The Women in Front of & Behind The Camera, with Caragh Fraser, E016

In this episode, I had a long and meaningful conversation with Cara Fraser.
Cara is a multi-talented creative, from photography, videography and creative direction to modeling and social media management.
She's a one-stop-shock to get a brand's creative needs fulfilled.
We discussed everything from photography to mental health, music, altruism and using the artistic vision to make an impact on the greater good outside of the self.
Cara had such positive energy when we sat down together and is an absolutely awesome woman who was inspiring to chat to, so I hope you feel the same.
Enjoy.
What is your last name?
It is Fraser.
Creative.
Fraser yeah, cara Creative, I was looking at you on Instagram the other day and there's no website on there.
It's also because it's under construction.
I found it, though.
It looks great you found it?
Yeah, it's.
Googled.
Okay, fine, I googled Cara Creative photographer, I think.
Yeah, I think right now it's only like a placeholder right.
It's been that way for like 18 hours.
I need to sort it out.
I didn't.
I think I was looking for more about information.
Oh yeah, well, that would make sense, wouldn't it?
I am working so hard on it.
Now I've done like 36 pages of the website.
I've got one more to go.
What are those 36 pages?
They all post this, it's just all client pages.
Yeah, so the last page is all my motion stuff and I'm not looking forward to embedding all those files.
I'm just scared.
What do you mean?
Your motion stuff as in videos?
Video yeah.
Okay, so you do do more videos than photos.
No more photos than videos for sure.
Why, Like?
My honest answer is probably just because I'm not that good at video.
I know that feeling.
I like to do things I'm good at, honestly, but like I really want to get better at video actually, I really, really would love to get better at it.
I think it's an incredible medium.
You just have so many more elements that you do than you do with photos.
But there's also I have such a love of photography.
I love that it's just this snapshot in time that just feels so everlasting.
We all kind of remember, like for a strange example, but like one of the most memorable photos in the world is the girl from the Vietnam War.
Everyone knows the photo.
I've seen so many countless videos, but that one photo just made such an impact.
I just love the way that it.
On you.
Yeah, I think on most people just yeah, just by the way, that we remember one photo but we don't remember any one video.
You know, I just think it's amazing.
Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it.
I totally agree.
They're timeless, right yeah, whereas video actually has time built into it.
Yeah, quite literally.
Yeah, I think it's a really special.
Yeah, I'm exactly the same video I was finding myself going.
Yeah, I wish I was much better video but it's also I'm pretty lazy.
It's a lot more work.
I've spent years trying to hone the photography craft and still not where I want to be.
I can't imagine how long it takes for me to be good at video.
Another lifetime.
I'll do it in the next one, in the next run that my soul's got.
I'll be a videographer, but you still doing it.
Are you doing it for clients or are you doing it just for personal?
Yeah, I do it more so for clients than I do personally.
Actually, I'm not very good at documenting my personal life, because when your job is a camera, you know I'm sure a lot of us are kind of the same I just want to be in the moment.
I just I don't want to see it through a lens.
But you do a lot of photos with you in front of the lens as well.
I do that sometimes, and is that?
who do you?
Is that I'm a?
Presumed they're not self made photographs, or is someone behind the camera?
A lot of the time it is self-made.
Yeah, I've done.
I've done a lot of self portraits.
Recently I've just been in front of the camera a lot more, which is quite strange for me Like a photographer.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know why you seem pretty good at it.
Thank you.
I had on my notes model or photographer.
I'm so flattered that you have to ask.
I just really enjoy the whole, like the whole process and the whole kind of artwork of it, and I think I don't really think I have too much of a model look.
I think I just sort of got a little bit of experience at doing it.
Modeling is also a skill just as much as it is as it is a look, I suppose.
So I think, as a photographer who started out as a model in my teens, I mean, look, I was never professional.
I had a couple of contracts, but it wasn't like you know, I wasn't well look.
One of them.
I didn't sign.
I was like I'm 22.
I've had enough of this.
I'm not working for free anymore.
I've got bills to pay.
But yeah, I think it really has helped me be a better photographer.
You know, knowing what models kind of are feeling in front of the lens, what they need, you know that familiar sort of panic when you don't know what else to do in front of a camera, the, you know the photographer is still snapping away.
So I think it's actually been a great skill to have as a photographer.
Strangely enough, even though I've loved being in front of the camera, it's not it's not my strongest suit, for sure, you know well yeah okay.
In your eyes, I guess but what do you?
What do you get most feedback from your?
Your self portraits or your portraits of others, or your more artistic photos?
I think, oh, that's a good question, because your engage.
Your engagement on, let's say, instagram is fantastic, right, isn't it?
Yeah.
I see a lot of all the time you know people engaging with you, commenting feedback, questions, which is amazing.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, I'm really, I really feel like I've built such a great online community, which is really nice it's it's not big but, it's, but you know it's not, it's not all that big, but I feel like it's so quality of a quantity, you know like I really just feel so grateful for even the fact that anyone views my art and wants to follow me and wants to read my captions.
I'm like wow, you know, like this is, this was, this was a me as a 13 year old with a dream, and now people are responding to it and that just feels like such a blessing, you know, in itself.
So 13 years old.
So just what a few years ago you had.
We're not going to give away your age.
You had a dream of being photographer at 13.
Yeah, that was the first business that I made, actually when, I was 13.
It was greeting cards with my photography.
Oh cool.
So tell us the path where it's, tell us the path from 13 years onwards.
Oh Lord, well, luckily.
In the last 60 seconds.
Well, yeah so.
So when I was 13, I just sort of I've always kind of gravitated towards a camera and then my dad shout out dad, he, he got me my first little camera at 13 and I would just wander around parks and take photos of flowers and Christmas decorations and anything.
Honestly, it was like every day that's all I wanted to do.
I remember this one portrait that I took and I was like this is the greatest portrait in the entire world.
And it was a selfie with my iPhone.
It was like no, weirdly it was like a wee Nikon.
I'm embarrassed to say that my Nikon was my first camera.
Such a cat and girl, you don't offend all the Nikon good.
No, but it was like the sun was sort of low and I like put my hand up, so there was like a sun shadow through my face.
My eyes were peeking through and I was like art Picasso, who I'm?
I'm here now baby.
Yeah, exactly, I was like wonderful, but my mom, she works in print.
So then she, she was like Cara, we should just make a business with this.
And we called it cards by Kari, because that's what my mom calls me and we just sold to all the little old ladies in my neighborhood Awesome, I was booming business, was it was great?
No, but really it was.
It was sort of my first taste of entrepreneurship and and sort of seeing that my art was was wanted, you know.
So that was really special.
And then I sort of carried on.
I studied photography in high school.
Okay, it wasn't much of a study, though A lot of.
It was more like we're going to take whatever photos and we're going to paint on the photos.
It was very strange.
I don't know what happened, was this?
a special needs school.
Honestly, yeah, it was New Zealand, so probably it was a public school in New Zealand.
So, yeah, same thing, no, but but this, this one high school teacher.
She was like Cara, look, you're not getting great grades in this class, you're way better at business and science.
I do that like give up on your photography.
And I was like, but photography is my dream.
And she called it a pipe dream.
And so I used to have this photography, instagram and I called it pipe dream visuals, just to be good, feel like shame, just a rebel.
Yeah, yeah, I was like ha ha, look at me now.
For my 80 followers.
Yeah, yeah, I'm killing it.
No, but yeah, and then and then.
From there I did give it up.
I went to university.
No.
I did a double degree.
I was studying marketing and entrepreneurship and, jesus yeah, marine science and ecology and wait.
So double degree means what?
Two degrees at the same time.
Yeah, so so I was doing two degrees at the same time, so it was science and commerce and it would have taken me about four and a half years to finish, Dropped out after two years Because I remember sitting in a marine science lecture and really that's why I wanted to be there.
I knew I would always get into business regardless.
But the science stuff I was like, yeah, you know, this is going to be what it is.
I remember sitting in in this one coral bleaching lecture and this, this professor, he refused to admit that it was climate change.
Right.
And I I was the class rep for, so I represented the whole student body and I remember just putting my hand up and being like what are you talking about fireworms?
For, like, fireworms might be 1% of coral bleaching Nope, what the hell.
Explain what fireworms are.
They're essentially these like oh God, if I can remember.
Essentially they're the literally just these ocean worms that are said to eat the zoo's and thally that are in the.
If I get this right, if I get this wrong, please roast me in the comments.
But I think that they eat the zoo's and thally that are in the coral, because coral is actually an animal which is amazing that I knew.
I don't know what a zoo's and thally is, though.
That's the animal, and then they've got this calcium carbonate skeleton that actually forms.
So when the coral bleaches, that carbon calc, that calcium carbonate exoskeleton is what is left behind, but the animal is actually what's died, which is quite amazing.
So, yeah, anyway, long story short.
Fireworms are not driving mass bleaching events.
And I was over the fact that he was talking about it like that, and so I actually just had a go at it in the middle of a lecture.
I was like, what are you talking about?
Like, if anybody's going to try to reverse these things, it's the people sitting in this room, and if you won't even tell us the truth of this, I think that you are out of your mind.
Who else is going to do anything about this, but marine scientists, you know?
So from that point on, I was all.
I was already sort of one foot out of university and I was working for Lamborghini at the time.
They had a marketing job lined up for me.
I could have just gone full corporate route, you know.
And then I met a boy, love at the bottom of all of this.
And honestly, this man, he was such a guardian angel for me.
He was incredible.
He was a videographer and we did.
We did a job for a local airline together.
He asked me to take some photos.
The CEO loved it.
He was like, carl, why don't we just do this instead of your like waitressing and like Lambo jobs?
And I was like, yeah, you know, like that actually sounds amazing.
And we started doing it, ended up starting a production company.
It started taking off, and then he wakes up from a nap one day, like three months later and was like we've got to move to Bali.
And I was like, okay, and that was four years ago.
So, yeah, he really was like a wee guardian angel for me, because otherwise I don't think I would have had the confidence to make the leap to photography or to come here.
I was very like straight and narrow and very masculine and very sort of like analytical and it just wasn't serving me.
So so yeah, that's sort of the story of how I became a photographer.
And he's still with him now?
No, unfortunately, but he left his legacy on you.
He did.
He was just a beautiful chapter of my life that I'm so grateful for, and he's got a great new girlfriend now and they just seem super happy.
So I'm super happy for him, which is lovely.
