30 Years An Imposter
Part 1
I feel like I should say that with the voice of Sandman, remember Sandman from Triple J, back in the 90’s?
‘I choose to start the story now’
I’m Paul, PJ, Jarvis, whatever you might know me as. I’ve been around the photographic industry a bit in one form or another.
My good friend and legend of the industry, Seng Mah recently asked me to speak at an industry get together, a series of speakers, just ten minutes each. I really wanted to say yes, I truly did. I had it all worked out in my head. ‘Thirty Years An Imposter’, it even sounded cool to me… I was going to do it… until I couldn’t.
I suffer terribly with social anxiety, I always have done. The thought of public speaking, drawing attention to myself makes me feel ill, it keeps me up at night squirming with awkwardness. A weird kind of sick inside that I just can’t cope with. As I said to Seng, I could probably do it but the number of sleepless nights both up to and following the event would have left the rest of my life in tatters. So here we are, sharing my story online to you, my friends, family and followers.
This year marks my thirtieth year in the photographic industry, thirty years of being an imposter, feeling like a fraud, a copy cat, a wannabe.
Last week, finally at nearly 48 years of age, I won my first serious award as a professional photographer, the Richard Woldendorp award at the West Australian professional photography awards, the ILFORD Orloff Awards. Icing on the cake, I won the ILFORD Signature Print award on the same night! Pumped up on all that, I thought ‘ok, it’s time to share my story of who I am really and what I’ve been pretending to be all these years’
Part 2
I’ve always enjoyed photography, even at a very young age, I’d look forward to Grandad’s slide nights. I’d help him get out the screen and fire up the projector. Invariably help him change the bulb before we could kick off… those things would blow every time!
Little boxes of Kodachrome, opened one by one, each shining up on the screen as we’d peer back to another time, see faces that kind of looked familiar, maybe just from the last slide night. We’d see far off places, go on a journey through Grandad’s photographs.
One wintery day on holidays in Albany when I was about ten, I found the family Polaroid camera on the floor of the car while sheltering from the rain as Dad fished the channel at Emu Point. I was fascinated by the Polaroids. I sat squishing the little chemical pouches making patterns with the chemistry, taking photos through the car window and watching them develop, I think it was then that I was hooked.
Year nine at school came around and photography was on the curriculum. I jumped at the chance to learn more. I had a ball developing black and white film, printing proof sheets in the darkroom, learning the art of dodging and burning under the enlarger. Watching my image emerge from a bath of chemistry under the red lamp. Stuff, I’d seen on TV but never in person. I was in my element. There was no internet, at least not in my home or anyone’s I knew. This, my first chance to learn this cool thing I’d been curious about all this time!
As my years at high school wore on, the darkroom became my hiding place. I joked that it was because my class was filled mostly with girls but that was only a half truth. I loved spending time in the darkroom with the girls, not really for the reasons you might think. I’d grown up with two much older sisters and relating to girls just came naturally, other boys not so much. I would hide out in the darkroom ‘working on the year book’ to avoid games of basketball during lunch break that I was never very good at and didn’t enjoy. I’d stay back and process film rather than hang out on the steps near the canteen with my friend group. I had friends, I have friends, I love my people but the out of the ordinary interactions would keep me away. The conflicts, bust ups, arguments over girls, the competition, it never was my jam.
Following the end of school, I quickly applied for my first job, at the local one hour photo lab, at the same time applying for a place for next year at Mount Lawley TAFE where serious photography was taught.
Both turned out well, I got the job and got my place at TAFE.
Part 3
That summer was a blast, spent surfing every day, surf by day, parties by night. Despite my overwhelming anxiousness and awkwardness, my best mate, Craig was a real socialite, a ladies man and I was his wing man. I’d always be too awkward to really have a good time, I’d always go home alone. I couldn’t dance, didn’t smoke, couldn’t hold my booze, it was all a bit weird but party we did. The cold salt water on my face each morning would bring the clarity and solitude that I needed to recharge.
I’d keep the bank account reasonably topped up working at the lab, peering through a little window at the end of the Noritsu print processor, making colour corrections on rolls of Kodak Gold.
In my second year at TAFE, I’d started work at a camera shop in the city, Piccadilly Photographics, cool little camera shop in an arcade with an almost cult following.
I was sitting at the bus stop one morning on my way to work in town, the metal seat was cold and the skin on my leg and butt cheeks started to swell and get uncomfortably itchy. Disturbed, embarrassed, I tried to ignore it, like most typical males, went on with my day.
A few days later, I went for a surf on a blustery day and really came unstuck, I got really cold and passed out in the water.
Waking up on the beach to another surfer kicking me ‘big night hey fella!’
I crawled back to the car where I put on the heater, slowly coming around.
