Immersion is not just for theatre, as Bill demonstrates with his approach to photography. We talk about the world of water photography as Bill shares his experiences and we chat into the energy and the pure exhilaration of capturing the ocean's moods.
We explore the uplifting power of encouragement and the joy found in the process of creating. Bill talks about using social media to share and connect, the importance of authenticity, and how following one's instincts can lead to extraordinary results.
Bills Instagram https://www.instagram.com/billwardphotography/
Bill's website https://billwardphotography.co.uk/
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
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Follow me on Instagram:
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Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
Immersion is not just for theatre, as Bill demonstrates with his approach to photography. We talk about the world of water photography as Bill shares his experiences and we chat into the energy and the pure exhilaration of capturing the ocean's moods.
We explore the uplifting power of encouragement and the joy found in the process of creating. Bill talks about using social media to share and connect, the importance of authenticity, and how following one's instincts can lead to extraordinary results.
Bills Instagram https://www.instagram.com/billwardphotography/
Bill's website https://billwardphotography.co.uk/
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
I just want to actually just catch up with you and see where you are with what you're doing with your new project and how life is for you at the moment. I know you're just about rehearsing just now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're just about a week, seven or eight days into. I'm doing the full Monty. It's the play of the film written by the same fellow, which is brilliant, and it's a very, very, as you would imagine, a very funny piece of work and we're sort of a weekend. We've got another three weeks of rehearsal to go and then we open in Cheltenham and then we tour for about seven or eight months. So yeah, full on. It's great fun.
Speaker 2:It must be shuttered, though You're tired trying to manage everything.
Speaker 1:I love the energy of it, I love, I love making, I just love making. And when you start on something new, you have I mean, we've all had the script, and I auditioned for this about seven or eight months ago. So you have the script and you know what the written word says, but what you're going to do with that is something else entirely, and so you're never quite sure what's going to happen until you're in the room with everybody else, and I kind of love that. And because you're starting afresh, it's an existing piece of writing but it's an absolutely brand new production with a whole bunch of actors, directors, costume people, stage managers who have never done this before. So it's really exciting and I just love this part of the process, really just being at the start of the making because anything could happen. We're just sort of going through it and rehearsing it at the moment. It's great.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's brilliant. I used to work on musicals and they were always. They had this real sort of vibe to them. You know, I don't yet energy, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What did you do on musicals? I was a dresser. Oh yeah, but brilliant, but brilliant. But it's like one of the most in a musical, one of the most important jobs, because there's so many quick changes in musicals.
Speaker 2:Just like, yeah, you kept showing your toes and you had, like I don't know, 20 seconds to check. You know, it was just brilliant. I loved that. That, yeah, that energy and that, that rush, I suppose, of having to get it right quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, was that in Manchester.
Speaker 2:It was in Manchester, it was, I can't remember. Was it the Blues Brothers? I think it was a work done for quite a while. I was just brilliant and the music and you know, it's just like yeah.
Speaker 1:It's hugely uplifting things musicals, and actually there is a musical version of this which I think is set in the States, which quite a few of my mates have done, actually. But this is the straight play. We've got a lot of music in it and there's a very famous sequence at the end which involves basically a strip tease and spoiler alert, but, as in the film, almost exactly in the film, as I say, written by the same fellow. So I'm both for you and yeah, it's the. I love the energy of a musical. There is something about just giving people a good time and I see I watch quite a lot of musicals.
Speaker 1:My daughters love going to musicals and I've been in a few myself and I just love them. The difference between just the energy of an audience before the musical starts versus the energy of an audience after the musical is finished, the difference between those two things and it's the same for performers. You know, even if you're doing it seven, eight times a week, if you're doing a panto 12 times a week, it's just the joy of you know, whacking it out there and and yeah and just yeah, raising people's spirits, I think.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I don't know why I connected that, because it's not a musical. Is it the form of the bit? There's a lot of music in it. Maybe that's why I was thinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, when you'd be right. There is a lot of music in it and we've got a lot of music in ours, so we're not singing per se, but there is a lot of music. It's the soundtrack to their working lives. It's set in 1997. That's when the film first came out, and so we've got a kind of a soundtrack, very much based around around that neck of the woods and yeah, so it's great fun.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. I just, I just think it was a brilliant play. I mean, yeah, I just think there's such a good story to it and good message.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and and it is very timely, you know it's it's. It's about a group of men and women who've lost their jobs in the steelworks in Sheffield and what they do, and it looks at all sorts of things, but it does. It's quite. It's quite an interesting study of masculinity, what it is to be a man and what it is to be a man at that time if you lost your job and and.