So it sounds like you you've kind of battled, more of an analytical, scientific brain with an artistic one, and somewhere in the middle there is is a business mentality that entrepreneurship must, or the skills that you must have learned and got from that must really benefit the photography.
And.
I guess vice versa.
And how is how is that?
I mean, what has it been?
You said four years since you've been kind of working full time as a photographer?
I've never actually done it full time, but yeah, it's about four years since I've been doing it professionally.
Yeah.
Okay, so what else?
What other stuff do you do?
Cryptocurrency I'm a marketing manager marketing and creative director for crypto.
So this is taking a turn.
How do we all make lots of money from it?
Honestly, I know how we can't make money from photography.
Find a shit coin, put all your life savings in it and pray.
I'm kidding.
This is not financial advice.
Please don't take it, I'll be disclaimer now, just going on the bottom of the screen.
Yeah, yeah, I've never I've never really done it full time.
It was a little bit too seasonal for me.
I didn't like that.
I sort of had to I don't know pitch and hope and pray and and I I also just really enjoy having fun.
I really enjoy having multiple sources of income and the crypto stuff.
It was so.
It was so nice because it it meant that I could change things up, like sometimes I've just been in such a creative rut and I cannot, for the life of me, edit another photo.
I'm like this is going to kill me and I think if I was full time photography, I think I would burn out and probably hate it.
Yeah.
You know, it's always been such a soul passion.
I want to be able to make enough money that I can just do conservation jobs and tell stories that are meaningful and not have to want for investment on that.
So I guess that's sort of why I've I've divvied it up.
But yes, to answer your question, four years.
What company do you work for?
Crypto wise, crypto wise.
Now it's a company called Envision.
We haven't launched our project yet.
We do have a coin, but it's actually really cool.
It's sort of it's sort of the photography thing.
It's a stock media platform based on the blockchain, so we use NFT technology to write contracts in.
We can give creators 100% of the profits, loads and loads of other benefits.
You can obviously track your royalties a lot better.
All of these things.
You know.
It's a.
It's a transparent transaction, which is just amazing, and and I get to work with other photographers and really incredible photographers who I've always wanted to meet and connect with, which has just been amazing.
So it's like it's a nice balance.
So that's those stock images are.
So it's a stock image platform based on web three, essentially.
Essentially yeah, yeah, cause I mean a lot of us as photographers.
We would just like look.
Stock media industry is trash these days.
It's honestly so bad.
Creators get like 30 to 60% 60% of your lucky, of your sales and very often, like I've had some people sell stuff to Netflix and get like $80.
Like it's just madness.
You know the creators.
The industry has just driven away in you creators.
Nobody's really listing stock media anymore, but it used to be like I remember Peter McKinnon talking about it.
Oh yeah.
And I don't want to misquote him, but I think he said he made like 10 grand off like a leaf photo or something, and it used to be an incredible form of income for creators.
And now it's just not anymore.
The creators aren't, you know, put on pedestals and like they should be, because they're the backbone of the industry.
So we were like right, how can we change this and how can we actually do this where we can capitalize on an industry where, like you know, it's such a content world these days?
And yeah, how do you guarantee 100% of the profits that today created?
Well, when the buyers come in and they convert fiat currency to crypto, we take 2% of that conversion.
So it's nothing to do with the creator.
It's all the buyers, yeah, which is actually amazing.
I heard about the idea and I was like I'm jumping on that.
Yeah, I need to jump on that.
Yeah, it's amazing, it's so epic and the team's so chill, just like a bunch of guys out of Perth and me.
So you work remotely out of here for the company in Australia, yeah, which is amazing Interesting.
What is your view on the creator world these days?
I mean, I hear you saying that and I think, well, isn't it?
Because the whole industry is so saturated right now?
You know there's so many photographers, there's so many content creators, there's so many images.
It's quicker, easier, cheaper to make images these days.
Everyone's got a camera on their phone.
You know it's like photography.
You know the pessimistic kind of view of photography.
Is that right?
It's like, well, why?
I thought about years I've gone.
Oh, I should just put some stock images out there.
It doesn't cost me anything.
I've got to compete with millions of others and it just seems a dying sector, which probably just validated, but isn't that?
doesn't that represent basically?
A lot of the industry these days.
That it does, and I will say that the stock media industry is actually growing.
It's just that the buyers are benefiting so much more than the sellers are.
Suppliers higher than demand right.
There's more images and still the same.
Probably still the same level of buyers.
Yes, but it's a lot lower quality, so there's no real like.
There are only so many photos of women laughing at salads.
You know you can have, and I know we're all over it.
It's not that funny.
You know what I mean?
Oh, I'm over so many types of photos.
But you know there's a difficulty in that itself and it's interesting that you're deciding not quite deliberately deciding not to go full-time photography for your own personal reasons, but also probably I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it's very difficult to find true originality these days in photography.
Because, you see, take social media we can talk about social media for hours, but yeah.
You know how many times you've been on Instagram.
I've seen that.
Oh my God, it's a new photo, but I've seen it.
But you've seen it, haven't you Seen it?
I know this is the thing Same color grade same color grade, same pose, same place, same place.
I was just like ugh.
Yeah.
But that's the natural progression of everything.
Well, yes, you know, I'd love to get your opinion on this too, because I feel like your photography is so timeless and so like.
It just feels like like all your photos downstairs are like National Geographic in the office, nat Geo.
Thank you yeah.
Your stuff is amazing.
Yeah, absolutely you should.
I hope so, unless Nat Geo has some scandal I don't know about.
But let's pitch to Nat Geo please.
No, please put that on your agenda because you should.
But yeah, I think it's going to end up being really polarizing, you know, because a lot of us are creating for the algorithm now, which it just breaks my heart, like there are so many beautiful landscape photos that I'm sure all of us have I know that I have it it's never seen the light of day because it doesn't take up enough digital real estate, like what is going on.
You know, instagram used to be a photo-based platform for the creator.
Simple algorithm you just get seen.
There's no biases.
You don't grow 100,000 followers and then crash and burn like you do now.
It just it actually kind of riles me up because there's so many incredible creators that I know who's art deserves to be seen.
But by any means, no offense, but there are so many people who are just using trending sounds under a second clips.
Mash them all together.
Don't make the reels more than seven seconds.
Use text on the reels to make sure your watch time is good.
It's all created for the algorithm and I get it.
You know what I mean.
I'm tempted to create like that too, because you get brand deals and all of these things.
So I can totally understand why you would do it, but it's just killing the art form.
Like you know, for me I've got documentaries that I'd love to release.
They took away IGTV, yeah.
So I'm like cool, thanks, guys.
You know it does make me really sad, but that being said, you know, then you get creators who are so polarizing that they end up breaking out of the mold, which I think is an interesting phenomenon.
You know, for example I don't want to say friend more like I met him once and he's really lovely, lucas Bousset.
He went super super viral, him, and his girlfriend, ronja, went super viral recently because everybody was so obsessed with like the highest quality possible reels and then he came along with a black magic and a tiny little film camera and just started putting reels out and he was like the worst quality the better, the smaller the camera, the better, and he ended up just going off for that, you know, because people weren't seeing stuff like that anymore.
It's always crisp drone photos and rah, rah, rah, you know.
So I just honestly think the biggest takeaway from me is like it's a beast.
Social media is a bit of a beast and you just do what you love, try to get inspiration from life rather than the algorithm, and create what you want to create.
You know.
Love.
It couldn't agree more.
I think you can still do that within the parameters of the algorithm.
So you can.
It's just difficult and it takes a lot of willpower to stay true to yourself.
But I know people that have reached hundreds of thousands followers, if not millions, and they're like.
Well, like you know, I feel like a bit of a sell out sometimes, or I didn't create the legacy I wanted to create.
My good friend George.
Do you know, george?
You must know, george.
He.
We had this kind of discussion and you know he's sitting on 850,000 followers and has done for a couple of years through all the algorithm changes, and you know he said something really good that sticks with me and he's a firm believer in that the best will always rise to the top.
If you're good at what you do and that intrinsically shows passion, that you do what you want to do, because it's very difficult to sustain quality when it's something you don't really want to do or not really that bothered about, because at some point you're gonna tail off that quality.
You'll either burn out or just be the same same same, just the maths equation that you're fitting into a box every time.
So I totally agree with him on that.
But, exactly like you said you there's only one solution and that's do what you love and the true essence of that, the quality of it and the passion it always comes through, whether it takes a month or a few years, whatever that niche, that you're doing it.
So yeah, I totally agree with you.
I think Instagram is there's a lot of frustrations people have with it and I get that, but it's just another fucking piece of software.
You know, you get frustrated at Lightroom, get frustrated at your laptop, get frustrated at a coffee machine.
It's like it's just another piece of technology.
You either work with it or you don't, and you can still work with it.
I mean, I look at your account and it's wonderful, I love your stuff.
But what I and I mentioned earlier, what I like so much about your stuff, is you've got a loyal following.
Whether it's 50 people or 50,000 people, you know.
What only matters there is the status, is your ego.
So, if you push that aside, it doesn't matter.
If you've got 10,000 followers, I think you've got.
If you've got 10,000 people that are loyal to you and are really interested.
You know, I saw a story of yours a couple of weeks ago and he was gonna ask me anything kind of story.
Yeah, the engagement you get way more than I get, which is wonderful because people are invested in your you as an artist, not you, as you know, a content creator, right?
So they're not asking you questions to be featured on your account.
They're not asking you questions to get engagement back.
They're asking you questions because they're actually interested in you and that is priceless.
That is priceless and not many people can say that.
So yeah, yeah, absolutely, Absolutely.
I think you know and you said something before is like the only thing to do is what you love and, honestly, if it never happens, what's?
the worst case scenario, You've just done what you love for a while.
Amazing, you know?
Like that really just feels like the only way to do it, and you're also very right in the form of like it's just a piece of software.
Like yes, you could get more jobs from it, but the majority of people that I know with a huge following don't get their jobs from Instagram.
Yeah, what I was going to say, like that's it's one tool to get jobs.
Exactly, there's so many others.
Yeah, I know loads of guys that have really don't use Instagram at all but they have very successful careers as full-time photographers.
The problem with society these I'm not getting into more philosophical but it's.
We are run by social media, we are dictated to by social media, by an algorithm, by what we see by other people, by jealousy, envy, ego, all of the kind of negative traits that we innately can express as a human right.
