New Fires Now

New Fires has been other things before, known by other names - The Old Ground Project and The Unforgiving River - but they are old stone to new buildings now. Old timber to new fires.

By way of a re-introduction I am a photographer, father and husband. I am thirty seven years old. I have been working for myself for almost eight years. My living is made solely from my work as a photographer and occasional filmmaker. I do work mainly for commercial clients. I also work on assignments for a big newspaper. In another life I worked a couple of jobs that I hated and one I didn't. Those jobs made me realise I couldn’t sit behind a desk working for someone else for the rest of my life. I quit the only job that I did like without any real savings to make my own way.

In the last seven years I have been lucky enough to work beside my wife, Fern, who also quit her desk job to join me as co-founder of our creative studio Department Two. We work incredibly well together. We have a spacious studio in the heart of Sheffield, just off a sun-trap courtyard beside our friend’s coffee shop. I walk to work with our ten year old whippet, George, most days. When people find out we’re married they sometimes ask us how we do it. I tell them working together is easy. It’s the rest that’s hard. And it is.

My work involves quite a bit of travel. Recently I have been in Italy, France, Poland, Germany and all over England, Wales and Scotland. Next month I’ll fly to the US for the first of three trips there this year. I enjoy travel but find it hard to balance it with my family. But you have to go where the money is (within reason). I’m always trying to spend more time with my daughter but work and the perpetual need for it always tries to stand in the way. It’s a constant battle and it really is the hardest thing about what I do.

As a photographer, I’m always trying to make more art. Or to find a way to make making art stack up financially. I want to make photographs that matter to people. Not necessarily in a serious way. I just want my work to connect with people on a level beyond the commercial. But I also like to get paid and making a living from art alone seems impossible now. At times, this drive to create, to colour outside the lines of client work, feels selfish and vain. But its call is constant.

In the eight years since I started, I’ve made photographs for Savile Row tailors, vast Scottish estates, high-end lighting designers, cloth merchants and mills, luxury luggage brands, drinks companies and others. I’ve learned what type of work I like to do. I’ve changed my mind. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve paid for them. I’ve argued. I’ve challenged and been challenged. I’ve done things and made work that I am incredibly proud of. I’ve been in scrapes and situations. I’ve travelled. I’ve seen and I’ve understood. Most importantly though, I have done what I set out to and I have now realised the long-held dream I once had of making my own way.

Returning to Substack, I wanted to share some of the experiences and lessons from my work and life in the hope they might sow some seeds for others, and maybe make things a little easier on them. I want this to be real but I also want it to be positive because I think that’s important - there are really many more positive experiences in this life than negative. Take heed though, I’m no expert. Like of all of us, I’m mostly trying and failing and sometimes, occasionally, I’m doing alright.

These are the things that I will write about here, with new fire.