Speaker 1:But it also investigates all sorts of sort of things in terms of male depression and fat shaming and body image, all sorts of interesting areas. Each of the characters have problems and issues to overcome. So in that kind of way it's quite, it's quite meaty as a as a, as as a subject matter and, yeah, really enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Great, great, well there. Yeah, we can go and have a look on the website and go see Belle Ward in the in the theatre, if you wish to. But wish you all the best with it, I think it'd be great.
Speaker 1:Thank you yeah.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately yes, unfortunately it's landed during the festival and a few people who will be listening will know that Bill was hoping to join us but he's not. There's a few disappointed people because we all well, we just think you're brilliant actually, belle, he's just lovely.
Speaker 2:Your energy and your, your, the way that you you speak to people and the way I think it's the way that you treat everybody as if, well, we are equals. I mean, I and I really get on with people who do that, you know, and it doesn't matter who they are, what they do in life, it doesn't matter whether you're a photographer with a name and not a photographer, just some person who we're all the same, aren't? We and I get on particularly well with people that treat everybody in the same. Does that make sense to you? But I know you do that really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Well, that's really kind of you, thank you. I'm so sad not to be able to make it. I asked for the time off and they just couldn't do it, and I'm so sorry. But my goodness me, you're going to have a good time.
Speaker 2:We are going to have a good time. We are. I've got a sauna coming in. Have you Brilliant and a Kaley band and lots of things, lots of things, some other music happening. I think we might be having some other music happening, but I won't give that away. Yes, it's going to be great, but what I would say is there will be more years.
Speaker 1:Great Well, fingers, fingers. I would love to. I was so sorry not to be able to make it, that's okay, but. I'm sure it will be magnificent.
Speaker 2:It will be. It will be so. When I met you a few weeks ago, you were just starting. You just showed me some images of ICM in the water and I just said I love, love them, absolutely love them. Do you want to tell us?
Speaker 1:about that. Yeah, it's a sort of I've called it. There's a word that's being used a lot in ICM at the moment which is immersive, and it's an interesting word because I think all photography to some extent, regardless of discipline, is immersive, because all photography, to some extent, you lose yourself in the moment when it really sort of works and there is that sense of you connecting with where you are around you and everything else disappears, just everything else disappears. There is only you and where you are and that is it. And that's a kind of sort of wholly immersive when it works really well. In my experience it's a wholly immersive experience, and I know you take a lot of photographs in the water as well, and must have been on a similar, I would imagine, kind of journey to this, isn't it? And I've read some of the stuff that you've written about it. Actually, for your exhibition, you very kindly gave me well, I ran off with them anyway A couple of your books, and it's your very you're huge on this subject yourself, aren't you? In terms of not just standing by but participating, not just being on the edge of something but being part of it, and I have a, as you do. I have a very similar feeling as that and it is that thing. For me, this is about trying to sort of become a part of the thing that you're photographing and not just a spectator, and in that sense of instead of just being on the outside looking in, but sort of wholly becoming a part of it.
Speaker 1:And in the theatrical world, people have talked about immersive theater for quite some time. It's been funnily enough. Actually, I'm about to see this week in the evenings when I should be. I have already learned my lines I promise I've already learned my lines but when I should be learning my dance steps I promise I am already learning my dance steps, but when I'm not doing those things. I'm going to see two pieces of immersive theater this week. Actually, I'm going to see Cabaret, the Playhouse Theatre we're rehearsing in London. So I've used that. I live in Bristol, so I've used this opportunity to go and see as much new stuff as I can, or as much stuff as I would. I can see in the time that I have, and particularly things that I've been wanting to see for a while, and two of those actually three of those I'm seeing another one next week are pieces of immersive theater. One is Cabaret, which is at the Playhouse Theatre, another is the Burnt City, which is by a company called Punch Drunk, who I will talk about in a second, and the third one is Guys and Dolls, which is at the Bridge Theatre, and all wonderful pieces of work in their own right, all very, very different in their own right, but all carrying that what would be described theatrically as immersive, and in the theatrical world what that tends to mean is a world, literally a world.