I'm not judging anyone.
I have just as much of those battles as anyone else.
But giving into that all the time, it's only going to make things worse, right.
And like you, said, if you're only going to do things for views, for an audience, for yeah, don't get me wrong If you get a nice comment on your photo, it feels great.
But that's no different to you coming in here today saying your photo is amazing.
Like, I'd much rather that.
It's a real fucking human.
He's engaging with me and he's genuine, hopefully, about it right, it's even more.
I wish we could do that.
I was probably born 10, 20 years too late.
I mean, imagine, just getting out of there probably would have been more difficult.
Arguably maybe not.
But if your only outlet was galleries, exhibitions, you know gallery owners and all that pretension and all that kind of subtle fugue of that different world, but how amazing would that be Like walk into a gallery and there's all your stuff Like that's the dream, it's not a fucking Instagram grid?
Yeah, absolutely not.
And if I honestly, if I could swap careers with anyone, it would be Annie Leibwood.
Oh my God, she's, wonderful.
She is, it's so spectacular and just a whole story.
I mean like, also, like I'm just such a rock and roller, like I really to tour with the Rolling Stones.
Are you kidding, are you joking?
Like what you know, like the way that she started out and just, oh my God, I watched her masterclass.
I've got one of her books downstairs Cause obviously she's kind of a hero of mine as well just through portrait photography.
She's amazing and I love the way she taught.
Actually it was nothing technical.
Oh yeah, no, she was just wonderful, she's so funny.
But what I?
love the most is there was some BTS of her doing a shoot as part of the course and she literally rocked up.
Everything was set up, which is kind of cool, like you get to that level, like okay.
But I was like maybe I would still want a little bit of creation.
You know, not just coming, she literally came in you know, got a camera done five minutes later off Like fucking what queen.
Yeah, she genuinely.
I mean she's photography royalty especially for portrait photographers.
Like my God, I mean.
But I would agree with you as well.
I'd want a little bit more of like okay, yeah, let's try this, let's do this but she just shoots those big covers where it's like you know you're in hair and makeup and set design for like three days and then she rolls up, takes the photo in 10 minutes and you're like okay, oh, I'm out of here.
Then yeah, like, are you sure we don't want to capitalize on the set a little bit more?
She's like nah, we've got the cover, see you later, which is quite hilarious, but her older stuff.
I love it.
Yeah, yeah, her older stuff I just think is so, so, so incredible.
All those like one specific photo is so stuck in my mind of Keith Richards, passed out after a photo shoot.
You know the one.
And he's lying there like shirtless, like literally passed out.
She's just gone and snapped a photo, or that one where she's just wearing laundry and she's peered over a glass window with like loads of cocaine on it.
I don't know if we can say that, but no, we said meth.
We can say cocaine.
I don't know that.
Oh, I love it.
It's just, it's just like on tour with the Rolling Stones, because she had to go to rehab after that.
Did she, did she?
I didn't know that.
That's hilarious.
She got into drugs on tour with the Rolling Stones.
Like proper method, acting method, photography Meth.
The key word is meth, and that method act.
So we got to say meth, yeah.
So she was obviously one of your inspirations.
So when you started at the tender age of 13, was you know what did start it?
If you can remember back to that age, was it?
Did you see a photo, or did you see a photographer?
Or did you see a camera, Because I know your dad bought you one Was that literally the spark?
That was it.
No, I wished for one for years.
I promise you, now I was so young I can't even remember where it started.
I think it may have been something weird and subliminal, like I saw a really cool woman who I wanted to be in a movie, who was a photographer or something.
I think I also just loved.
I just no, it wasn't that.
It was like we had this tiny little point and shoot and my mom oh, maybe this is something I can grab onto, because it feels very ethereal, my love for photography, but it just feels like God was like here you go, but my mom used to get me those little, you know, those like Kodak disposable film cameras.
My sisters and I.
She used to get them and maybe my brothers too.
But Hello, the way you said hello.
Why do you say do you know those Kodak disposable?
Yes, my age.
That's all we fucking had.
That's how I started.
That was it.
You're like Kara, that's what I shoot on now.
I was going to tell you on family holidays.
That was the family camera, I mean same.
I don't know.
I don't know, you might be 84.
We don't know.
It might have been the original medium format, you know.
All right, I'm just kidding For those of you who are listening and not watching, he looks terrible for a second.
I don't know if you're kidding.
No, no, no.
So clearly you're quite familiar with the Kodak film cameras.
It's so funny because people say that to me.
They're like, because you're so young, like don't act like you're a millennial, like stop playing with me.
And I'm like I don't know what to tell you.
My parents were really old fashioned and we lived in New Zealand, so we got everything 10 years later, okay, but yeah, she got those for my sisters and I on holiday and the thrill of taking the photos and then getting them printed when we got back to Auckland and you know it was just, it was such a family bonding thing and I loved it so much and I just wanted to get creative.
You know, it was like it was just such a strange need that I can't really explain.
I was just, it was just like nobody, really nobody really taught me how to be a photographer.
Nobody really taught me about like I can't explain why I like certain composition.
It just fits yeah.
I find that and not to make this a sex kind of discussion, but sex as in male female gender.
Gender, that's the better word, that's perfect.
Yeah, I was like sorry what?
Yeah, that's not a real sex.
But I find female creatives and that's because they have a much more dominant left side of their brain than the men do.
They find it just so natural, more natural.
Obviously I'm generalizing massively, but they find it more natural to be creative.
And it's just this innate thing that they just go.
I don't know where it came from.
There's just let's do this and I'm just going.
Wait, do you have a?
Where do you write that down?
Do you ever check this for this?
They're like we're just gonna go with it.
I do find, and I find, like my photography mates and the guys I know in photography well, some find it easier than others, obviously, but a lot of guys have to just work a little bit harder, like, okay, we need to think this through a little bit more, or they know exactly where that photography thing came from.
It's because of this and this and this I do.
That doesn't surprise me.
They're just kind of fell into it, fell into your lap.
They're like okay, well that's cool.
Yeah, for sure, such a more romantic story yeah.
Yeah, I was like I don't know.
Yeah, well, that just found me yeah yeah, no, but I it's so interesting actually because we were sort of touching on it downstairs it's like there's so there's so many men in the industry and I think that's kind of part of the reason is that they can.
And now I'm generalizing as well.
But just in general, creativity is a feminine emotion.
Men and women have it, but it's quite a feminine emotion, you know, whereas that logic and that planning, that's a masculine energy and both men and women have it.
But I think, in my experience, women are a lot more prone to doing energy exchanges or working for free, because it's a cool job.
They find it a lot harder to speak up for what they're worth and yeah they're more agreeable.
More agreeable, as Jordan Peterson would say yeah, yeah.
We'll drop that in there, and I would say we get a lot more emotionally and now I'm also speaking for myself, obviously a lot more emotionally caught up in our work, whereas my male photographer friends are like I'm pitching to this company, this is the price I'm charging.
I don't, actually, I don't care.
I have to pay my bills too.
This is B2B, this isn't a negotiation.
I have a business and I respect that so much because I really struggle with that, like Finn who you've had on, he's been such a shining light for me with that.
He was the one who was like he helped me quote this really big client recently and I was like, no, but Finn, it's such a good opportunity, I don't know, and he was like Kara, I don't want to risk not getting it yeah exactly, kara.
I don't care how good of an opportunity it is, you have to travel and it's two days of your life, so yeah, it's just and I got it, which is great, which was amazing.
And I've done it, which feels really yeah, it went super well.
I know it was genuinely my like childhood dream.
That was a video which was just like don't know how to do video.
Oh my God, I know literally.
Do you have any?
idea, the stress.
The stress.
I called Finn.
Listen to me.
What settings what's like, you know, there's like that one golden rule.
How?
do I turn this fucking thing on?
I had like two microphones like lapel mics, I just, I was so stressed.
Oh audio.
Oh God, and it was outside while the sun was setting and I was like this is the end for me.
This is the end Was it in this part of the world.
Yeah, it was.
So the sun sets fucking quickly, oh my God, so fast, so we don't get it right, oh God.
I know, and then it's also.
The light is changing Like while you're.
You know what I mean, so fast.
Which is just fucked.
No, but also on that note.
Can I have?
Some more wine, please.
Can I have some more?
Yeah, sure, yeah, I saw that I was like no one picked up the little.
So thirsty.
Hello, I'm so.
I feel so hydrated now.
Amazing.
Yeah, the first video job I ever did was for L'Oreal Paris.
Jesus.
Can you believe?
it.
Do you have any idea.
I think that shot my adrenal glands for life.
I have never been so busy as I have been in the last two months.
So you're working what?
Monday to Friday's?
Or you just?
Every day for the last five years of my life.
Honestly, I don't think I've taken a day off and like, no, that's it.
Maybe I've taken a couple of days off.
We're not getting paid for this.
This is a day off.
Yeah, well, I work today.
Yeah, okay.
So luckily, yeah.
But I mean, that's just, that's the nature of things.
You know, like as much as I've loved doing a million things, I'm also kind of like I almost wish that I could just hone in on one thing.
What would that be?
Probably photography I kind of forget about it, though Sometimes, I don't know.
I just like, as, as we're sort of, you know, I'm like, oh, I'll start like an e-commerce business.
That's like my knee jerk reaction.
It's not like I'm a photographer, I should do that.
Is that because you're more comfortable in the business arena than you are in the photography arena?
Probably Also just because it's so saturated.
Yeah, like, do you know what I mean?
I'm like like when you're that almost desensitized to it because you're seeing the most incredible things you've ever seen every time you open up Instagram.
Yeah, it's fucking annoying, it's yeah, you're like okay cool, so it's all been done Awesome.
And I'm not as good as this.
Yeah, exactly, massive imposter syndrome.
Oh my God, imposter syndrome is such a thing.
I've had some incredible clients ask me to do things and I'm always there like, why no?
Internally, obviously, I'm saying that to the client.
Are you out of your mind?
Fucking, losing it?
What's wrong with you?
That would be hilarious.
They'd be like no, what do you mean?
You want me to pay more?
Yeah, yeah, listen, I feel like I should be paying you, okay just send me your invoice, because this is crazy.
Yeah, but you know, from an external standpoint, you know, I look at it and just go well, you're fucking crazy.
But everyone says that to me as well, you know you can't, absolutely it's very difficult to get away from that imposter syndrome.
It is Even more so when you open up Instagram.
