot of images from the very, very beginning, which is a shame, and I wish I kept them.
But at the moment I have like 1,900 images or something up on Instagram which is really cool and really exciting.
But I've been doing it for a really long time and for 90% of those years or no, it'd be 85% of those years I've been doing it all myself and I love it.
It's awesome being able to respond and kind of engage with my audience and just whoever it is you know whether it's a friend or whether it's someone asking me about how they can end up entering the space But when it does get to a certain point, for example, dms aren't that crazy, but most of the time DMs are very repetitive.
The comments are the ones that kind of get difficult, because you might get 100, 200, 300 comments sometimes And with reels nowadays you can get thousands if it does crazy.
But I have a little secret My girlfriend, matilda, helps with these things.
So the thing is so I get tons of messages and there are different categories of messages, so sometimes I get messages from people being like hey, luke, i'm a massive fan of your work.
I've been a massive fan of your work for ages.
I want to get into photography, how do I get into the space and how can I make a successful career out of this?
That kind of message I will always reply to personally.
Matilda is there as almost like a manager of my social media, which is awesome, and I'm very, very grateful to her for it And also pay her for it.
It's not just a friendly favor, but she basically checks everything And I get tons and tons of messages not hundreds a day, but I get like 20 to 30 on average a day.
Some days I get very small amounts and some days I'll get hundreds, depending on what posts I'm putting up, and I will often get a comment like what camera do you use?
Or what drone was this, or I don't know Simple stuff that is very repetitive, that I've answered thousands of thousands of times And, as much as I appreciate the questions and the interest because it's so repetitive And the reality is people can find that out if they look on my highlights or they look on my, I actually have a kit list on my highlights, but all of these questions still come through every day.
So Matilda will sort through those ones and make sure to answer those ones And then we'll look in.
If one comes up that's more personal to me or like are you in Bali right now Or are you going to be in London next week?
And I haven't seen it because Matilda is on it And I'm doing something else or working on a project.
She will hit me up and be like OK, luke, you need to jump on.
But every single day I'm on Instagram maybe two to three full intentional sessions where I'll wake up in the morning and have a look at my comments and get back to things and check in and see whatever I'm saying and make sure that I've answered any questions, and I'll do that a few times a day, but before I had Matilda, i was on it up to 10 hours a day.
It's intense, yeah, wow.
But I do feel like that engagement and that kind of consistency and effort really goes a long way, and that's why I've got a lot of friends who have blown up over the years and have got to the point where they have to say, hey, i can't get back to everyone And I can't get back to everyone, or we can't get back to everyone speaking about myself and Matilda, but with Matilda's help I can get back to a whole lot more people than if it was just myself.
So I didn't want to have to be able to say, hey, i can't get back to you now.
If someone asked me a very kind of basic on Monday in question, like what camera do you use or I know what software to use to edit photos, i don't think I need to be there for that?
No, For that kind of annoying questions anyway, to be honest.
Yes.
Especially if you've covered them on your website and highlights Exactly It's all there So like if you really wanted to know.
You can do the research, but I do understand it like I've been there.
Yeah, you know, i've asked people that I look up to about things that I can imagine are probably all over the place And I should know it.
But it's just easy, isn't it?
Just to kind of get the answer from the person, and I think there is a little bit of what's the word I'm looking for.
That there's, if one of your heroes or someone you look up to replies to something you say like that feels like it does feel good, yeah, exactly.
Even better if it's a DM For sure, And this is the thing.
So on the topic of Missilda helping me as well, you know I will often.
If, for example, I get a question like how do I get into this industry and make it a career, I have to get back to those ones because it's very personal to me And I will often send a voice note So you'll know if it's me.
It's not like Matilda's learned how to perfectly copy my voice.
Which would be sweet.
Well, so cool AI.
You can do that, No problem, Oh yeah, make the future of AI is so exciting We'll get on to it.
When you get loads of messages about how do you do this and how do you do that And what advice can you give, is that an avenue you've thought about exploring, like the education side of it, and you know, kind of giving back in that sense?
Yes, i've thought about it tons.
It's a really tough one because, like, i love the concept of YouTube And I'm in YouTube and I do upload to it.
I think I have like five or six videos on there.
And five great videos.
That's very kind If you've seen them.
thanks, i appreciate that There's only a few people that do.
But now I love making videos, i do love telling stories, i love bringing people things that they may have otherwise not seen or learned about, and that's why I got into photography in the first place, like I just enjoyed sharing beautiful places and people so that people could kind of see and engage with something that they might not be able to Like.
Let's say, for example, you've never left the country, or never left the US, or never left Hong Kong, for example, and you want to see what Madagascar looks like.
Not that many people go to Madagascar And it's in a cruel place, so I want to be able to share that with people, and YouTube I see as a way of doing that.
And the problem from my perspective with jumping into educational content is I feel like it pigeonholes me, and I don't know whether that's just my head telling me like, or maybe me being too cautious about it or too, i don't know what it would be, but I just feel like if I do that and it succeeds, which I feel like, i would be able to make a good dent in that scene, because I know what I'm talking about.
I know how to teach it as well because I do that quite often And I like talking to camera and all that stuff.
I don't like the idea of getting to a point where, if I do a video on just my day or a video on I don't know a tribe in Raja Ampat or something or some random place in the middle of nowhere, that not doing well because people are used to seeing how I changed a few sliders on Lightroom, for example.
So I think that's my answer.
It's a bit of a long answer to your question, but I love the concept of it and I do love teaching people, but I think that's like a future thing for me.
I think labels are dangerous.
I mean you can really marginalize if you don't marginalize pigeonholed into if you label yourself as, and you can do that by default if you put out so many posts that are of the same content, then you're going to be the guy that does that content, so it's difficult maintaining that.
This is the thing, and I think it's a really tough one, because when other people ask me questions like, oh, should I post this photo?
It's not really my style, i'm like, well, just stop being silly and upload it, because the reality is like it's your art, so you should be able to do whatever you want.