Speaker 1:You build a world, and how theatre generally works is that you've got what's called a fourth wall, which is you've got the performers, let's say, on a stage in a proscenium arch theatre. So, like most of the older theatres in this country, you have a building with a stage at the end of it and an audience in front of it, and then you have a kind of art shape which is the kind of the bit in between the audience and the stage. And so, from a theatrical point of view, if you're one of the actors on that stage, you have a thing called the fourth wall, and the fourth wall is the bit that separates you and the audience. And what you talk a lot about in the theatre is whether you break the fourth wall or not, whether you talk directly to the audience, where you go through it and look at the audience and talk to them or not. And in immersive theatre the fourth wall is broken all the time because, instead of there being a wall between you and the actors, there isn't at all. There's a whole world.
Speaker 1:So one of the first theatre companies the experts in this is a company called Punch Drunk who've been around for certainly for around 20 years, and they made the first piece of immersive theatre I ever saw, which was back in 2007. And it was called the Mask of the Red Death, which was based on an agraral and po novel and it was extraordinary. It was in the Battersea Arts Centre, which was the old Battersea Town Hall, and they just took it over and in the Battersea Arts Centre they turned it into the world of the Mask of the Red Death and you couldn't get many audience in there at any one time, maybe 20 or 30. And when you went in you had no idea where you were going and there were just rooms and so you worked your way through. There was no route.
Speaker 1:You have to choose where you go, no one to show you, occasionally some, an actor playing a character might have led you by the hand or kind of beckoned you over to somewhere to ask you to look at something, but essentially all of the choices you can choose to do that or not, and all the choices are yours. And so what you've got is this just entire world, which you, as an audience member, become part of, and that's different to what you would usually experience in the theatre. You're sitting in the seat looking at a world on a stage, but you're not part of it. It's 10 metres away from you, or, if you're in the cheap seats where I usually go about, right at the very top, about 30 yards away from you. So, yeah, so that's kind of in my world.
Speaker 1:That's the word. That's what immersive means. It means a lack of separation between the audience and the thing that they have come to watch, and so for me in photography it means the same kind of a thing is just putting yourself in the world that you are photographing, kind of becoming a part of it, as opposed to just standing on the outside of it at arm's length and looking in. And for me, the benefits of doing something like that are just incalculable, just because, instead of sort of feeling removed from the thing that you're photographing. You start to be with it and move with it and you will know, from all of your wonderful water photography, is it a similar thing for you?
Speaker 2:You know you're just talking there and you've obviously thought that through, and I think for me it was something that I didn't really think through. I just did it instinctively. But as you were talking about it it starts to make sense and I think I'd do that quite a lot with a lot of things. I'll do things and I'll just follow whatever I think feels right, and then I'll kind of look at it afterwards, go all right, that's why, that's why I did that. But I think it is the answer to that really, is it? Yes, yeah, absolutely. There's.
Speaker 2:No, it's the experience, I think, is totally different. So standing on the beach and photographing whatever it is the waves or the scene that's a very different experience to getting a wetsuit on jumping in the sea. A part of the experience is the being in the sea. So you've got the two things going on, haven't you? You haven't just got photography. It's a mix. It's also a challenge, which I think is probably one of the big things for me. It's different, but mostly, most of all, I have so much fun when I'm doing it and it's just yeah, don't we dismiss.
Speaker 2:That? Is that not something that we just we shouldn't dismiss, because it's like yeah, do you know what? It's just brilliant and I come out feeling that was amazing. Yeah, same for you as well.
Speaker 1:Then yes, yes, and it's so important this isn't it in a kind of having for the very first time I've been working on it's. It's taken a while to get to this point. I've had various different versions of it in a kind of working your way up kind of a thing, and I had the first sort of thing with with my proper DSLR in a in a proper well. It was meant to be watertight, it was never is the first one never is yeah, never mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the very first day yeah, yeah, I did that I came out grinning my head off.
