This transcript was generated automatically, so may (actually – definitely will) contain the odd mistake or two. Therefore it's probably best to be used as a reference after listening to the episode, should you want to refer to something you heard but can't remember exactly when it was said 🙂

Anthony, thanks very much for joining us.

Anthony Lamb 3:06
No problem. Thank you very much for inviting me.

Steve Arnold 3:09
No, it's a it's great to great to have you on. I've been looking forward to speaking with you. Have you been enjoying your photography lately? I kind of stumbled across your, your profile and your website relatively recently, but it was kind of one of those things like I almost have to compare it to Netflix, I kind of binged all of your your images.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
Let's go.

Steve Arnold 3:35
Yeah, what what I'm sort of really interested in learning from you, myself. And I'm sure listeners benefit from this as well as perhaps finding out how you came to be the photographer you are today and how your style developed and maybe what kind of Yeah, what stages in your development, looking back, you know, maybe any sort of milestones or particular term points there were so maybe if we start out by you just perhaps giving a little kind of description or a definition of your style of photography and what it is that you do.

Anthony Lamb 4:11
Yeah, sure. So, thanks again, Steve for inviting me. I really appreciate your you taking the time to binge on my work. It's very kind of you. But, you know, I think like any photographer, you never put yourself into a particular genre, when you first start taking imagery when you're younger. And, you know, like, like a lot of people, you start taking photographs of a very young age, and you're really just pointing and shooting initially, and you don't really necessarily have a particular style or way of working with me. It kind of evolved and you might whatever happens with other people, I'm not sure but you know, what kind of works evolved over the last 17 years of shooting

you know, even though tweeting outside

Steve Arnold 5:03
even though it's the camera when

Anthony Lamb 5:04
I was younger, you know, I'm 43 now and I've only been sort of shooting properly for 17 years. And you know, taking it really seriously. And I think a lot of the style I have now which you could class's sort of minimalist, and already finance is kind of pretty based on my understanding of what I learned in the back, back at university back in college. And I think, my love for simplicity and linear lines and and I think, appreciation of other artists who are in that same sort of genre is kind of inspired me to, to take that route with my work. So I would, I would certainly class myself as a minimalist, even though that that word is quite broad brush. And I like simplicity, because it kind of makes more of an emotional connection. When you At work, and it also allows me to transpire or to try and tell the story about how I felt as a photographer at location. So, I think from that, from that way it works because I'm not necessarily trying to show people, big VISTAs and beautiful landscapes. What I am trying to do though is share the, the emotional connection I have with the places I visit. So I think that was probably the best the best way of me describing what I am as a photographer, if that makes sense to

Steve Arnold 6:32
you. Yeah, definitely. So yeah, you mentioned minimalist, and you know, fine art. I think perhaps the two genres kind of well not really separate genres, I suppose. One, it may be a subset of the other a bothered by whether you're sort of put into one category or another or another, or is that like a use first about definitions? Not really know because I've never really decided to put myself in any genre, because you know my work.

Anthony Lamb 7:05
I think people look at my work and they decide to put you into a genre. It's a bit like the any artist and the critics or the the viewers or the the general public will kind of distinguish you in a particular place as an artist. And yeah, I don't think anybody like when the Impressionists started painting, impressionist painting, they never thought of themselves as impressionists at the beginning. It was just something that the media maybe kind of decided to call them because of their style of work and a minimalist yet okay. I can't compare myself to, to the likes of them. But the genre already existed separates before I started to actually sort of play around with it. So because of that, it seems to suit my my particular style, but I still think of myself as more of a minimalist expressionist as such because what I'm trying to do is use Use color as well to with different hues. I'm trying to use a pastel expression. And And so yeah, I think it's, it's just an easier way I suppose of explaining to people who talk to you about your photography that you are a minimalist because you don't always have your own kind of words to sort of suit your your work. And it's also difficult as a photographer to decide what you are. And to kind of critique yourself is very, very difficult and I can kind of critique my own work in whether I like it or don't like it, but I find it difficult to critique my work when it comes to describing what it is and you know, with available words that make sense.

Steve Arnold 8:44
Yeah, yeah. So like, through your through my eyes, your images have a very distinct style. I've seen your, you know, from from seascapes to two images you've taken in the desert, and then even like through your commercial work, I've seen on your website as well as there's something there's a quality that kind of is consistent through all of that. And, yeah, I'm kind of interested to know how you managed to actually apply that in those different sort of settings, especially perhaps, you know, the contrast between the sea and the desert, as well.