But it is also.
The reality is that social media and the way things like algorithms and all that jazz work is social media have created a way of knowing what an audience likes and therefore a social media will all social media's want.
This is all social media's want people to stay on their platform for longer and therefore they'll make sure that content they know will do well will be shown to the audience of people that are going to watch, and they know that there will be new people out there that want to see it and therefore will kind of push it out there as well.
Whereas if you're doing stuff that doesn't get the same like or comment from your followers because it's completely different and it's completely unexpected to your followers, then you're not going to get that same reach.
I think it's very different.
It really depends on what the content is.
You know, i think, if it's still just out of this world and really incredible.
Then I'm sure it will work, but it's tough on.
Yeah, it's just a difficult space to navigate, especially for beginners, right?
Or people wanting to grow from nothing.
You kind of have to not dumb it down, but at some point you'll have to sacrifice an element of your what you want to do, or you don't and you just you know, maybe what you want to do is a viral style video anyway.
Which case amazing, i think photography has been exposed in that excuse.
The pun.
Photography's been exposed with that.
That's good, with that too.
I'd like to say it's deliberate, wasn't it?
It's been exposed by the advent of reels, by The algorithms changing all the time, the fact that still images weren't I mean, maybe they're making a comeback now, who knows Not as friendly to the algorithm and to Instagram as they once were, and so as photographers purely photographers, still image artists they've had to change or die essentially, and so it's a difficult one to certainly educate people or advise people on.
It's like well, what do I do?
It's like well, hopefully you can find a sweet spot there somewhere, or you pigeonhole yourself, you go down an avenue and that is what you do.
It's still photography related, and you still put your stuff out there.
But you've chosen a niche within the niche and you just kind of stick to it.
And I guess if that's your priority, it's social media growth, then that's the way you go.
I don't know, there's no answer that fits all right.
I feel like the reality of social media.
Actually, i quite like the idea of it.
The reality of social media is that you have to play the game.
As unfortunate as it is, and I guess the dream of a lot of photographers or videographers would just be to, i don't know, take or have this mission to take an amazing photo for this one month and that be your image And kind of like that, be the thing that you almost you tour with or you do your rounds with.
But the reality is is, with social media there's different ways you can play the game, but you have to play the game Now as a photographer.
If you want to solely be a photographer on Instagram, which is pretty difficult nowadays but if you did, you can do it, but you just have to post every day or every 12 hours, so two times a day, and you have to stay on top of it.
It's one of those things where, like you know, i do miss a couple of days here and there nowadays.
But for the first yeah, it's terrible For the first, like six years of my career on Instagram, i was posting every single day And there was a point, like a few years ago, like as the lockdown, like the first lockdown around the world, kind of began.
That I was like this, i feel like is a great opportunity for me to stop, and I posted.
This sounds so weird nowadays with the social media, but I guess it's pretty normal now is I posted to my Instagram and I was like Hey guys, i've been doing this now for like seven years nonstop.
I posted pretty much every single day.
You can go back and see them all And I'm really happy to be able to say that I have done this.
But I need a break.
I need some time off and I want some like creative time to just chill and do nothing or read or whatever it is.
And I took a whole month off, which doesn't sound like that much, but I took a month to I think I read like 13 books, which may not sound that much to some people, but to me it was crazy, because I only really listen to books or will listen to podcasts if I'm like doing the washing off or something.
This is the way.
It's something you know.
I don't want to just do the washing out, so I've got to listen to a book or a podcast.
And the same.
And it gave me that time And then when I came back I was super excited.
But the problem is is if you do that, especially in like the normal social media atmosphere, obviously the lockdowns are very different You can lose a lot of audience and you know Instagram or YouTube or whatever it is, can kind of, i guess, shut down on you, because it is almost like well, hang on a sec, you forgot about us there for being going to forget about you, and I don't know if that's actually what it is, but the consistency is just super important.
Yeah, but my follow up question to that is and this is an important one is is it worth it?
I think it really depends on, like, what you're going for, what you're looking to create, you know, whether you want engagement, whether you want, you know, good growth, good following, whether you want to make good money from the social media space.
If you have I don't know amazing audience of people offline and you're amazing at kind of curating email lists and I don't know gallery attendees, if you host galleries, then you don't need things like Instagram.
So therefore, probably not.
But if you are someone who I don't know wants to live the life of a social media creator which sounds kind of crazy, it's now a reality, reality Then I think you have to and therefore it is worth it.
In a way, i would say it's what been worth it.
For me It's been a lot and you know I had a few moments of burnout, but yeah, I probably wouldn't take it back or do it differently.
I do it differently and probably do more intense.
To be honest, i just learned to sleep better.
That's the biggest one I was going to say like it's detrimental to health.
I mean there's no doubt about it.
So you're constantly balancing the opportunities that it can create, because photography doesn't.
photography is different because social media is widely agreed upon to be an essential part of a photography business.
Now, if you're not worried about making money or the opportunities that social media a good audience of social media can create, then you know, maybe you just want to share the old photo every night.
Yeah, i'll tell you something If I wasn't a photographer, i didn't like photography.
I wouldn't be a Well, i can't say that for certain, but I'm very doubtful that.
I'd be on social media, Ah yes, ah Yeah.
I don't think there are, outside of arts, and certainly visual arts, sharing that content with people.
Outside of that, i don't think, education as well, i guess.
I don't think there's a huge benefit of social media.
I think the net result is generally negative, i agree.
But in the photography world and that's why I'm on it I love it And it's always down to the individual how, on both sides of the app right For the content generator and the audience how you use that app.
You could use it in very dodgy ways and stuff that's not going to benefit your life in any way.
It's certainly not your mental health, or you could use it, for I use it a lot for inspiration, big time.
It's amazing for that.
Where else can you get so much inspiration and connect with so?
many other peers and people that you look up to.
Yeah, the connection and connection to unique, new, regular, consistent content is amazing, with Instagram and Twitter and YouTube for video format And, i guess, ticked out nowadays, but I do think also places like Pinterest are places that go unseen.
