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I first looked through the lens of a professional camera and pressed a shutter when I was 10 years old and started to develop a passion for photography, it was my dad's camera. From shooting analogue to digital and learning to develop films as a teenager, in a tiny little home-made dark room under the stairs, my passion grew from the teachings of my dad's photographic wisdom to applying my own artistic visions and creating with style.
I travel and shoot everything that inspire me, and I explore concepts and ideas that I can infuse into my photography. I shoot with Nikon Z, Hasselblad, of course my iPhone is always on my person, for casual snaps when I'm out and about, and sometimes I fly a drone. I prefer to adjust my camera settings and build real life sets for campaigns and editorials. I shoot a limited amount of exposures and keep things real rather than adjusting every single thing digitally in post production. When it comes to artistic impressions, I'm a huge fan of the digital world though; mixing different mediums to create digital works of motion graphics with 3D and CGI feed my desires for conceptual art. |
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I studied business management with marketing and learnt about branding the hard way, through making my own mistakes that cost me dearly in my early business career whilst I was studying. I was already a keen amateur photographer, happily capturing natural landscapes and family portraits in my spare time. But thankfully, I learnt early, how crucial it is to spend the time and invest in my brand design through visuals. I thought it would be easy to just photograph things for my own brand. I knew how to use a camera inside out with years of photography knowledge, so I thought brand photography was going to be a breeze. I was wrong! Creating brand visuals and campaigns, even for my own brand was a challenge. Starting in 2002, I spent years developing my skills as a brand photographer and learning on the job, so to speak.
At the turn of the Millenium, when I decided to start building my creative floral brand and actively started looking for a brand design company, I spoke with many organisations who were all offering the same packages with business cards, websites, photography and a logo. And that’s where it stopped, with nothing further to delve deeper into actually designing a brand that could portray my values.
As I couldn’t find a company who offered me anything I wasn’t already aware of, I put my experiences from my limited years in business into practice, and in particular, I made a list of all the mistakes I made, up until that point. I self-introspected a lot; made further lists of what I wanted to achieve and what kind of a brand I wanted to create. With many other questions I asked myself, I started to see a pattern emerging, of the type of brand I wanted to create, and how I could convey my brand values and message through my branding. Brand photography was one of the biggest elements within my brand design, and more importantly, it had to be the right style of photography with an understanding of a creative brand. This is how, not only I started to develop as a professional brand photographer, but also a brand designer.
As I couldn’t find a company who offered me anything I wasn’t already aware of, I put my experiences from my limited years in business into practice, and in particular, I made a list of all the mistakes I made, up until that point. I self-introspected a lot; made further lists of what I wanted to achieve and what kind of a brand I wanted to create. With many other questions I asked myself, I started to see a pattern emerging, of the type of brand I wanted to create, and how I could convey my brand values and message through my branding. Brand photography was one of the biggest elements within my brand design, and more importantly, it had to be the right style of photography with an understanding of a creative brand. This is how, not only I started to develop as a professional brand photographer, but also a brand designer.
Whilst a logo and a website alone may have been enough for some brands, I wanted to create a brand design that would have a deeper, cohesive look and feel throughout my business, whilst representing my brand values and conveying my brand’s message. From marketing collateral to brand photography, typography, colours, illustrations, shapes, iconography, patterns, data visualisations, layouts, motion graphics, brand framework and concept marketing, I worked on strategies to incorporate each of those elements within my branding. As a creative, I then found solutions to link each of those elements to each other and how they work within my brand structure. The layers of intricacies that would then fit together like a puzzle to link my physical products to my brand identity and photography. My brand design formulas were born from my own research and guided by strategies to create a full impact brand. Visuals were at the heart of my formulas, and I invested heavily into my own photography to create visuals that would help my brand to stand out. In 2012, I started to develop my branding skills further and extended my branding lab to incorporate a brand transitioning period of 5 years. I still beleive that strength of visuals and creating campaigns to tell a brand's story is one of the best ways to connect to an audience with shared values.