And that's why I limit my.
I generally will go on Instagram to post and maybe hang around to, but as soon as I see a couple of photos, that's amazing, congrats, you know, be happy for them and then go and cry in the corner after I close Instagram.
Run a cold bath cry.
But then you know, to reframe that into more of an inspiration than a criticism of oneself is difficult.
But, it's.
Yeah, I mean that's social media.
I don't want to go back into that.
Yeah, ok true.
That's the algorithm, the potent and annoying algorithm.
Honestly, I'm so over it.
I'm like I'm this close to selling everything and moving to a cabin in the woods in Canada with a couple of ducks.
We talk about it most days.
That's so great.
Bring me with you, I'll be your child.
Well, no, because then it wouldn't be the silent piece that we Shit.
Yeah, that's true.
I do disturb the peace like my life depends on it.
You guys like good morning.
I'm like what's up?
Such great energy.
I needed that today.
I'm glad so you know.
On that note, actually this might be a good time to ask this question.
This is from our last guest, chris.
You know, chris.
Chris Glaze, chris Glaze, oh Chris, he's such a fucking legend.
I love that boy.
He'll be here tomorrow, I think.
Oh, really, in the shoot as well.
Oh, brilliant, I'll call the pressure.
And if you want to swap roles tomorrow, any time we could do that If you want to do some?
I would love to.
Ok, so bring your camera.
Yeah, absolutely.
I have this one male portrait that I'll show you that I want to rip.
Great, it's all a collaboration, so amazing.
Sick.
So he wrote if you had to choose, and he spelt choose C-H-O-O-Z-E, like Kiwi.
Is he OK?
Oh, I was like, is he dyslexic?
I think he.
I'm going to say the following one out there, he's not dyslexic, is he?
He has ADHD.
Oh look, don't we all?
Anyway, the second TikTok came out.
I had ADHD as well.
If you had to choose, what would you prefer?
To not exist in the world, photography or music.
Oh no, now you're pulling up my heart strings, so I have to choose one to get out of the world.
Yeah, to eliminate for everyone.
Myself.
I don't want to live without you, oh, the options, you know those two things Photography or music, shit.
I mean it's pretty easy.
Oh god, oh my god, no, I'm taking this so seriously.
You're getting too stressed about it.
I can see your heart rate rising.
I know, because I'm like, can you imagine?
Because I'm also.
I've also, just in case I didn't have enough on my plate I also was like really quite into music for a while.
Like I had a boutique record company in New Zealand offered me to sign with them and I was raised on music.
I don't go a day, yeah, singing guitar, piano.
I don't go a day without being obsessed with music.
There's nothing in my life that moves me more than music.
That's why it's an easy option.
Except probably photography.
No, photography is amazing.
Look, I love it, but I actually I would rather have music Then photography in your life.
Oh God, I mean yeah, probably would you choose the same thing For sure, Music is imagine life without music.
No, you can't, I don't want to imagine life without photography.
because you've got, you've got Because we have music, couldn't we?
So we just go to the digital art.
You can, you can.
You got right, you got drawing pain.
You got other visual arts.
I'd probably be.
I'd probably suddenly become a painter and a musician.
Just add that to your skill set, absolutely, I think.
But my God, yeah music.
Favorite artist.
Oh God, Also now I'm taking this so seriously.
You've got to choose one.
You've got to choose one artist that you keep and everyone else dies.
Led Zeppelin Led.
Zeppelin For sure.
Oh, wow, that's not an artist, it's a band.
But yeah come on.
Okay, I'll give it to you.
Okay, no, but yeah, robert Plung, then I mean, I've seen the man live.
He's outrageous, he's the best thing on the entire planet Interesting.
Either that or See a rocker roller.
Oh for sure I want to get one of the Led Zeppelin.
My next tattoo is a Led Zeppelin cover on my back.
It's like a back piece.
It's like one of the male angel, yeah, and you're like what it's on my forehead Led Zeppelin For ever.
Oh God, either I would say either Led Zeppelin or oh God.
If I had to choose like a singular artist oh my God, this is so hard.
Okay, tell me yours and I'll think about mine.
Have you had to pick a singular artist to listen?
That's a very good question I've never asked myself.
Well, you've just asked me my favorite band is Jamiroquai.
Is what now?
Jamiroquai, you don't know, jamiroquai.
What are you saying?
She loves that because she hates them.
They're the best band in the world.
If you know music and appreciate music, you're absolutely lovely.
So, go and listen to them later.
Artist, single artist.
Singular artist.
B.
Can't Probably Mozart.
Wow, well, I love classical music.
I like it.
One thing about living here in Bali is that we don't get to see it anymore.
We don't.
We used to go to orchestra, quite a lot, oh, my God, of course.
I'm pianist as well.
I'm a pianist.
So I was brought up on classical music.
But I don't think what music doesn't exist without those pioneers?
Oh my God, it's the birth of all music today.
He's got some bangers Like listen, really listen, to some classical music.
I'm actually going to get a tattoo of Mozart's cook.
You should do that.
I've got enough.
Get a violin string down the side of your face.
You'd like that.
You'd be all good.
So music, no photography.
So photography dies.
Yeah, photography dies.
Fuck photography, honestly.
What are we doing?
here, then I don't know.
I know I was like if I answer I want to keep music alive.
Everyone listening is like what?
Why are you guys not musicians?
Why do you think photography is in your blood?
What is it about photography that makes you get excited, satisfied, gives you shivers?
What do you think if you could?
You know you have to try and put a finger on it.
Oh, my God, so much, so much.
The, I would say.
One thing that sort of encompasses a lot of things is the way that you can get people to see the world through your eyes, which, like if you really think about it in every other, like in every other level of communication, you're just telling them about it, You're filtering it through their own biases and imaginations and all of these things, Like I could tell you about a shoot, but how much more powerful is it when I show you and this is how I see this person you can lift people up.
I've photographed a lot of mothers, for example, like freshly fresh mothers, Fresh like the kids of you know yeah.
Oh my God, I wish I could photograph a birth.
I think that would be amazing, but like a, you've never heard of this.
Oh, I'm sure it exists.
Oh my.
God, what a moment to photograph.
Yeah, Hell yeah.
I've got some of my girlfriends about this.
Are you guys going to have kids?
I feel like you need to get.
Okay, she's worse than me.
Ah well, you've got enough dogs.
No worse as in you, don't you?
You're so against having kids.
I like it.
I can't wait to be a mum.
But you probably be there down there photography.
This is the original selfie.
This is the photo I wanted.
That's a good point.
Okay, son or daughter's first ever selfie.
That's it.
Anyway yeah, sorry, what was the question?
I don't want to um oh, why I love photography.
Why is wrong with?
us Well wine.
I feel like I've had one glass.
I think this is just my personality.
You have had one glass.
Yeah, I think this is just your hand.
I can't even blame it on the wine yet, okay, okay.
So what I love about photography you did some yeah, you did some shoots with some others, with some young mothers who you know, obviously, when, and, and they were friends of mine, and this is just a very small example, and I have others.
But when you go from that maiden to mother transition, everything changes.
Their bodies are changing, the way they feel about themselves is changing.
Everything is different, you know, and for me to be able to photograph them in a way that makes them feel beautiful and inspired and makes them celebrate their body, and you know all the things that it's done to bring the miracle of life into the world, that was such a gift for me, absolutely.
And then you've also got the conservation things that I've, that I've done, and the medium of I mean really it comes back to a picture says a thousand words, doesn't it?
Like I could write you a whole list of why this is wrong and why need we need to conserve this and why we've got to do that.
All I need to do to really reach people's hearts is show them why, and that, to me, has been like the greatest gift that photography has given me.
And I also really love the way that I see the world.
I love the hope that I see, I love the beauty that I see in people, I love the artistic way that I can portray conservation, and I think it also comes back to the fact that I love that I can share that with people and that they can share that with me and that I can speak volumes to them without even speaking.
Isn't that one of the greatest gifts?
Oh, absolutely, I'm a bit more selfish in it.
I don't give a fuck what people see in my photos.
But I, because for me I'm just not as generous as you are, but I actually think in my experience that people will make a photo what they want to make out of it.
For example, if I release a photo, that is my favorite, like I'm really proud of it because I know what went into it.
It portrays what I want to portray, or it tells a story I want to tell.
Technical aspects I thought were perfect in my opinion, et cetera, et cetera.
All of the elements were just great for me.
And the amount of times I've posted that on Instagram or shown it to even Phi, who's my first kind of backstop.
What do you think of this?
And I look at her face.
Within the first second I know how it might be perceived by another human Right.
So I actually and that's what I love about photography is that people don't necessarily get my point of view.
Not everyone understands what I'm trying to show or say, and I kind of love.
I think there's a little artistic romance in that, and if people get it.
I'm like, oh, that's going to be a bit pop, it's going to be a bit I don't know, like, oh, I don't want everyone to get it kind of thing to do.
I don't want to be the lowest common denominator.
But also, when you have more of a documentary approach, a little bit like what you're talking about with mothers, that's extremely powerful.
If you can light up their eyes with what you've managed to capture, I think that's priceless.
I don't think there's anything else you can do in the visual art form or in the visual art space that can provide that value.
I think that is the essence of it, absolutely, because, excuse me, it not only does that for the mother who has had the experience of, because it's also photo shoots are also an experience, you know, I think, which-.
People forget that.
Yeah, which I actually.
It's one of my favorite parts of being a photographer is the experience that I can give someone, how much fun we can have, how much they can get into it and how much it's going to be a day that they remember, you know.
But it's also the experience of the viewer, because you know, I know for me, sometimes I'll see my personal insecurities physical or emotional or whatever photographed.
It makes me feel so seen, even if I'm not the one in the photo, which I think is amazing.
You know, like we touched on my self-portraiture and it's been such a brilliant medium for me because it's allowed me to sort of have the self-expression that I didn't even really know that I needed, because a lot of the time my photography isn't really about self-expression, it's about expressing somebody else or highlighting something that I'm, you know, photographing.
But my self-portraiture has been so interesting.
I remember very specifically I had I was in probably one of the roughest points in my life.
Just, mental health was down the absolute toilet.
I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I was rapidly losing weight, I was trigger warning.
I was, I genuinely I could, I could not sleep and I was waking up every morning at about 4am in a panic attack, like shaking, and I wasn't going back to sleep.
This was happening for about a month and I really started to get quite concerned.