I don't really do this too often, but I want to move into it a little bit more.
Not portrait work specifically.
I love shooting people, but I'll only do that for friends or people that I'm with on trips and things like that, but I don't think I'll do that as a professional thing.
But I do like the concept of conceptual art portraits of me or maybe of other people as well, and a lot of what is on Pinterest.
I mean, there's tons for Pinterest.
If you're wanting to design a new place or even the exterior of a house, or you're looking to build a house or whatever it is, you can get loads of inspiration on Pinterest.
But you can also get loads of photo inspiration and loads of AI.
Stuff gets put up there And it's super easy to sort them out into files or pinboards, as they call it on Pinterest And it's just really easy and super cool And I think there's a unique or maybe it's just easier to find things on that potentially.
So I'd recommend, if you want inspiration.
I don't really use Pinterest at all.
And for location scouting too, it's really good.
The only problem with location scouting on Pinterest is they don't have the same.
It really depends on what the account is, but it's not as normal or regular to find the exact written out location.
You sometimes find a location that looks unreal and you really want to go there, but you never see it on Instagram, but it doesn't actually have it on there.
So you have to sometimes, like Google image, search those images and find similar looking images online And then, once you do that research, you can find them.
But that's, i guess, one of the only problems with it.
But I definitely recommend Pinterest.
But yeah, going back to what you were saying, so that was a bit of a tangent.
I don't know if I would either, but I did in the beginning because it was like for friends, and I do quite like uploading, like I know, pictures of myself and Matilda or pictures of my mates or myself and things like that.
So Uploading on stories On my personal account.
Oh, you have a personal account, Yeah.
I have a personal one, specifically so that I can kind of How many have you got on that?
A million followers.
Yeah, i know 1.5 million, That's like 600 or something But I follow all of my mates on there So I obviously have a lot of friends that are in the space that I follow as well on my main account, but friends back from back at school or things like that, a lot of them.
I've asked and told that, hey, i'm going to unfollow you on this account so that all I see is content related to work, so that I'm not wasting time on there and I'm not engaging on stuff that I know, like my mates sending me memes or stuff like that.
I'll still get some of those, but I'd rather not get that kind of content to my main account and rather get it to this personal one and be able to like share more personal stuff on there as well.
So I guess I do use it in a way for the non-work aspect.
But if I could drop social media tomorrow I'd do it any day.
So it's a hard one, like It's difficult, it is really difficult.
Who's your best friend and why My best friend?
Oh wait, that's a tough question.
I don't know.
I don't know if I could give you like one person because I have so many.
Okay, i could give you one person aside from Matilda.
Oh God.
We're going to forget about Matilda for the moment.
Oh my God, that was terrible.
Yeah, just in case you're watching.
But aside from Matilda, i'd say my brother, because it's the one person that, like no one can question if that makes sense, that sounds silly.
I have a brother, for example.
My brother will be my best man when I eventually get married to Matilda.
Yeah, so that one is probably him.
But I think all of my best mates I have a selection and they're all different, they all do different things and they're all uniquely amazing in their own ways And that's why I'm trying to get that diplomatic answer out there.
But in answer question Kenan is a very, very close friend of best mate of mine, sam Mike, who I live with.
I have some mates from back at home, charles Chris.
I have a bunch of best mates I can't give you one, so the answer is Matilda.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, sure Interesting.
Well, I wonder what they would say.
But we'll get them on the show Hell.
Yeah, Talk to me a little bit about and I hesitate to bring this up, but I'm interested for the answers Musician child acting Right.
Yeah, Discuss.
Where'd you get that from?
I have my sources.
Okay, you may think I told them before, but I didn't, yeah, so when I was at school.
These stories are great.
I'm going to try and streamline them as quickly as possible.
So at our school we got asked to pick up an instrument.
Any instrument we could choose is the saxophone.
So I started off with the sax.
I love the sax.
I played it for a while, was in some bands.
I played it up until I was about 18 in swing bands and things like that.
So I got massively into jazz.
I loved that Such a cool instrument.
It's very sexy and cool and flowy And I then played it for a few years until I was about nine.
I continued, but I then also found my love for singing through singing in choirs at school And then when I was I might have been about eight I'm not entirely sure what the timeline is, but at some point in my younger years I was driving past an acting school And with my mom I wasn't driving That would have been interesting And I saw the massive banner outside the acting school that said it's like D&B acting school And it had a massive number on it And for some reason that number just drew me in And I don't know whether I really had a plan to be an actor before then, but I was just like I want to be, i want to be an actor, i want to be in the performing arts, whatever.
And I saw that number, got home that day, called them without mom knowing, was like hey, i want to join your school.
They were like, okay, that's cool.
How old are you?
I'm seven years old, or however old I was.
And I then they were like oh, we have to speak to your parent.
So I ran into my mom and I was like, hey, this is the acting school on the phone, i want to join the acting school.
And she was like what?
Because she not really heard anything about it.
And, yeah, that's the rest of the history.
I was massively lucky to have a mom and dad that supported clearly, some random dream that I had when I was young And that basically progressed into me acting in the West End.
So I was in Billy Elliot and Oliver Twist in London And for those listening that don't know what the West End is, it's like the broad way of London, which is pretty cool.
So I performed to thousands of people at like 11, 12 years old, which was something else And the audition process for all of that was awesome, such a great experience to have at that age.
And the training.
So I did singing, dancing and acting.
It was terrible at dancing and not so great at acting, but the beauty of theatre is that don't really see your acting close up.
So the singing is the main part and I've always loved singing And that's kind of how my singing birthed.
So when I started my secondary school, people were like, oh, you're in Oliver Twist, you must be a good singer.
And I was like, oh, i don't know really.
You know, i was in a few choirs.
I kind of potentially knew that I could sing, but I didn't really know.
And they asked if I could sing at this talent show.
That was in year seven, the first year of high school or secondary school, and I sang Ain't No Sunshine.
