From my perspective, the photography scene today feels both incredibly exciting and incredibly complex. Never before have so many people been interested in pictures, we spend most of our days looking at them. The audience is bigger than ever, which means you don’t always have to be great to attract attention. After all, cats are still the most popular images on the internet! There’s a lot of work celebrated online that, in truth, is fairly mediocre.
As for the younger generation of photographers, I think it’s much the same as it’s always been, a handful of truly talented people surrounded by a lot of noise. What feels different now is the sense of urgency. There’s pressure to publish a book straight away, or to mount an exhibition as quickly as possible. I think that comes from the Instagram and TikTok culture of instant gratification, chasing likes and validation. And it makes me ask: why are people taking pictures? Are they shooting for themselves, or for approval? There also seems to be a lot of photographers who are just getting their inspiration from other photographers, I think in some cases it’s borderline plagiarism. My advice would be to look at different art forms, read a book, put your phone down find inspiration outside of your practice. For me it’s largely concerts live performances where you see people in their zone, completely consumed whilst doing something they love, when I was younger it was the mosh pit at a concert these days it’s the Opera, I fukin love the Opera.
When I was young, there were many photographers who inspired me, Edward Weston, Irving Penn, Olivia Parker, Fay Godwin, Bill Brandt, David Bailey, Richard Avedon, to name just a few. But in those early days, it was painters who had the strongest influence on me. From the books we had at home, I was drawn to Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Cézanne.
The first time I encountered a Rothko at the Tate Modern was a turning point. I remember standing there, completely transfixed, unable to move. I can’t fully put into words what it was, only that I hadn’t believed art could affect me in that way. In that same room was Giacometti, whose work also became deeply important to me.
From there, abstract painting became my main source of inspiration. I began asking myself: how does a painting make you feel? which naturally evolved into how does a photograph make you feel?
More recently, I’ve been especially moved by the work of Cai Guo-Qiang, Anselm Kiefer, and Frank Auerbach. Their art continues to be a constant source of inspiration for me.
For me, the answer has always been clear: to be a successful photographer, you need to be in love with photography as a medium of expression, not just with the idea of being a photographer. The question I always come back to is this: If you were the only person who ever saw your photographs, would you still make them? And would they be the same pictures you’re taking now? If the answer is yes, then you’re on the right path. If not, then maybe it’s just vanity.
A real turning point in my career came when I moved to New York. Overnight, I went from being a busy commercial photographer to the new kid in town, with more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. It made me realise how much energy I had poured into chasing commercial work, and how far I had drifted from the original reasons I became a photographer.
I’d often leave the apartment with a camera and return without ever taking it out of the bag. I was so used to working from someone else’s brief that I’d forgotten how to brief myself. That struggle gradually became a process of self-discovery, I started to think deeply about the paths we choose, and how each decision carries us somewhere unexpected. That line of thought eventually led me to create Melt: Portrait of an Iceberg, which became both my first book and my first major exhibition.