And this one morning, I had woken up and I was like you know what, if this isn't going away, I'm just going to transform this energy.
You know, and the universe, energy is neither created or destroyed, it is simply transformed.
So that's what I'm going to do with this.
And so I did this incredibly vulnerable self-portrait.
I was not wearing any clothes and I was wrapped in a blanket, which, at the time, I was staying in this absolute shoebox of a place.
It was like a double bed and it only came with a single blanket, like there wasn't even a duvet.
It was like a single bed blanket.
Where was?
this.
This was in Paranon, okay, and it was like, honestly, this island's held me through so much.
But I had these candles that I used to light and, yeah, a long story short, I lit these candles on my altar, so I had a big ganache and there's this one photo of me that I absolutely love and I'm holding that candle up and I'm just looking at the light and I was so defeated and you could see it, you know, and I put that out and you know I just put it out.
I was like, well, I really love this photo and I'm just going to share it.
And people responded and it was like, simultaneously, I was feeling seen, everybody else was feeling seen.
I then did another Q&A about it and I got so many responses of people feeling the same thing and I think, you know, yeah, I didn't really understand how much I needed that at the time and how important it was and that was sort of the catalyst for me starting to improve my mental health and eventually I, you know, I'm in really, really good mental health now, which is amazing, but at the time it just it felt like a friend.
As kind of lame as that sounds, photography really just did feel like something that I could just do and it put me in the present moment.
It took me out of my head and into my body and it was just such a gift and when I shared that with people, people were like wow, you know, I'd love a shot like this.
I'd love to do a photo shoot commemorating my darkest moments as well as my lightest ones, you know.
People don't do that enough actually, and kudos to you for putting that out there in probably one of the most vulnerable points of your life.
Right, there's a difference between being vulnerable on a set and being vulnerable with yourself and in the darkest moments, where no one else can see what was the.
I mean, the reaction was generally quite good.
Was this an Instagram?
Post.
So I mean that's wonderful to hear actually, because we talk me included a lot of bad things about Instagram and many people around the world have unfortunately lost lives because of suicidal thoughts and most of that can be traced back to social media use or bullying or digital kind of ostracizing whatever label you want to put on that.
So it is wonderful to see you know when I come across good posts and we dive quite a lot into animal cruelty and basically animal cruelty.
We want to help as many animals as we physically and financially can, and when we see posts about that or about human suffering, whether it's especially mental health we've been educating ourselves a lot on mental health for the last few years because people are now more educated in it, they're more aware of it, they're more open to discussing it or even even more vulnerably putting it out there for the public to see.
Comment judge I mean it must have been scary when you posted it.
What was your emotion?
I just didn't really care, honestly, I just felt better.
I just felt better and I think also also my following was like even smaller than it is now.
So like that helps.
But it takes one bad comment.
It really does.
It really does, and I just honestly didn't even really think about it.
It was such a genuine thing that I wanted to share that, and also my life had just fallen apart.
So I was like look, a comment's a comment, like I'm just going to block you, like you really can't affect me at this point.
I got, I think, I'm about as low as I can be.
Literally I'm like listen.
This is tears in a rainstorm.
Did you get any bad comments?
No, none.
I have been trolled since then, which was, oh my God, affected me so much.
I'm such an empath, I was just oh, that's actually quite triggering.
Maybe we should cut that out.
I'm just such a sensitive person that I really, really and I always look for the truth in negative comments.
I really try to wrestle with it and think, okay, you know where is this coming from?
Is there any truth in this?
How can I adapt?
How do I respond?
And I live with one of my best friends.
Her name's Alexandra Saper.
She's amazing and I love her to pieces and she has a really large following.
And she was like babe, this is your space, Stop being a people pleaser.
And this is your space If they're coming here to shit on it.
And it wasn't even a photo of me, it was a photo of a model.
So then I get really protective, because these people have trusted me with their photos of them and they've given me permission to post it, and I will not allow someone to come onto my page and dog them out like that.
It's just not a thing that's going to happen in my space.
It's a weird, weird digital world that we live in, because if you were to translate that kind of behavior and Twitter's the worst for all of us, I think it's better in the photography community.
But generally speaking, twitter is like oh, I can go on here and say whatever the fuck I like, but if we're in person, I mean it's basically like remember maybe you don't so young public squares, right?
Remember when we used to have actually like legitimate public squares, with the town hall and a square where the community gets together.
That's basically what Twitter is.
Maybe it is.
I don't think well, I don't know, maybe it's not, I don't know.
Anyway, let's say it's an English thing.
Even so, the analogy stands and that's basically what these platforms are.
So it's basically people coming and you're on the stage, and then basically people coming along just throwing shit at you, saying whatever they want, which would never happen, never.
But because they're hiding behind the fucking phone because they're cowards they feel like oh, I can just say whatever.
I want.
It's absolute insanity to me, but also I'm like why?
What's going on?
They have their own problems.
Yeah, it must be.
And I think, like, I think, yeah, absolutely, I think that's the biggest thing to remember is these people don't know you, you're never going to meet them.
You don't know them, just block them.
Or be selfish for energy.
Wind them up, yeah, and then you're going to get fucking started with that.
Actually, that's sort of how it started.
This woman was like I see another woman's body on my Instagram, I'm going to throw up.
And I was like I'm going to throw up, right so.
I replied Is that because your body is shit?
Right that bit and I'm getting a little bit, I can't tell no.
I replied and I was like I'm so sorry to hear your feeling unwell.
If you don't want to see any more women's bodies, please unfollow me because I will be posting more tomorrow.
That's the other thing.
It's so fucking hilarious.
They comment on the negative comments of people that they've chosen to follow.
I know, just walk out of the room.
I know, but if you don't like me, just leave.
You can't like everyone?
No, no one can be liked by everyone.
No, exactly I don't understand.
Have you ever had bad comments?
Oh yeah, I mean generally in life, you mean.
Ever You're like.
I'm actually an angel, so I've never had.
My wife wakes up most mornings thinking, no, I have, well, I'm not so many on Instagram.
I've had a couple and actually I've.
I don't have 150 comments on every post.
I maybe have 20, 30, and then most of them are really good.
Probably I'd say two thirds of them I can spot are just strategic commenting, just to engage.
And then the others are genuine.
I love your stuff, matt.
And then the odd one comes through and it's like yeah, I don't really get your style or yeah, I think you could have done better with it.
Okay, and I just like it.
Thanks so much.
Really Great, Love you.
Thanks for the feedback.
I don't fucking care.
Thank you so?
much, but I'm just starting the YouTube journey, so we've been doing it probably I don't know six months, I guess.
How's it going?
And that's different.
Is it going well?
It's difficult.
I love it, absolutely love it.
I love this.
This is.
I just love it.
But the YouTube thing is, I'm learning, I know nothing about it, Hence why Rhysang's here.
But that actually is more open to the negative stuff.
So even on my videos I'll get thumbs down or I get some comments saying you were wrong about this, oh great.
I'm not here to be this preacher of things.
I'm here to share what I know, and it's a two-way thing.
So I think, yeah, I mean, I'm no.
If I ever get to a stage where I'm getting negative comments all the time, it'll be interesting to see how I deal with that or how anyone deals with that Because the guys that have 200 comments on their posts all the time Instagram.
I don't consider Instagram like that because 99% of Instagram stuff is you get the odd bad shit.
But when it comes to Twitter, YouTube, more of those open platforms, there's some nasty people out there?
Yeah, for sure, and I think it's also because YouTube, especially YouTube, is less like On Instagram.
All of our friends and family have Instagram, so it's like you've got your people kind of there, but YouTube not everyone has a YouTube channel Very few, kind of actually.
I would say I mean there's a lot of YouTube channels out there, but it's much less common than having an Instagram, so naturally it's going to be a lot more like just random people who have opinions and we honestly can't please everybody.
I've really struggled with this of there's a study that came out and I think, oh my God, I'm just misquoting everything on this podcast.
Well, I actually don't know if my facts are correct, but it's something in the ballpark of what I'm about to say.
So just take everything I say with a grain of salt.
I could be completely lying to you, no, but there was a study that came out of essentially how many relationships that we can actually sustain.
Have you read this?
Oh, yeah, what like five.
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean I think the absolute maximum of a tribe-based scenario is like 110 maybe.
Okay.
Now you've got what like 38,000 followers or something.
Yeah, some of them, a lot of them, actually are ghost followers A lot of them are my bot.
Well, I did when I first started Instagram.
I bought a few thousand.
Oh, did you and that has kind of yeah, it's kind of been a barrier for me for a while, because they've just been stuck there.
Yeah, and they've never gone away.
I'm sure that's adding your growth, so I need to.
Yeah, definitely definitely is.
But yeah, I mean, most of them are the.
Oh no.
Well, yeah, I mean that amount of people.
We can't sustain relationships with that amount of people.
We aren't meant to please that amount of people.
We aren't.
You don't want to please that amount of people.
No, exactly Most of us don't, but then a lot of us, especially the younger generations.
It's so difficult to differentiate, you know, and I really, I don't know, I worry for the sort of younger creatives who are.
You know, like my story could be.
I watched an Instagram video of this guy who traveled because of photography and I'm, I'm, it's great if that's your story and like awesome, and I really really hope that you feel like super in your power about it.
But I think I couldn't handle that because, like I'm glad that you know, when I first started out, it was like just my family was viewing my photos and it was real life stuff.
You know, like the photos that I dream of taking are just from stuff that I've gotten in my life and and I feel like nobody can really outdo me with that because it's my life, yeah, you know no one else lives that life.
Yeah, which is which is wild.
And now you know, everybody's sort of just creating for algorithms and it's nobody's really doing long form video anymore and it, it, it does.
It makes me really sad.
I'm honestly just waiting for, like, somebody to make an app that's like actually just for photographers and just showcases that work.
Let's do a spotlight on you.
Let's go Well, Vero tried to be that Right.
Vero.
So Vero, vero came to.
Came to prominence when Peter McKinnon had a friend who I think there was some connection there and he did a video on Vero, and this was at least a year ago, maybe a year ago.
And suddenly, obviously you know, with his millions of oh my God, peter McKinnon is such an OG, he's such a legend.
You've got to get him on the podcast.
You can't even give me Peter McKinnon vibes, actually.
Oh, really, yeah, I don't know, I definitely take that as a compliment.
Yeah, he's cool.
He is such great and it's not the aesthetics about him, it's the way he he can connect with the.