And that day I remember like being after that talent show, we all went into another room and there was maybe like 50 students in the room and it was myself and another mate who we ended up singing a lot together during our school career, singing Ain't No Sunshine and a bunch of other songs, and everyone was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy, they can sing, and I remember having this feeling of being like, oh, maybe there's something in this, and then I just continued to sing.
So like singing was the main thing, and I think it will be at some point in my life, but I don't know, we'll see.
Yeah, it sounds like you had a decent upbringing for a start.
Yeah, i was very lucky.
Yeah, you will say you're posh, oh God.
So what's your?
what's your, what's your name?
My name is Luke.
Jackson Clark.
Jackson Clark being a hyphen Bartholomew the second.
I said that wrong, but that's definitely not the case.
Luke Jackson Clark is as far as it goes, but yeah, it's hyphenated double barreled.
It's from my dad's side of the family, which is a.
I don't know whether it's liver, but my dad's side of the family lives up there.
Look, there's nothing wrong.
I went to private school.
People say I'm posh.
I was kind of posh, I was.
I was very lucky to go to private school, half funded by my family and half funded by my saxophone.
Okay, music scholarship, yes, which is awesome.
That was the same.
Really I played a piano.
I got in on a music.
It's got exactly the same like half sponsored.
But yeah, go on though.
Yeah, yeah.
So I had that.
I was very, very lucky to go there.
I don't know, i don't know if I'd describe myself as posh, but Colfs, colfs, yeah.
Where is that?
Is that Liverpool?
No, it's in a.
It's in not central London but South.
Yeah, because you were London boy.
Do you know a place called Lewisham?
Yeah, It's very very close to Lewisham.
Okay, it's in a place called Leigh, near Blackheath, near Greenwich.
So you've just given me five places.
They're all very similar areas.
So it's like, yeah, it's very, it's very close to Lewisham.
It was a great school to go to.
I'm very lucky to have been there.
My friends there were amazing, the facilities there were great.
That's, i think, the big thing.
The reason why I chose it was because of the music facilities.
Like, i ended up entering the music room and, as I was there on the open day, the jazz, the swing band was playing, which is something that I kind of wanted to join anyway, and I didn't.
I was only part of a classic orchestra at primary school.
It wasn't an orchestra, it was just a small little band that we had that.
You know, they've, as I said before, like all not made us to play instruments, but they kind of encouraged us all to pick up instruments And then they created a little orchestra from that.
And then I wanted to join something a little bit more exciting And the swing band was that And I remember walking in and they were I don't know what they were playing.
We played a ton of songs, but I just remember being like oh, that's it.
And I think I just looked up at my parents and was like this is the place And I was very lucky to have parents that could, could, could allow for that to be a possibility.
Yeah It's, it's a privilege to have that, and not in a, not in a derogatory like, oh, you're so privileged.
It's like, well, what sounds like?
you were as privileged as I was, but we knew that, we know that we're grateful for it.
If you're not grateful for it and you kind of ignorant of it, then that's a different story.
But for sure to remain grounded.
I think is is extremely important when you get given these opportunities by your parents or by this.
Oh, i mean I, i, i, i obviously owe a lot to my parents for that And for for for many of the, i guess, um AIDS that they brought me as a as a young kid.
I was very lucky to grow up with them as in Why didn't the mice come out then?
I didn't want to say financial aids because it wasn't a financial aid.
Stop saying aids.
Please stop saying aids, yeah.
Let's think about it Support.
I that my parents.
I was very lucky to have my parents.
They supported me in very many, in many ways, but I think the biggest support I ever got from them was just like do what you want.
Yeah.
And do what you love, and I think that's how well.
No, i don't think I know.
That is how I have got to where I am now, because I had, i was very lucky to have the support of them And it wasn't anything to do with.
Well, obviously the private school part was partly financial.
But you know, my every, every travel that I've done that hasn't been related to a family holiday I paid for personally.
And you know, from acting I was very, you know.
Again, obviously I was very lucky to go to acting school.
So there's many ways that we combine the common.
You know, of the support of my parents and myself.
But you know, acting allowed me to also fund a lot of the start of my career.
You know, i did a trip to Madagascar, which is one thing off that, and then I did a whole like three courses of a year of travel through my acting funding And then and then from that on, then on, it was all photography basically.
So amazing.
So how?
how did the acting become photography?
So I mean the acting was was relatively short lived in my younger years.
It was one of those things where I wish I'd carried on, but I probably wasn't quite good enough, and and also like it's one of those things where, unless you're so good and you can 100% see the future or the people around you or your agents or whatever, can see the future in that.
you've got to.
you've got to make a decision, and I was, i guess, lucky also to have people around me that that, despite supporting what I wanted, knew that maybe education was maybe the better option for me at that stage.
Who knows, i might have become Spider-Man if I'd carried on, but which would have been cool, but I think it was great to carry on.
So I ended up stopping acting for GCSEs and then, and then A levels later on, so that's 16, 15, 15, 15, 15.
Yeah.
So I stopped acting when I was like 14 or something, so it was a short lived life, but at that age it felt like forever.
And then when I was at school, i got into photography and then when I left school, i decided to a gap year, worked for six months in Wagamama in the UK, which is a like Pan Asian restaurant.
It's a really great place.
I love it.
It was great to work there and also amazing for certain skills that I've used to this day, like I don't know, speaking to people randomly on the street, i think is like a sounds random.
It's your menu, sir.
Exactly, yeah, you know, not even working there, just randomly saying that.
But but no, that kind of stuff like being able to sell yourself and also sell other people's things or other products, or social skills right.
That stuff is so important And I would and it's the same with Mike, who you've had on the podcast as well, mike, mike Will.
He worked at Jamie's Italian in the UK, which is another Italian restaurant, as you can tell, and he also swears by it's.
It's that thing I feel like you know, we massively appreciated, and and that six month period ended up allowing me to including the acting money, travel for about nine, 10 months And I was planning on going to university study geography, because I didn't really know what I wanted to do And geography was kind of the only thing that I had the option to do.