Anthony Lamb 9:20
Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, I think the sea in the desert really

are both very much parts of my

sort of history or growing up as a child. I've had a huge interest in love for the ocean. So, from from a seascape perspective, I love shooting seascapes, because of that. I mean, it already started when I was young, because we used to go hiking a lot to a variety of different places in Europe when I was a child, and we were lucky enough to see some great places and so I kind of the appreciation of nature was was already Embedded when I was like six or seven, and we used to go on hiking holidays a lot, and I never really took a camera with me at the time, because I didn't really understand the connection between what you can do with a camera and actually a depreciation of the landscape is saying that you can kind of record that that sensational, you can record that memory. And and that was really the connection when I found out about photography in college, that you could do that you that you could physically record in your own way and that that landscape. So the landscape of sea of the ocean or the sea is very much based on my childhood desert. However, it's a little bit more based on where I moved to so I live in the UAE and I moved to the UAE in 2011. And I used to have a job with IBM, but now I work myself full time as a photographer, so the desert really was just the doorstep opportunity. For me as a photographer to find somewhere where I could lose myself in the serenity of nature and and that's one of the reasons I do photography is to sort of position myself in places that I feel emotional connections from a from a karmic perspective. And the desert for me does that as well as seascape. So it was an obvious kind of connection for me to start shooting in the desert. And I think I think as well it just so happens that it's it's a local place for me and I think a lot of photographers do that the local area is probably the most captured area as a photographer and you get to understand that the more you understand the place the more you can kind of play around with it. With you know, with it's kind of views or perspectives you can you can find perspectives that other people might not find if it went there for the first time for example.

Steve Arnold 11:57
Yeah, that's Yeah, that's That's actually a really interesting point about, you know, photographing what you have available what's near to you at any given time. And it's something as well that when I when I looked a bit closer at your some of your seascapes you just so happened that you happen to make the coastline around my local area back home in England, you make it look way better than I ever managed to when I was just so, you know, because I mean, I, I sort of really started getting into photography, I bought my first camera in 2008, which was while I was waiting for my visa, for, you know, to move to Australia, so I didn't really have that much time. And you're still very early in my own development. But now I'm kind of, you know, looking at your images and you're creating images and and showing the, you know, the Suffolk and Essex coastline in your images in a way that I I'm not sure how I could naturally sort of created that unless I was unless I saw something like your photography and then tried to Kind of emulated in a way. I'm not sure what the question is in there, but it's just more of a comment. Really? I said, Yeah, that's Yeah, that's it. The question for me really was. And for anybody who, who's listening, who maybe struggles to find inspiration in their local area, because, you know, a lot of people are just so used to seeing photography of amazing mountain VISTAs and everything. And, you know, not everybody has that on their doorstep. Do you have any advice for people who want to be able to really sort of get to know their local area and actually create something that somebody hasn't seen? before? Which for me when I saw your images, I hadn't seen the suffer coastline like that before?