The view.
I don't know how he does it, it's cause, you know, I do these videos and I'm shit, but I know that one day I'll be be better, but he is, yeah, he's incredible.
Anyway, he did this video about Vero and because Instagram was changing algorithm every fucking month and I think he got fed up with it because he was posting stuff and none of the people he wanted to see basically none of his followers were seeing his photos and I think, by happenstance, he he had a meeting or I can't remember, with the creators of this app called Vero, which had been around since, I think, 2018.
But it was.
It was no algorithm, it was chronologically viewed.
It was.
It's not purely photography, it's videos as well and, I think, basically visual arts, so other, not just photography or video.
Anyway, it it went crazy, obviously.
So there was this bubble, three month bubble of Vero, and I still have it and we're going to start up posting again.
But have a look into it because it is just purely people on there who want to just share photos and get in.
That's amazing.
I'm going to do that right after.
But there's there's other things like.
I will start again from scratch.
It's like oh God, yeah, there is that.
Hey, yeah, there's a lot of time.
You know it's just more time now.
Is this really worth it?
And I think people started doing it and, like for weeks, everyone's like check out my Vero account.
And then it just went yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
And then there's that one that just went completely off, that like real time photo thing.
Real time photo thing, oh God, you mean like Snapchat?
No, um, oh, my God.
Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Real time photo.
You know like it would like give you.
You could only post once a day and it was fuck me.
My little brother had it.
Anyway, it was huge.
We're all just very out of the loop.
This is like really recently, really recently.
And it just sort of, and there was no like filters, there's no, you know, there's nothing like that.
So, like I don't know, I guess it was amazing, but even in that it just sort of crashed and burned.
Yeah, so one thing that, um, that really caught my attention from you and your work straight away was how you, you know, kind of try and target your art in a philanthropic way.
So, I think one of your quotes was you want to use I wrote it down here use my gifts in whatever way I can make people care, which I think is amazing.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit more in terms of what you mean exactly?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Um, it's.
It's, quite honestly, my, my biggest dream with photography.
If I could do photo journalism and conservation work full time, I would, but unfortunately, obviously, conservation projects.
I don't want to take money from conservation projects when that money could be spent on feeding children or you know whatever else the project might be up to.
So it's a bit of a catch 22,.
But even in paid gigs, I think for me we are all doing the world a disservice if we're not speaking about things that matter, and I I genuinely believe that everybody can do that, and especially if you come from a place of privilege.
Privilege is not an inherently let me start that sentence again Privilege is not an inherently bad thing.
It's only bad if you don't use it to level other people up.
So for me I was like right, I have the privilege of being who I am coming from the country that I do, which?
you didn't choose All of those things.
You don't choose privilege.
You don't choose privilege either, but you choose what you do with it.
So I was like right, what am I going to do with this?
And obviously, coming from a marine science background, it was natural for me to want to put marine science projects on a pedestal and try to tell their story Because, honestly, the the charity model and I'm sort of going down a bit of a rabbit hole here but the charity model is a little bit broken and and in order for you to want to donate to a charity, for it to do what it needs to do, you need to emotionally identify with a certain project's mission, and photography and videography is such an incredible way to do that, like why not, you know?
So that was really.
I really did all of my commercial work so that I could take three, four months of the year and just do conservation work, and a largely for free, just because that was what was the most important to me.
And it makes me really sad when I see these people with huge followings not talking about things that matter, and I don't want to like call people out, but at the same time, I kind of do, because if I had a huge following like that, that's exactly what I would be talking about.
The world is is so in need of, of people talking about things that matter and real role models.
Like we're just making stupid people famous with the internet, you know, like it really, it really really kind of irks me, because I know a lot of people who are doing such incredible things for the planet and no one wants to work with them because it's a little controversial or it's not as pretty as you know, whatever, whatever else.
And I've always wanted to drive that, to really drive that.
What would you call it a philosophy, I suppose, and I wish I could do it full time.
I can't, I wish I could.
But you know that's, that's my biggest thing, and I wish that more people were on that train with me.
I think the world would be a very different place if we all came from a, from a place of service, rather than how many followers can I get, how many likes can I get and how much street cred, and like status and money.
Yeah, and don't get me wrong, like I can totally understand how you'd get caught up in that narrative, but at the end of your life it's not going to make you happy.
It's not going to mean anything.
What did I leave behind?
200,000 followers, a million followers, Okay cool.
How did I impact them?
Yeah, exactly how did.
I change the world, or how did I leave my tiny little footprint on the world?
For sure and that's what I really say with photographers and videographers, because I could have stayed in my degree, I could have become a scientist.
But the way that science has politicized the hoops that you have to jump through in order to do it, I was like fuck that.
Like I just want to spread the messages that I want to spread without having to jump through the hoops of if this p-value is significant, which is a very important hoop to jump through in a scientific study.
But I was like I don't want to wait, you know, all of this time to release this study.
I just want to go do some incredible, incredible things and I think I've done that, you know, for 25,.
I think I've done some really cool things in my life, but I think the best is yet to come and I'm even more hungry for that now than ever, which is really exciting.
I want to expand that.
I want to.
You know, I'm from South Africa.
I'd love to go back to Africa and work with the same elephant orphanages that my mom volunteered in and all of these incredible things like this, just so many ways that you can give back and even if it's just once, I promise you now it will be so rewarding, you know yeah it's the in our experience, and we've got a few years on you, I guess, but that's the most rewarding times of our lives is when we've been able to give back in some way and, like you said, people.
You say give back.
It's a bit of a cliche and I get it.
It could be educating people, it could be inspiring people and that's one argument to the huge followings that you see on Instagram.
Okay, there may not be like directing something at a philanthropic cause, but they could be inspiring just one person to go out there and create something that might make an impact down the road, so that I totally agree with you 100%.
But I can also see the other side of that, unfortunately, is living in a capitalist society.
That's just the effects of what we live in.
Well, it's a lot easier to sell, isn't it?
You can live like me.
You can quit your corporate job.
Status, glamour, ego, money, all of us, yeah, absolutely.
And don't get me wrong, absolutely I was.
I.
You know we need people to be doing what we do in order to pave the way and show us that it's possible, especially if we're going to break out of a system that tells you have to go to school and then university and then get this job and climb this ladder and do this thing.
And you know, I think that that's so important.
But in my experience, there's so many people pushing that narrative, like, if you're one of those people out there where you're like you know, I was so inspired by whales when I was younger, you know like, like we all have our, we all have our thing, and then we get caught up in these kind of commercialized narratives.
And I think it's an important narrative, but to an extent like, what about the things that are less easy to sell but arguably more important?
Because if we don't sort out this climate crisis, none of our futures are going to be even possible.
So we should probably be, we probably be directing a lot more attention towards that.
Even though it's harder to sell, even though it's much more gory, it's probably not going to get any as many likes.
I think it goes higher than that.
I think the biggest take climate change as an example that you just talked about the biggest problem I see in that is just quite literally, money.
The big corpse, the governments who have multiple hands in those big corpse or the big corpse, actually own the governments in various fingers and different pies.
They control that narrative, they control decision making, they control policy.
So, until somehow there is a leader that we talked about Peter McKinnon, right, I love the guy, but he could do so much more with his platform, with his loyal platform.
He could just do one bit.
Look at what he did, right, he did one video about Vera, another social media app, but a better, more integral social media app.
Imagine if he just did that about.
He travels.
He goes to Iceland, he goes to Grand Prix and travels around the world.
If he just went to see, let's say, he went to Norway and basically saw these fucking hundreds of dolphins in Wales getting killed every year for fun and he did just a 30 second video about that.
It would help so much and he could do it, and these artists can do it in an artistic way where it's both beautiful, meaningful, impactful.
That's what movies are about.
That's what documentaries are about.
We watched, we loved documentaries.
We watched one about freediving and again my wife, kudo Sturge, put me onto it loved it.
I was so and it was about freediving, but people lost their lives there was drama there was impacts on society generally.
It was just like a but that doesn't mean anything in terms of improving the world, but that just goes to show how a visual medium can really make people think.
That's why documentaries are there, that's why movies are there.
If you have a message and you have a platform for that.
If you can get on Netflix, we get five million subscribers on YouTube even 100,000 people watching a video say something that fucking matters.
Yeah, absolutely.
There goes a lot into building that audience and so like having people long for the ride, and there's a big business lesson in that.
It's like give something free, free, free, free and then give that right hook with an offer or give them a right hook with a value or an education piece or something that really matters, because then you've got people's attention already and I don't know why more people aren't doing that.
But I think a lot of people are like who's the couple who runs Seascape?
And Mitty Mittingja, you know her.
No, oh, you fucking love her.
Yeah, christina Mittenmaier.
And Paul Niclund.
You must know Paul Niclund.
Oh yeah.
So her, so these guys are now together and they're both incredible underwater photographers Paul from Sea Legacy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
I don't know, my God.
These guys are doing what I've just been talking about, right.
I mean, he's fucking spectacular, isn't he?
He made his name in underwater photography, she made her name in underwater photography.
Then they met, fell in love, couple, and then they were like I think he already had Seas, he already had Sea Legacy or she already had Sea Legacy.
Anyway, they were obviously big into conservation independently.
Now that they're joining forces and they've got what fucking millions of followers, they're doing something that's just incredible, both on an artistic level but, also on an impact level right, I mean Sea Legacy is legends.
So I know it doesn't sell, but it does sell.
It kind of does If you do it right, it absolutely can.
But I know what you mean, yeah, and you know it's a really hard topic to actually speak on, because I also get it.
I also get that not everyone can consistently surround themselves with tragedies of the world and still have hope and still want to do it.
I think we also do need hope, and that's where those kind of aspirational creators come into it.
You need that hope in the world.
We can't just be cynical all the time and be focusing on what's wrong with the world.
But I think it's just a little bit out of balance for me.
Like, take the plastic issue, for example, which is, of course, an issue.
Naturally it's an issue.
Now I really really could get canceled for this.
This is actually a job that I got completely ghosted by once because I spoke on this.
It was interesting.
So plastic is a much less political issue.
It's an issue that governments can still profit from if you switch to paper bags.
Also, take the phenomenon of greenwashing.
It's actually in your interest in a capitalistic society to want to greenwash things, want to provide paper bags instead of plastic and save the turtles and whatever.