It was either music or geography, and then I just I got a job with spec savers.
That's how it all began, basically, and the spec savers job, i think, said to my parents like this is actually a genuine opportunity, maybe we should.
You got a photography job with spec savers.
Yeah.
So I didn't work at spec savers.
No, no, no, no.
So I was.
I was taking photos for about two years before I started traveling.
This is in.
this was I went traveling in 2016, 2017.
And the start of 2017, i got a job with spec savers And they asked me to take photos of their glasses on people Obviously what you wouldn't put it on dogs.
Well, I guess you could, and I asked if I could take them around the world.
And so I did And I took the their glasses.
I think I had like 150 pairs of glasses around the world And that funded the next two years of my career.
And then I've got other jobs from that and posted on social media for ages.
What is the the why behind what you do and how it started?
Yeah, that's a.
that's a big question.
I think I love travel and I was inspired by my mom for that.
My mom traveled a lot when she was younger.
She she's been all over the place and it wasn't until recently that I, like, overtook her and companies travel to, companies, countries traveled to.
She was in the Soviet Union before the iron wall fell.
She was in China during a very interesting period in history that I can't remember And every time I get asked this question I wish I knew what it was.
So I'm going to find out next time.
But you know, she's got pictures of herself and a street in China with like 100 men standing around her, all being like whoa this is a white, blonde woman.
It's like crazy, this is crazy.
I remember just looking at all these photos as a kid and her telling the stories of her experiences and just being like whoa.
you know, i would do not want to be here.
I don't want to be here in London because I've seen it and I've experienced it.
I want to experience the rest of the world.
And so when I had the opportunities to travel by myself and meet new people and experience new cultures and different food and and all of that that what makes travel so special I just got hooked and and I fell in love with well, i ended up falling in love, i guess, with the art of photography, but that was mainly the photography was the vessel to allow me to travel.
So that was like the main reason why I began was just because I just love to travel and I love to meet people and engage with new things and experiences and all that stuff.
So travel first, photography second, exactly.
So I would probably honestly, I'd probably drop photography as a career if I could just travel and get paid for it.
What's your favorite country?
Again or city?
Super difficult location answer.
Sorry question, but the answer Madagascar is really cool.
I think Japan is is like pretty up there, Just because of how diverse everything is.
There it's, you know, you can find tropical waters and beautiful white sand and blue waters.
down south You can go to amazing mountains.
Up north to go skiing, You can see some of the most awesome and well known mountains in the world.
I'm Mount Fuji.
The culture there, the history there is just amazing.
But food is outrageous.
I'm like massively driven by my, my palate I was going to say my mouth.
That sounds weird.
I'm saying all weird stuff in this talk.
Maybe it's the beer talking, But I love food, I'm obsessed with it And I find I find it fascinating how food can like tell you about a place.
And so Japan is really up there.
Madagascar is really cool.
There are so many cool places.
How about you?
Japan's up there for me as well, fortunate that I've been there quite a bit.
Yeah, i couldn't answer that question.
Really, indonesia, you know there's a reason why I'm living here.
Yeah, i'd say that with Bali at the moment is obviously pretty busy and there's a lot of tourists here.
You know, living a life here is very different than visiting like it is anywhere, but especially here because it's such a tourist destination, finding that community here and making, just settling down, having normal things in life, friends, you know places to go and a routine.
It's like you know you live in a villa.
that's usually a holiday villa for a week or two at a time.
And it's just.
You know, things aren't necessarily built for long term use.
They're built for short term use.
So it's just yeah, it's a very different place.
I love this country so much because the diversity is probably the most extreme I've come across in my travels.
There's plenty of African countries that are just.
I mean there's just.
There are so many places that I would go back to in a heartbeat just to spend.
I wish I could most places go to.
You know, you just touch the surface, you barely touch the surface, right.
That's the visiting.
That is what you don't really get ingrained in the culture.
You don't really understand everything.
Everyone knows you're a tourist, so you get treated differently.
It's like no you know it's, it's.
I think the what I think is so important about travel and honestly, i was, i think I've been very lucky to have travel as a, as a further education.
You know, i was very lucky to obviously study and get my GCSEs and A levels, which I guess your high school form of education, but I didn't go to university So I didn't have the opportunity to to, i guess, further myself in that sense.
But I was very lucky to, to experience the world And I it kind of sounds weird but I guess I went to kind of like the university of of the world and got to meet so many people from different walks of life and from different backgrounds and, you know, hear their stories and hear their travels and what joys they have in their place or or or living in a new place for just like us right now, and the interaction between different cultures and and just just a fascination and love for the world.
And I think I think everyone I hope sorry And I would encourage anyone that has the opportunity to travel to travel.
I think it's obviously, you know, very privileged to be able to say that I can travel.
But you know, if you can, you have the opportunity at any point in your life, please go and travel.
It's amazing to be able to experience the world and and connect with it.
I would add on to that There's a way of traveling, you know go into the south of Spain for for a week.
That's a really good point.
All inclusive hotel is not necessarily.
you know that sounds really kind of snobby to say, but it's true.
It isn't the same, you don't you know, you, the what I meant by the education side of things is, yeah, you're not going to get that breadth of knowledge and understanding and connection if you're in a resort in yeah, south of Spain, which is amazing, don't get me wrong.
It's an amazing experience and really nice to chill out and have a good time.
But, yeah, the kind of travel that I'm talking about is is maybe going by yourself or with a select group of friends or friend and really diving in and, you know, meeting random people and maybe having dinner with a random woman on the street that invites you into that her house and has amazing food cooking and you end up having these.
you know you look weird and you end up having the most unbelievable conversations and, if you can, and even if you can't actually communicate through a language, you can use things like Google translate nowadays, which, despite not giving you the exact translation, allows you to still have very basic forms of conversation that ends up giving you what you need and just makes you realize that, like, we all have the same emotions, and I think emotion is what drives us all, and I think that's what makes interacting with every different person from around the world so special and that's what I've loved about it.
