Right place……..right time
Luck often plays more than a fleeting role in my life. I’d say that the efforts put into marketing and advertising are pretty much useless, and the work I’ve secured to date has been almost solely down to being in the right place at the right time. That applies to bad luck as well – more of that later. My years of shooting fashion products were initiated by a conversation between a marketing director and my sister in law, who is a hairdresser, and mentioned me in a random conversation during a cut and colour. My time as a travel & tourism photographer in Northumberland was started by a random inbound telephone call, and my years of shooting for Dogs Trust came about after I sponsored a dog at their Darlington rehoming centre. Even lately, my attempts at getting in touch with high-end estate agencies was an utter waste of time, and I got a break due to an inbound enquiry (which almost never happens).
Lady luck. It’s a funny old thing. The following photos are examples of shots that came about by chance. The first was captured during a weekend visit to Edinburgh with my wife. The G7 summit was taking place that particular day, so the usual anti-capitalist protestors, replete with expensive designer clothes and stupid bloomin\\’ haircuts were making their views known by shouting at the poor guys and gals of the East Lothian police force, who clearly just wanted a bit of peace. The pseudo-anarchist mob was completely hemmed in by a thousand press photographers and several officers wearing high-vis vests. I thought it might be worth a quick look, so pointed my 85mm lens across the front line of police and knocked out a few frames. Most were crap, but this one stood out as it captured the nature of the whole thing – the hatred of the angry protestors who didn’t quite know what they were actually angry at, and the police with their heads down, showing zero emotion. Right place, right time.
This next image was shot close to home after a few days of heavy rainfall hd caused the river Coquet to burst it’s banks at various points along it’s length. This poor holiday home was deluged during the night, along with the road a little further along. Luckily nobody was on holiday at the time. I took the kids down to take a look, and found a few more observers enjoying the view of the torrent passing by – carrying whole trees with it. I took a few shots and uploaded to my stock library. Much to my surprise it became an immediate hit with image buyers, and it’s sold a few times since the original flood a few years ago. Right place, right time.
Sometimes it’s just down to luck. As I mentioned before, bad luck can play a part in shaping your future, and you need to remain positive about things in order to overcome those more unfortunate events. We’ve had some bad news at home – news which means that my short term business plans need to be curtailed so that I can attend regular hospital visits with my wife, and spend more time potentially working within her business while she’s out of action for the next six months or so. You never know what’s round the corner. I’ve withdrawn from some of the online estate-agency work which was time consuming, and we’re preparing to live on a single, very low income until further notice. Friends and family have rallied round with help, so it’s heads down for the time being. I’ve kept one particular client active to provide an income to cover the substantial costs associated with this business, so hopefully I’ll be able to begin ramping things up again in the summer. Wish us luck!
