I feel lucky sometimes. While other people have jobs which admittedly are more regular financially, they are repetitive. As a freelance journalist, over the years | have been lucky enough to interview and meet people I admire like Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro, Matt Groening, Mike Moorcock and many others. I have even gotten friendly with some of the people I have interviewed over the years like Walt Simonson, who wrote and drew a number of comics I have admired.
As well as being a journalist, I am also a photographer and this is a skill that I have also honed thanks to the fact I am a journalist. It is the fact that I have a rapport with the subjects I interview and I have now reached a point where I am taking photos I am actually very proud of. I bought a camera just for reference for something and I am rather pleased that it seems I have an aptitude for taking photos, particularly portraits of creative people.
With my portraits, I try to encapsulate the spirit and soul of the subject whether they’re writers, artists or even fellow photographers. I have had to shoot people with only a few minutes to compose the shot and there have been other occasions where I’ve had plenty of time. Making decisions on the hoof focuses the mind.
I do have people I know who have regular jobs and sometimes I envy them but then there are moments when I get to do interesting things and meet people I have admired for years that I get to meet, often on an equal footing, and this makes it all worthwhile.
I’d be happy to hear from other people who do work that they love.
Joel Meadows
[email protected]
London