You know you, still, it doesn't matter where you are.
if, obviously, the person that is inviting you into their home is a very friendly, like person, not a serial killer, there's always a very similar reaction of like joy of you know, are you like my food?
or, oh, you know, you like the place that I live.
that's so cool.
Why do you like it?
You know that interaction is so special and you know you probably can get it just walking down the street at home, wherever your home might be, but it's different getting it in a new place from a different person that maybe speaks a different language or brought up in a different culture, so you know photography it gives you a medium to access that world.
If you're walking, you know you can still do it, obviously without photography, but for me it allows it's kind of an icebreaker, you know, to say that you're here to take photos or you have a camera or something.
It's kind of a connection that you can both.
Then you or whoever you're with, can start a conversation from or have an interest with, and then you're off right.
Yeah, and that's what I meant by photography as a vessel.
I think photography is a very special thing and obviously, as an art form, just as it is, is really cool.
I think no matter who you are as a photographer, it's in some way a a vessel or an opportunity for you to tell some form of story and like in your photography, for example, like all the beautiful photos you have on up on the wall.
You know you might just look at one portrait you've taken and go that's really cool and then walk on, but the reality is, behind these portraits there are stories of people that have grown up in a different place to you and had a completely different life to you, and that's what makes photography special, is like it.
It's, you know, that camera and that that thing in between you and the person or the landscape or the thing that you're taking a photo of Is just a piece of metal or plastic.
It's not really important but that.
But it allows you, it connects us, that that like point in between two very special things that allow for you to then share Something beautiful to your audience or the rest of the world.
So Secrets for success.
Define success for me define success yeah, what is?
success look like in your eyes?
Is it really hard one?
because I think, i think we all answer it differently and all answer it in ways that might, please, are, are in a thoughts.
I think the reality is the different types of success I think you've got.
you've got success in a career and in like finance.
so you know That's.
you know success I guess would be financial stability in that sense and and also stability in your job.
but that in a way comes from financial stability because if you, if you financially stable, then you can kind of do whatever you want, depending on where your financial stability comes from.
but then at the end of the day, like I think success in the real Genuine, what it feels like in the heart side of things, is happiness and love and Connection, that kind of thing like if you that success.
so there's so many different ways looking at it.
I think It really depends on where you are in life and what you're doing.
so I think often financial and career success is is what a lot of people focus on in the Kind of coming out of school to 40s, 50s age range and then, as you start to get to the point not everyone, obviously, but some people get to the point where they Have made a good career and lucky enough to have potential financial stability.
at that point They start to think about other things.
or when it gets to the point where they've they've got to the point in their life where They know that they're going to have consistent job, or, again, not everyone has consistent job, so it's really dependent is hard to say what is the?
To me, it's simple yeah, when, when you say, or if you do now, or maybe you're looking through it in the future, go again now I'm successful.
is that?
what does that look like to?
you, i guess it's all is all kind of about.
It was partly about comfort, like the, the concept of eventually at some point.
You know, i always I've always had like, yeah, as I got older I always had different, what's the word?
goal points, i guess you could say, or goal posts throughout my life.
And when I was, i think, 17, 1617, i was like, oh, by the time I'm 20 I'm going to make my first million.
And it's like That's not happened.
And you know, by the time I'm 25, maybe that will be then.
Or maybe by the time I'm 30 I have like a really successful career and I'll be financially stable and I can retire, and I'm not 30 yet.
So who knows, maybe that will happen.
But it's one of those things where I feel like you will always have some form of goal and goal post.
But I think The reality is that is it?
well, not the reality it.
I think it's important to just find balance and happiness in what you're doing And it answers specifically to your question.
The dream for me would be to eventually get financially stable enough through, for example, making a really really good amount of money from Why do professionally to be able to invest in things like property and be able to Outsource the work of that, so have like a property company, manage my properties and have a consistent income coming in from that, but be able to then do anything off the money that I make from it.
That's like an ideal situation because, you know, i love work and what I do and I'm really happy to be able to do it.
And I probably would do this even if I didn't make money from it or was paid Just from money falling from the sky, because I still enjoy creativity.
But but I do love the idea of just doing it because I want to, rather than going, rather than going off, i've got to make a paycheck here, or That's true freedom exactly be able to do whatever you want and not worry about having to do it because Exactly so I think for me, like the concept I guess the concept of freedom in that sense would be would be magical time freedom, money freedom, emotional freedom, yeah, yeah, in the photography space specifically, what have you achieved, maybe recently?
I mean, i immediately think of light room ambassadorship.
Is that Something that you would put in that kind of success pot go?
yeah, you know, i've kind of got an element of success for me.
Hey look, if I was sat across from my fifteen year old self, like kind of like, as I was starting out in the photography space and said that, yeah, hundred percent, like that would be, that would be one of those goalposts, that like thousand percent, like dreaming of being an ambassador for light room, the thing that I have.
You know that was so the way the light room ambassadorship program works.
You do have to pitch for it, doesn't even matter if they come to you and say we want you.
None of the light room ambassadors are just given an ambassador.
She's still a part of a select pool of people who are offered to To audition.
I guess you could say yeah, and within that audition or within that kind of piece that I created for it, i said and I think a lot of people who are probably going for it had a similar concept is I've been using light room more than anything I've ever used.
I mean Instagram, probably.
I use a time because it's so gripping and like it, use it all the time and use even things like that, but ignoring social media and as something as like an actual tool for You know my creativity, like you might look at a piano or a guitar for a musician.
I use it every single day for hours on end for the last eleven years and the num, the hours that add up to that is just unbelievable.
So being a, an advocate and a person that speaks for that, that Platform and the thing that has allowed me to do I do, is super exciting and, yes, in a, in a sense, is a massive success.
But right now I guess it's a different thing is I'm right there in it.
So It feels when you're in it kind of just feels like, oh, yeah, on to the next.