But my issue with that was it was spreading so much misinformation, which really, really distressed me as someone who's seen some absolute tragedies of the ocean up close, for me to see people rallying around a cause that doesn't affect the ocean nearly as much as we think, that it does not nearly as much Like.
If you look at the stats.
Plastic kills about 100,000 marine animals and about a million seabirds a year.
Every hour, 11,000 sharks are killed.
And that's just sharks.
Can you imagine what's happening to the rea?
And that's not even that's just fishing them.
We're not even talking about habitat degradation.
We're not talking about ocean acidification.
We're not talking about boom net trawling Like it's.
You know what I mean.
The trawlers are the worst the trawlers are absolutely like it's just an abomination Chinese.
It's actually everywhere.
It's a lot more common than we think that it is.
A lot of A lot of countries have shark industries.
A lot of people don't know that New Zealand has a massive shark fishing industry.
It's just not known Like a lot of people in.
Australia and New Zealand.
Yeah, but you can't.
I mean compare that to a billion people.
That you know there's no vegans in China.
Well, yes, but this is the thing is like shark fin soup, for example, in China is a status thing, yeah, so Just like rhino hornets.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely yeah.
I can empathize with the fact that I don't know that culture.
I can't influence it.
You know I'm not, I'm not in that culture.
Yeah, but that's not an excuse.
People say that to me all the time.
Well, it's their culture.
It's their culture.
No, well, you can change cultures.
We've changed cultures for thousands of years, but people in that culture people in that culture need to change the culture If you want top down change.
It needs to be people in that culture.
If I just go in there and I go, hey, shark, fin soup is wrong, we're going to be like, okay, you don't understand this at all, you can have conversations with people.
If you go to that country, you can, you can try, and China is a little bit different in terms of those types of conversations.
In my experience I've been to China hundreds of times- so, you're right in that.
Trying to change an individual's belief in something is extremely difficult when the system is built, for it's made them essentially when, when it's more of an open society, then it's a little bit easier.
But still, you know the, the, the social medias and the actually the mainstream media.
Take America's, go back to America.
Mainstream media over there is worse than social media.
It's fucking insane.
You've got four or five channels.
They all have political agendas and they're all owned by the politicians, it's like.
So someone turns on the TV and they go oh, fox is my favorite channel.
All they see is right wing agendas.
It's just weird.
I just it's so strange.
It's all money.
It's like whatever politician gets the most money, gets more of a voice.
It's just so insane.
It's, and and I will actually say that that's something that I do actually love about social media is that you know if, well, it's a love and hate thing, isn't it?
But you, you have the ability, because social media is a tool, right, and it's it as a tool you could.
It's like you can use a hammer to build a house or knock someone's head in.
You really use it for what you want to use it for.
So social media can be a tool to get, to get a really holistic view of what's happening in the world, whereas you know, say you only put Fox on.
That's the only news source that you're getting you know, but I mean honestly, I think God, I mean this is just a huge thing, huge conversation and and I don't know.
We've gone to politics.
Yeah, I don't know, look, and I don't know how smart it is to sort of single out certain countries.
I don't care.
I'm scared China won't be watching it, as fucking YouTube Literally won't be watching it.
So I'm fine.
No, I mean, I just don't want to get in trouble, but but I will say that you know there's a lot more going on.
Aside from, say, plastics, which is an important thing.
That's an important thing.
There are still, you know, marine animals that are dying, but I'm a lot more interested in the let's sweep that under the carpet, because that's really degrading the ocean.
Like, do you really think that telling a story about plastics, if it was really affecting the system and nature in the way that governments want us to think that it is, that they would switch it up that quickly?
No, what is it then?
Is it the type of animal, Like you know, I have?
a good friend of mine.
Well, a good friend of mine won ocean photographer of the year and he shot a Simon Lorenz.
Oh, okay.
He took a photo of a turtle who was caught in a load of plastic and he was on a liver board.
He was diving that.
I was meant to be on but I didn't could make it.
Oh yeah, otherwise I'd be afraid no.
I'd be a famous.
He's incredible, but he so he got this photo by just by chance.
But the visuals of that photo cute little, cute little turtle, right wrapped up in plastic, unable to escape Is seems to be more powerful than like a shark, which everyone's scared of for fucking no reason whatsoever.
The most common reaction to something like a shark is well, fucking, good riddance, they're nasty.
Right.
There is, and that, for me, is just education.
It is?
Yeah, it's education and misinformation, isn't it?
Because the vast majority of plastic that's in the ocean is fishing debris.
Most people don't know that.
Really.
It's like an obscene percentage.
Debris from what.
It's the vast majority.
It's fishing nets, it's fishing line.
The vast majority of gyres that are in the ocean.
If you don't know about gyres, Google it.
It's terrifying, is fishing debris.
So these things we're not told.
We just see a sweet turtle with a straw up its nose.
Yeah.
You know, and so, yes, of course it's a problem, but my thing is, as photographers or visual storytellers, it's our opportunity to tell stories of issues that are in proportion to the issue that they are to the world.
I kind of articulated that a little bit.
No, I understand.
How do people know that, though?
Because a quick Google search.
It's really not that hard.
I'm going to be honest with you.
But then aren't you at the whim of Google?
And what Google wants to show you?
Well, yes, but if you really are quite serious about any sort of conservation, or storytelling of anything.
You read a couple of really good scientific journals.
But people don't have the attention span for it anymore and they want to scroll and reel they don't give a.
We were talking about this earlier being able to get people interested in my photographer example where I do a lot of cultures people aren't really interested in that.
They want to see someone getting hit by a car, but they want to see a half-naked woman eating a banana.
It's just very difficult to relate to those type of people and love the audience if that's what they're fucking interested in.
Yeah, absolutely, because do you know what I think one of our biggest cruxes is now?
I don't know, crux is the right word.
Crux is the right word.
One of my biggest shortcomings, shall I say, is the fact that we are, If you look at the trend of anything in the media, it's what is relatable to me, and in marketing we sort of think about that as psychological distance or in conservation as well, you want to close the psychological distance between you and the problem in order for you to care about it.
If I told you that a dolphin off the coast of India or the US, which is probably as far away from us as possible, was dying, you'd be like that's really sad and that's probably all you'd think about it.
But if I told you that, because of rising sea levels, your waterfront property was going to be foreclosed or whatever, then you'd really care.
So it's all about closing that psychological distance and that kind of bleeds into relatability.
So the more relatable some form of content is, the more likely you are going to get views or likes or engagement and the more likely that that's going to actually be seen and shown.
So I think this is the issue is like it feels really far away from where we are, the issues that need actually for people to know about.
But my point here is that I wait no, I can do this.
My point here is, yeah, that's kind of what I said before about like and I said it kind of flippantly and I think we're just making random people famous because they're super relatable or whatever, and I'm like I want things that I can't relate to.
I want to help someone whose life I've never even known.
Isn't that the point?
You know?
Isn't that why we're here to help other people and to understand cultures and yeah, and then a lot of people, they just don't have that attention span and actually genuinely, not to get too dramatic, but it genuinely hurts me to know that attention spans are getting shorter, people aren't caring about the things that they should be, that misinformation is spread so easily because nobody does any research, like even me.
I sort of saw a brunt of it when I posted a tech talk and I've only ever posted maybe like six of them and I posted one when I was interviewed on the news in New Zealand about the conservation work that I do and I just put text up and I was like I don't know whatever.
It was basically like care about marine conservation, essentially.
But I looked at that video and I looked at the traction that it got and it wasn't a huge amount of amount of traction but considering I just made the account, it was pretty like disproportionately amazing.
But I looked at that and I was like, wow, the only sound that I've put in this is like a viral sound.
You don't actually hear what I'm saying on the news.
All of these people who are commenting and liking and viewing it are just taking my word for it.
I could be on the news talking about how I'm, I could be talking about anything and people are just taking that at face value.
You know, nobody cross checks facts anymore, which scares me.
It scares the absolute living daylights out of me, because it's so easy to manipulate an audience like that.
For sure.
Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I don't know what to say to that because there is no solution.
Look at Donald Trump.
He rose to presidency based on misinformation because he would just look in people's eyes and goes yeah, that's a fact.
He's so convincing.
Yeah, I mean, he's a salesman.
There's three billion people on the other side of him going no, that's not the fact.
And all these scientists going no yeah.
And always people go.
No, he's amazing, Donald Trump's a fucking.
But that is an analogy to basically the world we live in today.
It's like your opinion is worth as much as my fact and people just fucking love all that shit.
That's a mic drop quote.
That is what your opinion is worth as much as my fact that's social media is like I could put something up and anyone could put something up and you'd get probably half the people.
I put a very, very simple.
I can't remember.
Sometimes I do these stories with a poll and the answer is fucking obvious.
But people would just believe.
If I make them believe something, they'll go along with it and imagine that on a grand scale.
It's so scary.
It's so terrifying.
But what do?
Let's try and put it in a post.
It's going down and depressing.
I know I'm like listen, we can cut whatever.
This is the baffle.
It's refreshing to talk to you about this because for I hope you don't mind me saying for a young lady to be this mature in Europe.
Because it took me 40 years to get to that kind of 30s, I started thinking hang on a minute, life is more than getting to where I want to in a career, getting some money, getting married, traveling the world.
That's all incredible life experiences, but there's still something that's missing and I think people have to figure that out for themselves.
Absolutely but how do we as artists, let's say, help them kind of figure that out?
Honestly, I think I'm going to answer your question a little bit round about because, to your absolute credit, it's so important for us to work on ourselves, know who we are, know what we're passionate about before we decide to commit our lives to something.
And you can commit your life to something and in 10 years, change what you want to commit your life to.
That's good as long as it's real.
As long as it's real and it's genuine and it's in line with whatever you feel your purpose is in that given moment.
Because when you're genuinely trying to be of service, I don't think that you can make a mistake because it's all going to be of service, which is beautiful.
And I think I mean Michael Jackson said at the best start with the man of the mirror that's what that song's about.
I mean, the lyrics are quite.
There's a fucking artist that is Michael Jackson, michael.
Jackson.
He's good.
What I think is don't overwhelm yourself.
I think also, we're talking about a lot of issues and a lot of paths that you could go down.
Bring it back to yourself first.
Don't panic, because I panicked myself and I was just like, oh my God, the world is going to die and I have to fix it all and I have to do this and I'm going to oh my God, and it was so overwhelming, I burnt out so quickly.