Speaker 1:It was the most fun that I had had in a cat with a camera for years and and it is that sense of it's. Like you say, it's a mixture of so many things, but the movement part of it was a big part of it for me, just the physicality of it and because so often with a camera, with stationary and and static, and in the old days on a tripod and and cameras have got sort of better with it in in in terms of shape reduction and all that kind of stuff, so you don't need tripods possibly as often as used to, and in the sort of the ITM world and multiple exposure world, you're probably you might be using a tripod, but you're probably not, and so in that kind of a sense, I just love the movement part of it and and also the the like the crashing through the waves part of it is such good, fun and it's it's just brilliant and and I know you're a you're a surfer, aren't you? And you've spent a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean the word surfer.
Speaker 1:You know, we use that loosely yeah, well, me too, and and it is that sense that you know I lapped in my case. I get in the water with a board about once a year now and whenever we go on holiday, and but it is that sense of of moving with the water and that's always been the thing about surfing. And in Hawaii, though, there's a religion, it's a very much a religious thing always was in terms of moving with the water, and and there is that sense of sort of moving through the water, moving with the water with or without a camera, that I think everyone can relate to. There is a joy in doing that.
Speaker 1:You know the whole explosion and wild swimming during the pandemic, all of that kind of a thing, and so it, and for me, and I, I I'm sure for you as well to some level, it is that sense of being able to take your camera somewhere where you've already been on a surfboard or on a bodyboard, or that you, it's the, it's sort of in that little pocket of energy of when a wave breaks, it's such a wonderful place to be and and and it doesn't have to be 10 feet high, that that pocket of energy and do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:yes, exactly, if it is, it's going to hurt and you're gonna, yeah, you're gonna get, yeah, yeah, it caught in the washing machine a bit, but but you know, it's sort of waves in this country anyway here in the UK sort of two foot, three foot, all of that kind of stuff is absolutely fine and and and there is an energy in there and I do think one of the things that I've really got from this project and one of the the reasons why I was literally grinning my head off when I walked out the water the the very first time, was that that sense of energy and being in a position to kind of and we've talked about this before sort of photographic language and capturing energy. But it's not capturing it, it's it's sort of I don't know working with it or but it just becoming a bit of a part of you and some of that ending up on the sensor of the camera and I just kind of. It's a sort of symbiotic relationship that and I kind of I really like it. No, you know, you're not sort of taking a piece of the ocean away with you, but you are sort of taking the partly the feeling of being in the water away with you and and the one of the other things I really like about about this in specifically for me, for the ICM part of it is I did a project on starlings and the murmuration which I think we talked about actually a while ago.
Speaker 1:One of the things I really liked about that was the mess. It was the mess of it. It was just the visceral thrill of being underneath you know 50, 60,000 starlings as they come into land and so many photography projects that I'd seen had been sort of perfect curves and fractals, but actually my experience of it had been sort of really messy and specifically noisy, really noisy. When 50 or 60,000 of these creatures land, really, I mean it's not quite on top of you, but sometimes we live in Bristol and the summer set levels it happens and sometimes they're only 20 yards away, 15 yards away, and sometimes to get to that spot they've literally gone straight over the top of your head. So in that kind of a and so it was the energy of that, the mess of that, and in an ICM way, that's partly being my joy with this is the kind of the energy and the mess of it as much as anything else. And what happens if the shutter stays open for a bit whilst you're being tumbled around during as the wave breaks. It's that kind of a thing and it's that from a surfing point, if you know that feeling that little pocket, that little pocket of energy as the wave breaks and just following it along and sort of doing a similar thing with a camera, and you know what happens in that place.
Speaker 1:It's yeah, it's just been a lot of fun and I've really, really enjoyed it, and part of what one of the other things I've really enjoyed about it is that is the sort of the all weather nature of it. You're getting wet anyway, it just doesn't matter what the weather's like. And actually, in loads of ways, I've had some wonderful evenings.
Speaker 1:I'm usually going out in the evenings actually with this project at the moment, but had some wonderful evenings and some beautiful calm, calm sunsets and and it's lovely calm water, but this summer in particular, some really, really stormy seas and that's been really good fun in a kind of obviously not going out in a named storm, because you know that's that's life threatening and that's not in a particularly intelligent thing to do if you're a father of two daughters. So you have to be very careful and but, but also, by the same token, after that storm has passed, it leaves the sea churned up for a fair few days afterwards and just going out and what's left is that. I've really enjoyed that, actually, and and so that I've had one or two sort of evenings when the sun isn't shining and all of that, and it's sort of overcast and quite heavy and quite stormy, and that's just been equally as magnificent, so yeah it's just, it's just been great fun.