But yeah, if I was looking at it from from back back then I'd be like, yeah, can you tell us anything about Lightroom that we don't know like future developments is that?
are you privy?
no, i am, but.
I I can't talk about About anything coming.
There's some.
There is one thing actually feeling after I got You know about last night that's super cool and it is it's.
They're very quick, so I don't know when this podcast gonna come out, what it is.
Yeah, yes, about it, actually that it's gonna take how long it's gonna take the edit.
Yeah, that's true, but yeah, even if it does come out, but It'll be out within like a month, so that they're very quick turn around.
But we're talking an update here or a new product update, update, okay, yeah, yeah, where, where, where do you see light rooms, a tool in the future?
what with AI?
I mean already.
It obviously already utilizes AI.
Yes, but with The expanse and the speed at which AI is now moving where, where did like editing tools fit into that?
may I?
AI is Petrifying, but so cool.
yeah is on those things where, like, you hear all of those headlines where it's like I don't know whether they're taken out of context or they're actually legit, like other, the creators of AI, like I've made a really big mistake and you know, you read that and you're like Jesus, this is a bit, this is scary.
But then you think of all the possibilities, like, hey, i is awesome.
You know, i think of the other day I was speaking to Mike about it while we were sitting there.
Mike is a friend I live with an awesome credit, incredible creative that hopefully will be on the podcast at some point.
You should be Mike if you're listening.
Mike, what's his last name?
great, not visuals, no, it's not great.
Great, michael Gray.
Yeah what a name is a brilliant name.
Yeah, brilliant stage name.
Nothing like Luke Jackson.
We were sitting there working together and I had this big to do list.
I was like 15 points long or something up, do you?
exactly make the bed 13 of things like that and then to actual, genuine things, and I remember being like a lot of this is like just grant work, like reply to emails or, i know, writing up Something or creating a story from photos or editing, or or like finding selects for photos or selects for videos and all these things.
That On what we are as creatives, that's not what we love, what we do funny enough, that's actually what we will most people dislike.
Yeah, and You know, we didn't pick up a camera to go through thousands of photos or hundreds of clips to be able to create a video.
Obviously it's part of the job, but the beauty of something like I is one day we can have a laptop in front of us and and have I'm not gonna say the word, but the assistant that you have on a laptop or phone and and you can call it whatever you want.
Let's call it Matilda, jake or me And and it's an AI, which Matilda isn't.
Yeah, i swear, it's just a person.
I said And I think that you can literally be like okay, today I need this video sorted into clips.
I need these photos.
The selects found the best ones.
I need this email written.
I need.
I need emails written to this company, this company, this company, this company all unique And you know, eventually, hopefully, you don't even need to have to look at them or like check them.
I can just do it for you.
And, and even taking it further, go.
You know is similar to how the like mid journey works with photos, where you can go, hey, create me an image based on Picasso or something You can do a similar thing but for yourself, and go, okay, use the selects that you've created Now to to create a video structure or draft in that Luke Jackson Clarks or watch Luke's Way or watch Luke's style, in a similar way to how editing photos.
I see it slightly differently, but if you're doing something like I don't, documentary style, travel vlogs or Just travel vlogs and things that aren't specifically inherently creative, like a film or a short film or or a travel cinematic, i think that grunt work 100% can be done by AI, because there are, you know, there are so many creatives out there the Trailing through tons and tons of videos just to create, you know, a 10 minute vlog of a place that they've just been.
That doesn't specifically, you know, is is creatively beautiful in the way it's put together, but their personality or the interactions that are having with the people they're interacting with in the location are amazing and that's what special.
And having to spend hours, if not days, trawling through videos and creating something out of that yourself, i think is just Almost pointless when there's the potential that hopefully I can do it for you in the future, and I think that's awesome.
I really excited to be the concept that I can have a virtual assistant and I don't care how much work I'm obviously I care about but it's the kind of thing like if I'm spending I don't know To have an assistant that does all of that for me, the amount of time that I'd save and it is obviously Relative and it can scale dependent on how big you are.
Let's say your Beyonce, for example.
I don't really know if it works in the same sense, but you know, if she has an AI, she might.
You know the concept of spending millions a month for it would probably be genuinely viable to her because it would save so much time.
So it's one of those things that I'm so excited about seeing where it could go.
I'm very excited to and it is a little bit of trepidation, but the more I understand how it works and more understand what's possible, and the more I know now that That art necessarily won't be affected it will.
It will.
It will be different and I'm, you know, true artistry and and Artisans of of a craft.
Take photography, for example.
They will, if anything, become more valuable.
Right, photography with real people, by real people, exactly, will be more valuable because it'll be more rare.
You know you sharing the market now with AI image generation, let's say but yeah, the The efficiency gains that we will have as humans.
That is both the can go one way, weird as you can you can become now probably the most productive me even more productive than you were three months ago, one year ago, and so on and so forth yeah.
I'll keep going, or You could become more lazy.
you know you don't have to go and maybe be as Intelligent.
you have to go and find out knowledge for yourself you don't have to mess, necessarily experience things the way yeah it's really difficult, but that depends on the person, right?
if you are a person's like no, this is the way that we probably see have an attitude towards oh no, this is, this is creating more opportunities, or more time for me to go, and, yeah, be better at something or do something new or do more, do just get more content on your new project and it's going to free up so much time yes, all dependent on how, how you're going to use it, and I do think there's there's elements that You could look at and say that it's gonna make me more lazy.
For sure, if, if, if you see being Productive as trawling through footage for two days, then sure I am going to be the laziest person when AI comes out, because I'm going to 100% allow AI to do that for me if it can.
But I don't really see that as productivity.
Really, i see the really special stuff in the breakthroughs that we have as just the crazy ideas that we think of.
I don't know where this photo came from, i don't know if you can show it on the podcast, but like the moment where you thought about taking a photo, this amazing moment of the girl in green, that thought of going and visiting, that's what makes it special, and I'm sure AI can create like, hey, ai create cool photo concepts for me around the world.