So it's important for you to mature in your craft, mature and get enough education, self-education, trust your gut, all of those things and then decide.
But I think our role as photographers and videographers is really to just show people what we are passionate about, but really passionate about, you know, like I think a lot of the times these like pretty photos.
They're good, but and I and it's a passion of mine, and this is why it's so hard to talk about, because it's like it is a passion of mine, but if I had it my way, I wouldn't be doing it at all.
I would be doing conservation all the time, every day, for the rest of my life, but I have bills to pay, unfortunately, but yeah, so I think, honestly, our role as photographers and videographers is literally just to show people what is possible and what is out there, to document things that matter, to show people what we are passionate about Like.
Imagine if all of us say we loved one species, say I personally love whales and sharks.
I love them, I think they're incredible creatures, manta ray too If I just focused in on those animals, and somebody else loved narwhals and somebody else loved octopuses, octopi, octopi, octopi, and you know, and the list goes on and on and on.
Just do what you love, because I don't really believe that anyone's aligned with their purpose if it's not rooted in service.
I've never seen anybody rooted in purpose.
That's not also in service.
So pick what you love, whether that's humanitarian or obviously we're very passionate about animals, but if you're a photographer and you think that you can tell a really beautiful story, tell it.
It doesn't don't worry about the numbers, don't worry about who's gonna see it, don't worry about where you're gonna put it.
Just do it because it's so important and it's gonna be so important to the person's story that you're telling or the animal's story that you're telling.
It's really difficult to get people to care about these issues and I think, as storytellers and I did an interview with Canon about this.
Our duty as storytellers is not just to tell the stories that are easy to tell, tell the stories that are hard to tell, tell the stories that rip your heart out, tell the stories that make you so happy, like it's all of these things I think is our duty and I really love the way that you do it because, also, your photography is definitely a style of photography that I looked up to a lot before I started doing it and I've still not quite understood how you do it, like you get these incredible photos of these, like you know, elderly woman who don't speak the same language.
How on earth do you do that?
Please tell the audience, just luck.
Tell the class.
Really.
A lot of it is luck actually, but Do you speak to them Like how do you?
Yeah, so probably the most pivotal person in the team is the fixer, especially here in Indonesia or wherever that doesn't speak English as a first language.
But I've done a lot of photography in Indonesia and having you know, I'm a project-based photographer, so I will go three months without doing a project and then do a big project and have it meticulously, well, as planned as possible, and then obviously none of it goes the plan.
But I've got the fixer there who can kind of bind everything together.
So a fixer, my fixer, I use now.
He knows me so well that he can communicate kind of what I'm looking for and obviously there's a lot of prep that goes into it.
I'm looking at this type of photos.
But he knows my style and he knows what goes into getting a portrait, for example, or an environmental portrait.
So he'll kind of know what we need to do with the technical stuff but also, more importantly, how to what to tell the people.
Like Matt's gonna do some test shots and then he's gonna ask maybe that you change your pose a little bit and maybe he's gonna touch you and move one of your arms and just the basic stuff that I couldn't communicate.
And we're learning Bahasa but it's one country and we wanna do so much around the world.
So there's a lot that goes into that, but really it's like anything is a practice, amazing.
But I'd look up to these types of people Annie Liebervich, joey L, steve McCurry, these types of people who've done such amazing portrait photography around the world with different types of people, not just studio stuff, right.
Which is also amazing, which I love, and I just try and emulate their kind of voice and I think that's important.
Coming back to what you were talking about, which is hugely inspirational, I love that you've shared that, so thank you.
I'm sure a lot of people listening and watching this will, should and hopefully they do take heart from what you're saying.
I hope they do, but I think it's so important as artists, and specifically photographers and filmmakers, to have a voice.
You have a style and that's your style and that's the way you fit in terms of the aesthetics and your look and the way your workflow goes.
But what you're trying to say with that style, right, with your body of work, with a set of images, with projects, whatever you're gonna kind of put your photos into maybe it is your Instagram grid, that's fine, but if you're saying something through that or you're spreading a message, or even if it's just a wrote down here education and I think I go on about this all the time, people just get bored of me talking about it, but it actually, for me, it seems to be the biggest, it seems the simplest solution, but it's extremely convoluted, very unattainable for a lot of people around the world.
It's just education.
And.
I love it when people self-educate, and I don't think that's a timeless act.
It's like there's no cap on that.
You can always be learning something, especially in art, in philosophy, in science, in exposing yourself to what's out there in the world, and that's why travel is its own education platform, right, if you travel, you'll see some shit and then you'll go oh God, I didn't know that existed.
I need to be a little bit more compassionate to people or to animals or whatever.
So I think, education for me, if we're able, as artists, to educate whether it's through that specific medium or whether it's through a real, or whether it's through a YouTube channel, whatever it is if you're able to just pass on a little bit of a message or an experience, then that's all we can do, right.
As artists, Absolutely, and especially the fact that you know being able to travel is such a privilege.
It doesn't just come down to the money that you have or might have.
You know, might be the passport that you hold, or whatever.
You might have all the money in the world, but if you hold a passport, that's really, really difficult to get visas for how hard is that?
So it's amazing that if you have the opportunity to travel and tell stories of things that have spoken volumes, spoke volumes.
Speak volumes or spoken volumes, that's spoke volumes to you.
That's so important for all of us.
Because, yeah, I mean really like I really try to be in touch with the position that I'm in, just because of how and where I was born.
Yeah, and obviously as a woman it's different, but I really try to be super aware of that and, yeah, like as aware as I can, obviously not to like pile the guilt on, but you do what you can with the privilege that you have.
If you can travel, travel, like I really love this quote that says if you can, you must.
You know it really really has just spoken to me for a really, really long time and it's actually from a woman named Emma I believe she's an Australian woman who essentially fell from a plane and her parachute didn't open.
And she didn't.
I know I would never jump out of a plane.
What is wrong with people?
I don't understand.
If you can jump off a plane, you must, but also don't.
Yeah, I'm like within reason, but she really wrote that quote when she learned how to walk again and all of these things like how amazing you know, and yeah, I mean that really just spoke volumes to me, because if you have the privilege, if you can help someone, you must.
If I can tell the story, I will, you know, and I really hope that messages like this keep being spread.
I don't care if it's from my mouth or whoever's mouth, I just hope that this you know, I don't need the glory from this, it's just like I hope that it changes a little bit and that you know the next generation ends up doing brilliant things, because the internet is a brilliant place If you know how to use it.
You can access any sort of research, you can learn anything you want, you can learn languages and essentially become qualified in a certain field Amazing.
The cognitive dissonance I have with social media well yeah, the internet generally is.
I want to be like you, right, I want to be able to pass message, I want to be able to make an impact, I guess, and you know, give back in my own way, whatever that might be, but in an altruistic way.
You know, we have cares in the world, we have passions in the world that are not self-serving, and at the moment it's more of a self-serving mission than it is anything else.
But I feel torn because you have to.
Well, you didn't have to, but you are in a much better position to pass those messages on and to influence people.
Influence if you have an audience.
Yeah, absolutely.
So there is this kind of battle between I want to do what I want to do and I want to say what I want to say and I want to put myself out there and I want to educate people and I want to share my opinions and I want to get opinions back and I want to have this thing going, but I want to have enough people that are going to listen to me.
What is enough, is a separate conversation.
But there is always that battle, so that's why I have a love-hate relationship with platforms like Instagram and stuff.
So it's like what would your advice be to?
We've been talking a lot about this, we've run out of wine and we're running out of time.
In wrapping up, can you kind of sum up your advice or how can people help in those type of causes?
How can people kind of do what you do or at least have an impact on issues that aren't necessarily themselves?
I think, oh, I mean, look, it's a hard question to answer because you might be extremely passionate about a cause that could really get you into danger.
So it just depends.
You know, certain humanitarian work, for example, could get you into a lot of like quite serious danger.
Like we're talking about this very like inspirationally.
But you know, be careful, I would say, is one thing, but I would also say that it's not necessarily what you say, it's how you say it, and that's the thing with audiences is like if you're tactful about it, you won't lose anything and you'll be able to communicate that in a way that's impactful and is gonna land for people.
So hone your craft, learn who you are.
Not that I know who I am, I'm still figuring it out but I suppose I've got a bit of a baseline which is a good place to start.
Learn your baseline, know what your values are and just go for it.
Be careful, but go for it.
Tell the stories that you wanna tell.
Whether that's like a really great YouTube channel is Soft White, Underbelly, Just an amazing YouTube channel sort of that puts quite taboo people in the spotlight and just gets them to tell their story and investigates these things with such compassion that it dissolves all of the contrast.
With those people.
You're like, oh, that could have been me.
There's so many narratives that you could cling on to, there's so many things that you could do.
So really, my thing is try it out, enjoy yourself, learn what you love.
Only do it if you love it.
Just really do what you love and share without a care.
Share without a care.
Really, though, yeah, just share it.
Don't worry about anything else.
Just share what you think is important to be shared, because I think energy doesn't lie, and it's your energy behind your cause that's actually gonna sell the cause.
You can photograph it any which way, but your energy is gonna leak into every part of that.
So that's why I say know yourself and do what you love.
So, yeah and really, really go after it.
I knew exactly what I wanted.
I knew exactly who I was gonna work with.
I essentially stalked these people and I wouldn't condone stalking.
But I would say put yourself in the way of miracles, don't just stand idly by and send a couple of DMs off, like you're gonna have to really work for it and do that, get noticed, do it, put it all out there.
Put it all out there With love, not hate.
With absolute love, because those are the messages that I actually that is the key.
yeah, and on that note, we've loved having you.
Thank you so much for coming on and feel like I know you're a lot better now and I look forward to next time.
Where can people find you if they wanna have a look at your work?
Instagram, Well honestly, yeah, the fact that I'm gonna say Instagram, but yeah, instagram.
We love Instagram.
We do.
It's a love-hate relationship.
We try our best, but Instagram, Cara Creative you can find me Love In my Life as well, in Bali, In person.
Come to Bali.
Yeah, but yeah, cara, creative is my Instagram.
And website.
Right yeah, caracreativecom.
When that launches, stay tuned.
I'm really excited, though, because a lot of people I'm releasing a lot of work that a lot of people have never seen Awesome, so.
I'm super excited.
Well, we all look forward to seeing that, and thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
You're amazing.
I love it.
You're the best.
Thank you so much.
See you tomorrow.
I'm second to none.