Speaker 2:That's great and I wonder how much of it is from. For me it's definitely tied up with well being because actually, as you were saying that, going out in all weather, that being in the water, sometimes I don't take my camera off. I mean I I'm a wild swimmer. I say about wild swimmer, don't actually swim, I just go in and people about and then come back out.
Speaker 1:It's the cold.
Speaker 2:it's the cold immersion that's helpful for me, and being outdoors and the walk there, you know the whole experience of it. So I don't always have my camera with me and it doesn't always matter that I've not got my camera. So it's sometimes camera, sometimes not, and I don't know why the difference would be. I suppose if the conditions are spectacular I'd be going oh, I'd like to capture that on camera. But I think that I wonder if that sort of thing that we've both got, you know, we've both got a history of surf. If you've surfed, you know, you kind of know, don't you? You're a sort of sea person. There are people that see people on me.
Speaker 2:But, you also understand the sea. I think particularly we're surfing more than anything else. You understand those conditions and you understand how the waves work. You understand where not to go when it's starting to get a little bit you know, really yeah it's really. I think surfing lays this sort of foundation for wave photography, because you understand things. And also I wonder if you feel connected a little bit to it as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and also you look out. So it's that whole thing of being in the water and just looking out. You're looking at the horizon the whole time, aren't you? You're waiting for the sets to come and you're looking just for the little bumps on the horizon which, in 20 or 30 seconds time, will be a rideable set, and you're just always looking and, as you say, you're always connected because you're just looking at what's coming and getting yourself in a position for where you think it might arrive and what might happen when it will.
Speaker 1:And it is, yeah, but the safety part of it you're right about as well. You've just got to be very careful in the water, particularly if it's big, and it's been big quite a lot recently, and so, yeah, that is a thing too. I'm sort of quite, you know, as you get older and I'm sort of more aware of that than I used to be when I was sort of younger and sort of learning to surf and all that you just think you're indestructible, don't you? And then at some kind of age you find out you're probably not.
Speaker 2:You're definitely not, yeah, so you just have to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always err on the side of caution. If I'm not sure I don't go. I don't go in, particularly after storms and that kind of a thing, because you just got to be careful.
Speaker 2:It's more knowing the beach and the way the beach works and knowing the swells and all of that, and knowing your location in the internet I mean here in Harris I know exactly where I can go and when I can go and what's hidden. You know what's swell and you know it's like scarista here. You just not go swimming in scarista, so some people do. And sometimes it is flat calm, but most of the year it's not something you do. You need to have a board with you to go in there.
Speaker 2:So, you learn these things and then you also learn your tolerances as well. I did quite a lot of the photography that from my book and exhibition was done when it was snowing that period and I was like, oh, is it much? I think it was this year and there was some great snowy conditions. Obviously it was Baltic, there was snow on the beach. So I just had to know my limits. I had to know my kit. I had to know what I was wearing. I had to know when to get out. When it was not, you know, I still had to walk back to the car with hands and blocks of feet. It's just being aware. I wonder whether, like being a swimmer or surfer, you've got a lot of these things already laid down for you. You know, over the years of knowledge and that's maybe built you up already to where you are to be able to go into the water and do this project that you've been doing. It's a good foundation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it just gives you a sort of an insight, isn't it? They always say don't they, with photography, take photographs of the things that interest you, or the things that you're connected to, or the things that resonate with you? And this is always resonated with me, I've always been a water photographer and then you kind of go, well, what else is there? What haven't I done? What is there another way in? Is there something that I haven't either experienced or felt? Is that kind of a thing, isn't it? And your brain keeps worrying on that kind of a subject, and then you try stuff out. I've sort of I've worked up to this. There is take me a long time to do it in a kind of just sort of mucking about in shorts and sort of running cameras along the tops of waves. Certainly, that's what I've been doing for the last sort of three or four years, but I haven't sort of had a water housing or anything until I got.