It can do that, but I think the creative spin and the excitement that comes from an actual human doing it you can never get from an AI actually creating it for you.
No, and I think it's like any change that comes along right, the human nature is to resist Like oh, you know what is this, for I think the only thing I'm a little bit anxious about is the speed at which it's going and the unknown, and not just.
I think generally speaking, it's good for photography.
It's good for the art world because for so many reasons, and I think this whole topic needs its own podcast.
It really does.
I think for other things outside of the photography space.
You just like trying to understand it, as like trying to understand cryptocurrency as a five year old.
Where does?
it fit into government regulations and legal aspects and data protection and all this kind of stuff.
So well, Hopefully.
I think that's the concern with when Elon Musk comes out with, like you know, there should be a balance on AI for six months Because even the most intelligent people in the world are seeing like, okay, we're not on top of this at the moment.
It's growing faster than we can control.
So yeah, I think that's understandable.
People are a little bit scared about that, But yeah in this space right now.
It's fucking cool when it's exciting.
I want to just use it more and more and play around with it more, even if you're talking about, like the grunt work, but even for things you might not think about, like I'm having a bit of a brain freeze.
Give me some ideas on what to talk to watch Luke about.
I can't see all these questions from you.
You're just speaking off of an earpiece.
Yeah, so there were two specific ways.
I use AI right this moment And I use it all the time at the moment is there's a new feature on my room that is officially out and everyone can use.
it is the AI D noise feature.
Have you used that?
Yeah?
Let's put topaz to bed.
It's awesome And I never use topaz, so I had it downloaded for years but never used it.
But yeah, it is brilliant And I've used it on, like some of my old Canon shots that have tons of noise, because not because it's Canon, of course I'm a Sony Shia But because it was just an old camera and I shot it in low light and probably just didn't know I was doing and there's a lot of color noise that ends up creating a lot of banding in the shadows.
And I put it through the AI on Lightroom the other day and it just removed it and made it clean and beautiful And it's super exciting that I can do that.
So that's one thing.
And then the other thing is chat, gpt, and I use that for emails all the time.
Now is one of those things where you know before, literally a few weeks ago, i would most of the work that I get would just come in to me and I'd accept those or say no to them, and I very rarely reach out to clients.
But now, because of AI, i have the opportunity to cut out such a massive section of that part of my workflow which is writing the email and creating something really special that captures someone.
And what I can do now is say to chat GPT, please create an amazing pitch email that's short and punchy and has all these amazing words That's not how I put it in on chat.
You know what I mean To this brand, that is a and then explain the brand and then explain what I want to mention in bullet points, and then it creates this beautiful email.
That's way better than anything I could have made anyway And it just really really speeds up the workflow and does it really well.
And then I'll look at it and create the kind of the special, unique twist that I would put into an email myself and create that and add it in.
But most of the grunts, like basic email structure and all that jazz, is done by AI now, which I don't know.
Maybe that's sad, but I don't think so, because the whole I think the whole point of an initial email to a brand is just to get their attention.
How would the brand react if they knew that it was generated by chat, gpt and?
not Luke.
Jackson-Clark.
It's a really hard one, but it is.
Maybe they wouldn't reply, but the thing is is that it's like me expecting and it's nothing like it really, but it kind of is in a very like strong out way.
I don't know if that's a word.
Strong out, strong out making a word is imagining or hoping that Tim Cook would message me about working with Apple.
I'm never going to expect that, because he has thousands of people working for him and it's the same thing as having, like, an assistant, but AI is doing it for me And I'm actually sending the email.
So the reality is that it's still has your eyes on it.
It's the same thing.
Like I'm kind of writing it but AI is just creating it for me And it's just like having an assistant or a manager do it for me, but actually it's a lot more personal.
It just means that you know, i hope he actually the brand would go respect.
He's kind of he knows how to manage his time and therefore has more time to do the work that he needs to do.
that I'm paying it for.
I'm not paying him to write emails.
So tradition on this podcast, I know you know about it, but we will ask one question.
We'll get you to write a question for the next guest.
So the question we have for you, what is?
what is a pretty easy one, actually, and kind of answered it already.
But what is the most frequent question you get asked and what's the answer?
Probably like what.
What camera do you use?
Yeah, but but I'll answer that and then I'll give you another one.
I use a.
I use a few cameras.
I use the A7S3 for video.
I use the Sony sorry, sony A7S3 for video.
The Sony ZVE1 as well, which is a new camera they've just released, which is like an awesome, really small, compact video camera that has the same capabilities as the A7S3 and the FX3.
Unbelievable, massively recommend.
I recommend it to anyone that's looking to get into video.
It's like, i think, like $2,000 or something for the body, which I guess nowadays for cameras is actually not that bad.
And then I use the A7R3 for photos.
So that's my, that's my little thing of cameras.
The other question I get asked all the time is like how do you get into the industry and how do you make something of yourself as a photographer?
And I don't know whether I've asked that in the rest of the podcast.
We haven't really touched upon it, yeah, but I'll try and answer it quickly.
That was one thing, actually that I prepared for the podcast.
It was like three tips that I'd give to people, and the tips are quite similar.
Is pick up So if you haven't started, obviously, but it can work at any of these stages is pick up a camera and take a photo.
The next tip would be do that every day or as often as you possibly can, and then and then just continue on that and continually learn new things to increase the quality and the ease of how you do things.
And it's just, it's just taking a one step further each time, but being consistent.
You know turning up for yourself every single day And you know if to get more, you know encouragement to do it.
Turning up for the people that see your work And that is the most basic way to get into the industry is is just pick up a camera, take a photo, do it every day, get better And then, progressively, people will see what you do.
Obviously, post it online if you want to actually get people to see it.
And and that's how it works, i didn't get my first job from reaching out.
I got someone reaching out to me Wonderful.
Well, great tips.
Thanks for coming on, thanks for having me.
Thanks for being patient.
It's been awesome, it's been an absolute pleasure.
It's smooth.
This is you know.
Legend.