Anthony Lamb 13:41
Yeah, sure. I think it I think, for me, anyway, it comes down to influences. So it comes down to what influences me now and what's influenced me in the past, and that's how I may be. And you know, I look at my work in different way. I mean, I really appreciate Your comment Steve, but I look at my work and think there's still work to be done. And I really don't feel yet that I've kind of reached the point quite where I've, I've kind of been as honest as I can with my work but also achieving the kind of aesthetic that I'm really aiming for. And but I think to describe how I've kind of got to that point, and that the advice that I can give to people who might want to sort of shoot something which is more personal in their local area, I think you need to start putting yourself into the photography. So rather than taking Instagram and the the likes of social media as your basis of what's good and what's not good. start to look at yourself as a photographer and look at yourself as a person and work out what you really like in in in life. So the reason I shoot minimalism is not because I like all minimalist photographers. It's because I like Balance. I like the simplicity I like to have less clutter. I like it to be simplistic when you when you look at the image and it tells the story through through that simplicity. It doesn't mean I live my life like that it doesn't mean that I have like a, you know, a box of sort of drawer of boxer shorts that are aligned and perfectly in place, you know, not sort of going to that point where I'm kind of like anal about things. It's more about my and my love for design from college, for example. So when I when I studied design in college university, and I used to admire people like Phillipe Starck, Miss van der Rohe, Arlene gray at the Bauhaus movement, which if you look at the work and you look at the style of work, it's all very linear. It's all very minimalist and organic in some respects. And but it's not overpowering, and you know that the work is very, very graphic and really easy to understand. So even when I was like 18 I would look at that work in an order and think that's great. How did they do that? And the love of the landscape and the love of the outdoors combined with that, and combined with influences of artists, musicians, and photographers, you know, a big fan of Michael Kenner, who I've known since I was in the dark room at that school. And I didn't know him personally. So his work I knew off and I was very young, so he was always gonna be a big influence on me. And other people as opposed like Nick Brandt, who's a wildlife photographer, and who else as well, when I was younger. I mean, Peter lik, actually, when I went to Australia traveling in 2001, I saw Peter liX photographs in a gallery in Sydney. And these were this huge six feet wide kind of images and blew me away because the format more than anything else, the format was was really interesting. And so I think those come early influences of Definitely carry through. I wouldn't say pizza like is an influence now because it's worked very saturated and very sort of classic landscape. And but then you look at people like Michael LeBron, you look at people like Jonathan Critchley. And these guys are all kind of like looking at in that sort of genre and that sort of minimalist genre. And so, advice for people who are looking to achieve something that's maybe what they want to achieve, but don't know how to in that local area, I would certainly say look at what really makes you tick as a as an artist, you know, is it is it the Impressionists? Is it mark, you know, is it Rothko is it? Who is it that really inspires you outside of photography? And what do you really like in life? Do you like the big do you like looking at trees? Do you like looking at simplistic horizons in the seascape? And do you like water? Do you like snow? I mean, all these kind of elements really are, are things that you should really ask you So, and that really is, is, is really important because as soon as you start understanding what you like as a person, and your work starts become a little bit more honest. And then by being more honest with your work rather than necessarily being or copying or even being overly inspired by other photographers, it starts to become more personal to you. And then you can start finding your own direction. And I think that applies not just to your local area, but to any photography globally. If you're going to be traveling, you can use those kind of elements or use those fundamentals really to find something that's going to be

Steve Arnold 18:39
so yeah, so what I was hearing there is a lot of, you know, really looking to yourself away from photography, just you know, what you enjoy, you know, what, what means a lot to you as a person and then and then try to kind of bring that through in your photography so that, yeah, that leads me on to something else that I was sort of planning to ask you about as well, which is where you go Or where people tend to go to sort of get their work validated, you know, the likes of social media and, and chasing likes and all the rest of it versus, you know, versus just being happy with what you're producing yourself, and not really giving a monkey's what anybody else thinks. I mean, is that something that you consciously sort of decided to do in terms of, you know, where you where you get your validation from, like, with regards to being happy with how your images turn out?

Anthony Lamb 19:37
And that's, I mean, that's a really good question. And I think it's really hard sometimes as a as an artist or a photographer or, you know, creative to know what's good and what's not good in your own in your own work. And validation, I think is, is crucial to evolvement as a person and an artist because If you don't get validation, then you feel as if you're kind of like treading water not moving forward. And when I look for validation or for praise, or whatever you wanna call it, I think I listen to people who are close to me in the field. So I have quite a few friends who I shoot with, who I work with, and who I, you know, generally admire as other photographers. And Instagram, for me, is a great place to showcase your work. And I tend to use it more as a as a marketing tool, and a branding tool rather than a place to decipher what's good and what's not good. And don't get me wrong, but you know, I don't want to say to people that that is a bad place to put your work and a bad place for people to, to kind of say yes, it's good. Oh, yes, it's not Oh, no, it's not good because a lot of the people on Instagram Some of the people on Instagram for sure are extremely good photographers, and you can't disagree with that. But then again, there's also a lot of people out there who will try and bring you down. As a photographer, I've heard that a few times on YouTube, I've heard it on Instagram or on Facebook, where people are overly critical and without being subjective or without being, you know, kind of wet, really just overly critical in the wrong or negative way. So, it doesn't really bother me To be honest, because people are entitled to whatever they want. It's a free world. You can you can say whatever you like, and I don't really take that to heart. I just don't Okay, fair enough. You know, this guy's obviously not into my work, which is fine. You know, I don't expect 4 billion people to be into my work. You know, I'd be overly arrogant if, you know, if just a small selection of people like what I do, then that that's enough for me. And so it's not it's not about fame. It's not about being oversubscribed with people. It's purely about me going out into the world and taking pictures, a bit selfishly, really for myself. And, and then using a small collection of people to justify that work might be marketable, it might be saleable. And you know, I have a number of people in the business, who I work with, as well as curators who will also be really useful, subjective critics. And they will, they will say whether a piece of work is good and you can take to the biggest or best photographers in the world and you could put 10 photographs in front of them, and they might completely disagree to what's good and what's not good. So I think knowing your knowing your own work and knowing how good it is, if you don't get over, you know, 500 likes for an image on Instagram or you only get 10 likes on Instagram, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad photograph. I think too many people nowadays are falling for that trick. They're falling for the opinion of people on social media which I think you should be looking at yourself internally more than anything else and critiquing yourself and using the people around you know, your work best for them to critique your work. And that's how I see anyway and people might disagree out there and but, you know, all you know, do you use what you feel is the most comfortable source of, of, you know, critique of whatever the word is? I think what it is?