Speaker 1:I was interested. I always try and do because of what I do for a living. I always try and do everything on a budget because you kind of have to, and if you're sort of super freelance, like all actors pretty much are and all photographers are pretty much to a greater or lesser extent, and so I've always been sort of trying to find pretty much the cheapest way of doing something, to get to test out an idea. And so for this, what I did was I got a compact camera. I'm very lucky to do some ambassador.
Speaker 1:I'm an ambassador for Pentax Rico, as I think I mentioned before, and they gave me a compact camera and one of the things that the Rico GR3, for those of you who are interested, it's a great street camera actually, but I tend to use it at the beach or around or just when you don't have anything else on you, like the big camera, and it's got a three stop neutral density filter on it, sort of built into it.
Speaker 1:So I bought like an aqua pack which is literally it's essentially, you know, sort of a plastic bag, a very well made plastic bag with a water tiles tight seal at the top. But it didn't cost a lot of money, it was like 20, 25 quid and last summer I did a project on it just to see if it would work and the hit rate was really low. But it was one of those things where I wasn't a wetsuit, I was in the sea, I was mucking about in the waves. I was sort of trying to get to those little pockets of energy as the waves break and I knew from that that there was some potential in it.
Speaker 1:And then you kind of go well how can I suit this up, how can I upscale this and sort of spend a bit more gear. But I didn't go and I should have. Yeah, memo to self don't do what I've done.
Speaker 1:Well, because it's yeah, but yeah, I bought some, some, some, some not as waterproof as it should have been housing off eBay, but as the next kind of step up, it cost about 70 quid or something, and I'm not going to mention the brand name because it didn't work and well. It worked the first time, really well, and then the second time, and it's possible, as always with these things, that it's user error, and so that's one of the reasons why I'm not going to mention it, but it's never happened with anything else that I've ever used and it did result in the demise of my camera.
Speaker 2:But what a way to go. What a way to go.
Speaker 1:And also, but also I had, I got some absolutely beautiful photographs that day and and what for me, even though I lost a camera and and I've, which I have since replaced it for me it was absolutely part of the process, because a memo to self upgrade your equipment and get something that is that is really watertight and and and reliable, and all of those things but B for me, it proved to me that the idea would work and that's all I needed. That's all I needed, and that, for me, was the exciting thing. And I'll take. The loss of a camera on the way is not ideal, but I'll take it because the joy that I had that day and also the potential for the future was so big that you kind of go that's an experiment, it's collateral damage.
Speaker 1:I would rather it didn't happen and and I am denied about buying a replacement and all of that kind of stuff for some considerable time. But but then you kind of work out what you do need to get to the next level in terms of to have housing or something that, fingers crossed, touch words, isn't going to leak. It's always a good place to start and and then, and then sort of moved on, and then you move on. So I learned a lot from that and and much as I would rather it hadn't happened, it's it's a great piece of experience that it did and and I learned a lot, not only in terms of equipment but photographically that day that there was a huge amount of potential in the project. So I look back on it very fondly and with a slight yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's. It wasn't a wholly disappointing day. It was. There was a lot of joy in it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I had the same thing. I've been. I'd been experimented about four years before I actually, you know, it's that thing when you start something new, it's not. People see sort of like you know the end result. Don't they see me doing exhibition with all these wonderful images? We didn't see the seven years where I was playing around with my phone, like you said. You know, my phone was a big as well how I started and I did lose a phone. So yeah, actually, did you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yeah it was.
Speaker 2:It was user error. I'm not not going to blame the kit. It was user error it was. It was probably more unfortunate than your camera loss because I was in a Harris without any signal. There was no. Yeah, there was no. Obviously I was. I had no Wi-Fi, my phone was in the water, it was no longer a phone and then I realized that I'd been out of here. I was like, oh, I haven't never just heard from me for about a day. I think I better sort of like think about how many touch people hang on a minute. Yeah, pay phones left. What do I do? I either go to the police station and try and remember the phone number.
Speaker 1:It was just.
Speaker 2:it was quite a long time ago, and so I ended up having to drive to store away and buy a new phone in August because I was the only solution I came with. So it was quite inexpensive.
Speaker 1:Did you still have all your contacts and all of that kind of stuff, or did you lose it? Did all that get wiped out? Well, I think you would have done one too. I just can't remember, yeah, unless it's in the cloud. If they had them.
