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James Cosmo - Photographed in Soho in 2018

Several times in my life, I've started exploring photography as a creative outlet but at a certain point I'd get stuck, and it would always go the same way, I’d get into it with some device which made it easy to just point and shoot, either a compact camera back in the film days or a digital point and shoot or more recently a phone. I’d take more and more photos and get more and more into it and then I’d decide to really go for it and would invest in a better camera and then almost instantly I would get overwhelmed by the technical side of things and I’d just drop it all together. Then, a few years later the cycle would begin anew. I actually, finally crossed that line in the end because of an acting job. It was a television show and the main cast were expected to post regularly to social media and in a bid to avoid taking loads of selfies I decided to shoot portraits of the crew and other cast instead. As per my habit I started on my phone and soon fell back in love with photography and was taking loads of shots and loving it. This time however, I got some really helpful advice from a guy named Angus who was the set photographer. He told me to buy in to the Fuji X-mount system because they are styled like old fashioned film cameras, all the main controls are manual and on the outside of the camera, dials and knobs and whatnot. At first I thought that would make things harder than ever, but once I started using it I soon discovered that actually it had been all the weird in menu controls and strange auto shooting options on fancy cameras that had been confusing me all along. Once I got a camera where I could intuitively control everything and immediately see the difference when I changed the shutter speed, the aperture or the ISO, it didn’t take me long to finally cross that bridge and feel like I was starting to be in control of what I shot and the best thing about that is being able to consciously manipulate those variables to shoot what you personally see in a moment or a subject, or rather to try and capture the way it feels to look at something. What I find really incredible about that journey is that for so many years it was something I thought I would never be able to crack. I really thought it was something I’d never understand and yet when I look back I can see that there really wasn’t much to learn to get to a point of having some confidence. I wonder how many other things are like that. Nowadays, I rarely leave the house without a camera, it’s become a part of me. Sometimes I even feel like I can't really see things properly till I look at them through a lens. Honestly its been one of the most wonderful discoveries of my life and has completely transformed how I view the world. it reminds me of writing actually, it reminds me of film making. They are all facets of the same thing somehow. That mission to say, this is how I see the world, this is how I look at it, how I remember it and how I imagine it. This is me. Not me as you look in on me, but me as I look out at you.

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