Steve Arnold 23:40
Yeah, no, I like I like that answer. That's, yeah, for me personally. The moment I kind of stopped really caring what anybody else thought was when I put my first video on YouTube showing a quick Photoshop tutorial. I just I was expecting to get slated for talking really slow and all the rest of it. Yeah, but You know, turns out that that was what people particularly liked. And so that was like a fear that, you know, I saw as a something that people were gonna get, yeah, turn off is going to turn them off from my videos. And that was one of the biggest kind of praises that I got. So that Yeah, just putting myself out there that first time in terms of the videos and stuff I do. That's, yeah, that got me over really caring what the masses thought. And, and yeah, with with my actual photography as well. Yeah, similar thing. So, you know, getting that bad feedback, if it was to happen, you know, is something that can maybe cause people to lose a bit of heart and get a bit despondent and maybe lose their passion for a little while in their photography. And there are, you know, there can be many other reasons I, myself, maybe I go through cycles, I don't know whether it's the seasons or whatever. Sometimes you feel more inspired than others. Have there ever been sort of many times for you like, does that does anything happen for you? Do you sort of go through periods?

Anthony Lamb 25:10
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think everybody does. I go through a lot and quite possibly at the moment because of what's happened globally, it's kind of like choked everybody down to to where we are at the moment and you know, as a landscape photographer, slash minimalist, and you know, you fighting the bit to go out as much as you can, and like everybody out here travel as well as important to me and all the traveling and the workshops I was going to do, unfortunately cancelled. So I think that that negativity from not being able to do that has kind of, unfortunately kind of come into into my life and everybody else's life globally. And and it kind of puts you into that. That kind of place of or, you know, can I kind of do it again and you're kind of unsure whether if I go out into the field next time, will I be able to take a good picture and you start doubting yourself? Because you haven't picked up your camera for some time. And I'm doing commercial work. So I'm getting some commercial jobs, but I'm not necessarily taking images in the field, which is kind of really my, my core of what I do. So yeah, of course, I mean, I've been through it for many, many years. And I think sometimes it's based on other people, and sometimes it can be based on just one person's opinion. Or you're not getting a commercial job, you might not win a large commercial job. So you start questioning Am I good enough and comparing yourself to others and you thinking why didn't I get that job? And then you sort of your I went to Bali for a wedding in October last year, I had all these ideas in my head of how I was going to shoot again. back with some shots of some waterfalls and I kind of looked at them I kind of felt disappointed. I felt as if I hadn't really pushed the boundaries I had just gone out to these waterfalls in the shop and the way I thought I should shoot and rather than going to a location and shooting it with an open mind, which is what I should do, and so I started questioning again you know, back in October, whether or not I can do it so it's been a long time I feel since I've taken a really good image and that's why I'm so looking forward to meeting my travel this year was because I thought I can start to get some decent images under my belt. And I didn't expect to take a lot of good images a lot of photographers Yeah, like David Yarrow and if you know David Yarrow, but he says that if you take four or five images a year, that are portfolio images, that's good enough, which I think is a really good point. I think that's exactly what you should be aiming for. And be aiming for like 40 portfolio images in a year. It's just not gonna be possible. So I think you know, it's a success. All year if you've got four or five images and so far this year for me, it hasn't really been that that an obvious for obvious reasons. And I'm not going to start waving the white flag and saying I feel sorry for me because it's the same for everybody. So, but yeah, I think like any artist as well, even if you're an artist top artists like Jeff Koons or something, somebody like that I'm sure he goes through goes through those, those the same inspiration, inspirational moments, and also the sort of more negative moments in his career. Because I think sometimes maybe artists overthink too much. Maybe that's part of the reason. And so yeah, I think it's a good thing. I try to look at it as a positive because if it's a low eternity, there's only one way to go and that could be up. And so, you know, so I think most times you've got to start looking in maybe your website, maybe start looking at other things. Just take your mind away from it. And then, you know, just get out of the camera without thinking about taking award winning images, there's gonna be Cameron enjoy it. And I think that's a really good way of just getting back on track.