Speaker 2:It was quite a long time ago and it wasn't that savvy then. So now I have two phones, because I still take my phone into the water quite a lot. I have one that's called my filming phone and I'll take that into the water without any protection and I'll just do things. You know, and I'm not putting it under, but sometimes I do dip it in a little bit. Yeah, and then I'll have my phone. That's actually I need to be able to do things.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, actually communicate with other humans, yeah, so anyway, the point behind that is that I think once we start doing something, you have to go through those steps of experiment with that. Okay, that worked, but I think I need this, so I'm going to go and buy this and then I'll add that all I'll change that out and that's working. But no, this is. I mean, I've had several underwater housings that haven't worked, and it's just a process. And if you're the difference between you not particularly you, anyone who starts something and gets good at it is that they don't stop at the point of resistance.
Speaker 2:You know that point where it's too hard I've lost a camera, I can't keep doing this and then they stop. So when you push past that and you're going. Actually, that was just a learning I just learned from that. I learned not to buy cheap housing. So, yeah, you're so right though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, how interesting. And also, what's interesting about that is that every step of that iteration, every step where something goes wrong, one of the steps is just to stop at that point, isn't it, and kind of go right, I'm not doing that, I'm not doing that again, but and then, but with you off each of those points, there's all sorts of multiple choices you can make about. That didn't work. So how do I move this forward? And do I carry on doing what I'm doing, or do I take a slightly right turn? And so I guess I'm not much of an inventor, but I would imagine that's part of sort of the how invention works, isn't it that in this, with the same given sets of circumstances, loads of different minds will think in a completely different way and find multiple different solutions to the problem that has just presented itself. And so, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other thing that I found really interesting about you and what you're doing here is that it's like you see somebody who's on a path of I don't even know how to explain this, but like you've got your subject, you've got your photography, and then you you're not quite sure where you're going with it, but you've got different things that you do and then you sort of like you're leaning towards something and then you're leaning towards something else within that genre.
Speaker 2:So like, for instance, like you had the C, you always had the C, and then you also had your ICM that you were quite interested in, and now you're sort of like going a bit deeper into the, the idea, and it feels. It feels to me when I see you doing it feels authentic. You're not doing it because it's a trend, or it's because it's I don't know because it's what you think people will like, or whatever it is. It just feels authentic because you're a C person. So it makes sense for you to be doing this and to get deep and deep. And where that goes, I don't know, but I suspect it will go deeper even and it'll become a bigger thing for you. Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned it earlier. Actually, we know we were talking about sort of immersive and immersive theater and you said it's just something you've done and it felt like the right thing to do, and I think that's so true, isn't it? Is there's a degree of post rationalization that goes on about the, the wise in the house, but it is that center. It's a feeling, isn't it? And just being in the C and particularly hanging around a breaking wave, I love that place. That place is a really exciting place to be, and not necessarily for everybody, but certainly for me. I've always enjoyed that little spot there and so, yeah, so, whether it's with a bodyboard, with my kids or, you know, with my the half, or whatever, it's just it's a great place to be in. But it's feeling first, brain second in a kind of.
Speaker 1:It's that kind of sense of just following your nose a bit, isn't it?
Speaker 1:And kind of going what and yeah, and and and also, with these kinds of things, when you do go off these down these kind of, sometimes these, these little avenues do end up for you to be creatively a dead end, and that's okay, and because you've had a look and you've been down and kind of go always are interesting anything interesting here, and actually, well, not for me.
Speaker 1:And so you kind of you leave the alleyway and you try another one, and so all of these things and that often can be as exciting as as as finding out there is a pot of gold at the end of it, because it forces you to look somewhere else, and you kind of it makes your brain kind of go right, well, this one hasn't worked for me, or it hasn't doesn't suit me heading down this particular direction. So what else? What else? What else is that kind of a thing? So, so just the, the exploration of it, even if it ends in a, in a dead end, is enough. That part of so much of of life is that is is just trying stuff out and seeing if you can make something of it, and if you can't, then what else instead maybe, and but yeah, yeah, this, this one's been great fun. I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other thing that I love is that you've done ICM in the water, because you already experiment what you already in quite a lot of ICM, and then you've taken it into the water and I had actually thought about doing ICM in the water, not intentionally, because sometimes I've done it by accident, because you know you get, sometimes that happens you're, you're about to get mashed by something. Yeah, yeah, you know, you finger on the button, you're taking an image and you can almost go like this and it's always an ICM. Oh, it's actually quite beautiful.
