Bio 2021
Life’s Theatre
Authentic, approachable, down-to-earth, relaxed, professional. Bought up on a farm at Ngatea on the Hauraki Plains, Spid learned early that friendships make the world go around, you make your luck with hard work and to get anywhere you have to collaborate with others to find the best possible solutions. He was surrounded by classic Kiwi characters, quirky humour and a hea
lthy dose of banter. Spid started taking the family photographs when he was 8 years old because his mum always pressed the shutter so hard the camera dipped and when the photos came back everyone’s heads had been cut off. He put the money from his first after-school job into buying an SLR camera and his career path was set. Spid was largely self-taught until he arrived in London in 1992 and attended the Drill Hall Art School. When he returned to New Zealand he won a study grant from the Ronald Woolf Memorial Trust, which he used to study graphic and photographic design. He has that incredible skill of drawing the viewer into his work through design and he has spent years perfecting his craft. As a photographer, Spid is hands-on. He likes to get involved at an early stage of a commission, he checks out the locations himself and starts a relationship with the talent by being involved in the casting. He wants subjects who are on the same page as he is and are prepared to “push out the boat” resulting in those beautiful moments of spontaneity and a sense of freedom in his images. The rapport that Spid establishes with the talent is reflected in his engaging and character-driven portraits. This, he believes, is the most important aspect of his job. Making a connection with his subject allows him to elicit moments of spontaneity that bring freedom and fun into often-humorous, quirky images. Spid’s images reflect a fascination with the subtleties of people’s faces which display their inner selves. That’s part of the challenge—digging into a subject’s soul to draw out those nuances in expression that each tell a different story. In his personal work, Spid is always seeking something different. He loves those theatrical subjects and life’s classic moments. This is his true passion: life’s theatre. Along the way, he has been selected from thousands of submissions by photographers worldwide for the next Lürzer's Archive 2020/2021 edition. Spid is proud to have created stunning images for fantastic companies and produced exquisite art prints that grace the walls of many happy customers. Enjoy!