Steve Arnold 29:08
Yeah, sure. No, that's Yeah, that's a great answer. So it kind of just basically taking the pressure off of yourself for a little bit and just recognizing that, you know, you're in a bit of a funk maybe and we're going to take a little, a little while to come back, but just to be somehow confident that it will eventually

Anthony Lamb 29:24
one patient and, you know, maybe maybe do something else, you know, maybe put your camera down for a month. You know, if you're, if you're really struggling, put your camera down, forget about photography, you know, don't even look at social media. Don't even look at your own website, forget about it. Unless it's your job, obviously. And but yeah, just try to just try to kind of really align everything else in your own life because I think it comes from within, and if you're not positive as a person, then you worked, essentially going to reflect that. And I think you need to be in the right mindset before you can go out They really start shooting to your best capability. Huh?

Steve Arnold 30:06
Yeah, no, that's that's very true. So yeah, one other thing. Yeah, that I was really interested in, in learning for you is, is your, your process when you turn up to a location that perhaps you haven't shot before? Or maybe it's somewhere you are familiar with, but you just you just haven't thought about photography there before? what's what's your process for kind of assessing? You know, what you're going to be photographing, you know, what, what a subject might look like? Yeah, I'm particularly interested because going back to the link with with my home area of Suffolk, and, you know, how, how do you sort of know what's going to make a good shot ahead of time and how much pre visualization of the finished image goes on?

Anthony Lamb 30:54
And, yeah, I think I do quite a lot of research. Do I think that really is quite important? I think research is is really part of the process. As a landscape photographer, I think you need to have some idea of what you want to do before you go somewhere because you've, I mean, bizarrely, Thomas Heaton, those, you know, Thomas Heaton, but Thomas Eden's just launched a video last night, which is basically talking about this exact thing, talking about preparation. And if you're not prepared about what the consequences are, and in that I'm taking my inspiration or my ideas from Thomas Heaton, because I'm not but what I am doing, as opposed is kind of reflecting what Thomas is saying. And I think we all have different processes and my process really have a new location and has evolved over time and stuff like an ethics. I mean, my sister lives in Essex, so I kind of always wanted to shoot the coastline in Essex. Anyway. So my first kind of point of call is always to go on to Google Maps and have a look on Google Maps to see what there is on the coastline. And, and I look at Google Maps, obviously, from a satellite perspective. And because of my work is so simple and minimalist, and it doesn't really matter what what there isn't what there isn't in the shop, because you can make something out of a place. And I'll try to kind of like look at various different locations on on Google Maps. And I'll look at Google Images, and I'll go into a place and I'll put something like fine art photography, and I'll put the name of a town on the coast or Essex coastline or something or come up with different kind of search criteria to see what kind of you know kind of answers come up and the images that come up, tend to show you know, not necessarily professional photography of the of the coastline, but he might show you some ideas of what's on the coastline in that particular area of the UK. dovercourt came up. And obviously dovercourt lighthouses a pretty famous place, it's been around for hundreds of years or 150 years. David cool, I'd seen shot before by a couple of other photographers in black and white. And I shot it about three years ago. And at the time, it hadn't necessarily been done in color. And I was thinking, it could be quite interesting in sunlight. Because the sun rises, obviously in the eastern it drives right behind the David right on the lighthouse, or just to the left of the lighthouse. So that kind of idea started sparking up the overall aesthetic of what I'd look for. And, and again, we've got to be lucky with the time you got to be lucky with the lights, you got to be lucky with the color. So you know, you can't just expect to go down to that location and, and get the sort of shot that maybe you've got in your head, you might have to go a few times to get that shot. And another example would be Harris, so I'm supposed to go into To Harris in in June, and July, and obviously it's July now. And I had all these ideas, I'd marked probably about 50 locations on Harris of where I was going to shoot on on a map. So I use like a star process, and I literally map each place with a star. The thing is, is that when I go to a brand new location, I don't necessarily go to all those star locations and shoot there and move on to the next location and shoot there and so on and so on. I'll go to the first location and kind of decide, is there anything else here is I can start to circulate around that one location and stop searching for detail shots, I stopped searching for more wide shots. And I could be there for like, only an hour, or I could be there for like, the whole day. And so I kind of let the landscape almost get us get to know that landscape almost to the point where I'm trying to search out not just the the shops that might be on google images or the locations that are on Google Maps. I'm also trying to find something that kind of inspires me and kind of, it almost