Speaker 2:But, it's just not. It's just not my thing, it's just not my thing. So I've done my thing in my way and you have done your thing in your way. And actually talking about that, what I really like is that we're both doing something very similar, and I think we talked about this when you were up and I said, oh, we should do a workshop and call it messing about in the water. And then I thought about it went oh no, no, health and safety, yeah, too complex.
Speaker 1:Right about that, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, goodness, the thoughts still there, the thoughts I think the thought behind that is that I'm always like, really open and welcoming to other people doing the same thing that I'm doing, because there's room for everybody doing their own thing in their own way, isn't that so, therefore, if anybody wanted to come over to Harris, it have to be here, because I'm not leaving this island ever again.
Speaker 2:So I decided it's the best place in the world and do, like you know, have an experience of in water photography. In fact, I did a one to one recently and the lady came along. We had the best day ever.
Speaker 1:And she had underwater.
Speaker 2:She had all the kit. Actually, she hadn't had time to practice. She'd practiced, she'd done it, used it once, I think it was abroad in the Maldives, and she came over here and she said can we just can? This is what I want to do. So we had an absolute ball.
Speaker 1:I've got to say it was a beautiful day.
Speaker 2:But to encourage other people into to do this if they're interested, and but the key to it is is it something that you love, or is it something that you love the idea, because Margaret and Bill are doing it so well in their own way? So think of that sort of separation. There's a lot of people that will love it because they love to see and they love photography. It matches quite well, doesn't it? But I do think there's that thing where we should really, like you know, help and uplift other people doing things, because it's just, it's just, it's just better for everyone, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's about joy, isn't it? And yeah, and I do love your whole thought about messing about and mucking about. I do, I do, though I do think so much of photography is about that is just trying stuff out, having fun, enjoying yourself and seeing what you can make, and, yeah, and there is a positivity in that that I think is really useful, and yeah yeah, no, I agree more.
Speaker 2:I think it's easier in the water because it's fun in the. It's much more fun in the water. I think photography has got a little bit serious. Well, it is serious, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, but it can get too serious in that it can stop you enjoying creating and it can actually stop you creating, because you're, the people are so wound up with like I've got to get this image. I mean here on this picture, I've got to get that image. I can't leave this picture and all of this kind of like, you know, seriousness going on and letting go. Letting go is part of the process of creating amazing images, isn't it? So once we let go of that need to create an amazing image, need to create images that you know validate you in some way, we let go of all of that. Then we can start to enjoy. And I suppose when you're in the water, you've got to let go of that because you get a slip and fall. You know you're going to laugh, you know, and it's not like. It's not so serious, is it? I don't know, maybe it is, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:I hadn't thought of that, that is. But you're right, it is just the medium sort of the waterness of it just makes it, because because, as kids, that's what you do, isn't it? That's it, yeah, is that's what you do? You're just splashing about, sort of mucking about and, yeah, splashing each other and all of all of that kind of stuff, and I think that's really interesting. I haven't thought of that at all and I have no doubt you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Really good. Yeah, I was going to say I usually am, but I probably shouldn't say that, yeah, yeah. Well, actually maybe I can, maybe we can say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's your podcast. You can say what you like. Yeah, yeah, this is funny, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we'll probably end on that, luke, but thank you, thank you so much and we'll get everybody to check out your, I think, on Instagram, are you?
Speaker 1:It is at the moment. I haven't eaten very much, just sort of ongoing current thing, but I have done a lot of it, so there's plenty to come and yeah, it's been great fun and yeah, I'll stick it on my website in a bit, but it won't be for the first few months. So, yeah, instagram's a place to go for it.
Speaker 2:A little bit busy doing all the things I think at the moment.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, thank you. Thank you for chatting with me again and we'll catch you again at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant and listen. Good luck with creative lights. Have the best possible time, and I know you will. So, yeah, thank you. Wish you all the best for that, thank you.