draws me in sort of, it's like, it kind of makes me think, Oh, well, this, this could be interesting. And it might not work, it might be something that might not work at all. So there's kind of different ways of working as opposed on how I work on all locations. I never go with a preconceived idea of exactly the shot I want. But I do have definite places that I want to and actual objects or subjects that I want to shoot. I look at times obviously I look at sunrise times I look at weather as well, prior to going like usually about a week before I actually start to go out shooting a look at all those things. And so having all that in the back burner as well is really important is not just the location, but all the element side of it. And but you need to be free, you need to have that flexibility in that freedom as photographer. Because if you don't have freedom and flexibility, then you're going to be shooting what everybody else could potentially be shooting as well. And you need to try and search out those little hidden gems that might be non location specific as well. So yeah, that's kind of an overview of,

Steve Arnold 36:20
of what I would do. Yeah, no, that's great. That sounds sounds like obviously, you're doing doing a lot of work in the beginning, but then once you're actually out in the field seems like a pretty relaxed affair. You just kind of, you know, letting the environment speak to you and seeing what presents itself obviously, you've you've you're keeping an eye out here, you have to actually do some work there, but it seems seems like a pretty chilled out affair.

Anthony Lamb 36:45
Definitely. And I think that's important. I think you you don't want to be you don't make it like a job. You don't want to make it into something that ticking boxes. I've done this, I've done this, I've done this. You want to make it more relaxed because that will be Showing your photography. And as a photographer, I'm definitely wanting to try and achieve that because that's what my work kind of is. It's kind of supposed to be like serenity, it's supposed to be calming, relaxing, solitude, it's supposed to sort of have all those elements and those emotions connected to it. So if I'm rushing around and shooting stuff in like 10 minutes, you know, 10 minutes there tendency, it really isn't going to kind of portray what I'm trying to achieve. And a lot tell me that a lot of people say cut you a slave photographer, you work so slowly. We have a large format photographer, like Ben Horne or something and I'm like, Well, nothing wrong with that. It's not you know, it's how I work. And there's various reasons why I work like that. It's mainly because I do a lot of long exposure as well. And that takes time and you can sit back for three to five minutes just taking over the game while your exposures you know, kind of doing its thing. So yeah, I like that way of working. I think it's all about taking it all in.

Steve Arnold 38:01
Yeah, no, that's great. So you mentioned your your workshops were affected by obviously the the COVID situation that we're in right now. Have you got any that are upcoming that have that you sort of still pending a decision or?

Anthony Lamb 38:16
Yeah, it's kind of a little bit up in the air. It's, I have got workshops in October. So in your home, your hometown, it's in Suffolk and Essex, as well as on the south coast, which is going to be in Kent, and East, sorry, East Sussex and Kent, and Suffolk and Essex. So those sort of locations, there's two workshops, happening, six people, I've already got bookings, actually, for these workshops. So even though it's still July, there are places left and COVID. Who knows if there's a second wave, obviously, that that may change things, but to give people the flexibility, I think said look, you know, there's a deposit to pay. If they Cobra kicks off again in the UK and globally, I've said that, you know that deposit is refundable. And so I think considering that you have to give that flexibility. I can't say look, you know, if Cobra comes along again, I keep the deposit. So it's the T's and C's would have changed. And yeah, I'm running. I'm running workshops there as well as in the UAE as well. So I have workshops in in Dubai, which are desert minimalist workshops, and a long exposure workshop as well. So I think all in total, so far any five this year,

which is quite quite low. Normally, I do more than that, but hopefully 2021 will be a little bit different.

Steve Arnold 39:47
Yeah, and, you know, details if any listeners wanted to take a closer look at that, or at Antony lamb photography.com. Yes, yeah. And, yeah, also another thing on there that we'll be able to Which I'm assuming won't be as affected by the COVID. situation. Your your virtual learning. That's right.

Anthony Lamb 40:09
Yeah, so I've done I mean, I started doing this probably years ago. And, and then it's sort of, I decided to pull it for reasons that I was doing a lot more commercial stuff, and I didn't have the time. And over the period of COVID, I realized I reinvented it. And I launched it again in March this year. And so far, I think I have about five people do the the virtual learning and it's, it's great because it gives people the opportunity to have flexibility. So it's a weekly call. And so it's a one to one we could call for 120 minutes, I think it is each week. And I'll set very small projects each week as well. And, and the whole module is designed with a whole program is designed specifically for that person or that individual. So I have about 50 modules that I look at. But the first thing I do is ask them to answer about 3540 questions about themselves as a photographer. And from those questions and from a couple of preparation calls at the beginning of the process, which aren't included, which is kind of free of charge. We kind of talked together and we can design a specific course, which is basically four weeks, eight weeks or 12 weeks long. And you meet, like I said, every every single week online via zoom or Skype, and we talk about my editing process and how that can be incorporated into their editing process. We talked about some of the technicalities of photography, we talked about location research and and it really all depends on the level of the photographer, what kind of genres and areas they want to kind of focus on. So if they're more advanced, they might not need to know the more technical aspects because they might already have all that but they might want to prove their editing or they might want to improve their business. All that branding. So again, those are areas that we can talk about. And I can give them some pointers. So it's quite open, and it's quite relaxed. And I think the key for me is the people I've so far had on this program, I've really gone down the route of providing them with a kind of directional output on their journey as a photographer, so looking at their style, and looking at their editing process and how that's going to affect their style. And looking at that process and how they shoot. Because a lot of people don't quite fully understand, you know, the technicalities and up, I don't bore people to death with all the technical knowledge because I think it's more important to get out there as a creative and to shoot as a person and shoot for who you are, as I talked earlier in the podcast, and then yeah, I think it's a good opportunity. And, you know, I've got a few people lined up. So I think in these times, it's been perfectly aligned. We're quite lucky to get a few people. And if anyone's interested, again, my details are on the website that Steve mentioned. And you know, feel free to get in contact. Awesome. Yeah, that sounds like an awesome program. And yeah, we're coming up to three calls an hour. So I'm conscious of your time. Yeah, just want to thank you again for being on this has been a great, great call. And I'm sure people are going to learn Absolutely. Heaps from from listening to it. So yeah, thanks again. No worries, it's been good. Finally, good to get to know you, Steve, as well. And, you know, share, show what I've learned over the years. But, you know, I appreciate obviously your time. I think we can all learn off each other. I think no matter what level you are, doesn't matter if you're advanced, or if you're an amateur. I think everybody's got something to say about photography. And, you know, I don't think necessarily, you know, I'm gonna be a Right on every single thing that I say, but at the same time, I do hope that I could give people some at least, you know, the the actual understanding of where I come from, but maybe give them some inspiration to get out there and shoot more as well. Because, you know, shooting for me, it's always been about the connection with nature and just enjoying myself. And that's really important is to not lose that connection of enjoying yourself when you go out and shoot. So hopefully, that if that's just one thing that people can take away from what I've said today, that that's that would be enough. And that's for me.

Steve Arnold 44:40
Awesome. Well, yeah, I think that is a great way to sign off, of course. So again, thanks very much, Anthony lamb. And we'll speak to you again soon. Take care.

Anthony Lamb 44:50
All right, thanks.

Steve Arnold 44:56
Please join me in thanking Anthony lamb for such an insightful interview. Once again, I've learned so much myself from this chat and I'm absolutely loving the fact it's possible for me to share this with you in this podcast. So please visit Anthony's website Antony lamb photography.com and spend some time exploring his image galleries and to find out about his in person workshops and customized Virtual Learning Program. Our guest in the next episode, Episode Three is an Australian landscape photographer Luke Sharkey, who shares what it took to leave the corporate life behind for a more fulfilling career in photography, along with a lot more about motivation and specifically, how to not panic when you feel your mojo slipping. So that's coming up in Episode Three. In the meantime, shownotes links and more from today's episode can be found at open shutter podcast.com slash Episode Two. Thanks again for listening. See you in Episode Three.