Off to the doctors I went, I mean I could have drowned, this was serious. The doctor concluded I was suffering with cold induced urticaria, a weird allergic reaction triggered by cold. I must avoid the cold, that meant cold water, at all costs. What about my daily surf? What would I do? I didn’t even know how to be me without my surfing.
The board started getting left at home, exchanged for my camera. I’d sit on the beach while my friends surfed, capturing blurry photos from the shore with my 70-300 zoom.
Part 4
Third year, final year at TAFE came around all too soon and we must find ‘industrial placement’ Essentially work experience somewhere in the photo industry. My lecturer, Ralph Darlington had taught now surf photographer, Erick Regnard. Erick was one of the photographers I really looked up to, seeing his epic images in the surf magazines tagged Photo: Tungsten/Nikon. This guy was so good, he even had sponsorship with Nikon!
Through Ralph, I made contact with Erick. ‘Meet me at the Margaret River supermarket next Monday at midday’ I think he said to me over the faint and patchy analogue mobile signal. I couldn’t get down south quickly enough. Sure enough, true to his word he rocked up, Monday at midday to meet me outside the supermarket, followed by not one international surfing superstar but a whole group! I stayed with Erick and his crew for a week in huge house in Prevelley. We went out surfing, shooting every day. At one stage on the morning of a monster swell, Erick turns to me ‘You’re driving the boat today’ Driving the boat? I’d never driven a boat! Out at The Box in Margaret River, a notoriously hectic surf break, I learnt how to drive a boat! A tinny at least, with one of my idols onboard and surrounded by twenty or thirty of the best surfers in the world. We shot for hours that day, narrowly avoiding disaster a number of times thanks to my poor skills controlling the direction of the outboard! What a ripper of a day! I’d shot over a hundred dollars worth of Velvia, huge for me at the time! Velvia was the professional transparency film that I was advised I must learn to shoot if I were to get published. ISO 50 with my cheap zoom lens, my photos were terrible! Blurry, poorly exposed, badly framed but I was stoked. This is what I wanted to do, I didn’t return to TAFE that year, or the next few.
Over time, I got to know my equipment, its limitations, my limitations. I couldn’t shoot in the water, I’d likely pass out and die, I had to make do with what I had.
I jumped on every opportunity to hop on someone’s boat, make the most of every vantage point, work the angles.
My gear was letting me down, costing me opportunities. The cheap zoom I had just wasn’t capable of professional quality images, not a pro yet.
I sold everything I owned, I worked at the camera shop every available day and saved for a quality lens and camera body, a Nikon 300mm f2.8 and F100. This combo served me well for many years, I slowly upgraded my kit, adding new lenses as opportunities arose. One of those opportunities came one day when I stumbled upon legendary Perth journo Tony McDonough’s old 600mm f4 for sale in Perth Pro Sales (Now Team Digital) for $6000. I scavenged every cent I could get my hands on. Finally I had the big gun, the lens that was going to make me a pro.
That lens didn’t make me a pro. It did make my images much sharper, it let me shoot faster with ISO 50 Velvia, it created opportunities for me to learn and I learnt the hard way. With film over thirty dollars a roll, developing about the same again, I’d blow through roll after roll, quickly running through the meagre earnings from working in the camera shop. Sure, I’d get images published here and there but only small fry. I needed to get better, I needed to become a real pro, the pressure was on. As my image quality improved, professional surfers started calling. I’d receive midnight calls from companies in Hawaii sending their team riders to Western Australia asking me to cover their adventures. Why me? I was just a wannabe, just some guy who couldn’t go in the water, dreaming of being a big shot photographer one day.
Part 5
My images started to appear in magazines all over the world, USA, South Africa, Japan, UK and of course here in Australia.
Every magazine submission, I’d nervously call the editor asking for feedback, I’m sure I drove them around the bend calling after every package of slides arrived.
I went to visit the head office in Burleigh Heads, Queensland once. When I saw the photo editors desk with page after page of slides, literally stacked to the roof, it all started to become clear, my images needed to be really, really good to even stand out from this lot! Truly professional!
One day, I opened my favourite mag to see my name listed as a ‘Senior Photographer’ What did this mean? Had I finally made it? No of course not! You’ve not had a cover yet, you’re still just a hopeful I reminded myself.
I kept going like this for many years, developed friendships with some truly inspirational athletes. People that went on the become the best in the world, champions. I was their photographer, I was the guy they called when they needed a photo for a sponsor, someone to follow along on their ‘surfari’
Still didn’t feel like a pro, still didn’t feel good enough, just the guy that’d been around since they were grommets, starting out.
My editor would ask me for ‘shutter drags’ 1/60-125th of a second, ‘those Colgate blues’ I needed to shoot E100VS, clouds would come over, I figured out pushing my transparency film to increase its sensitivity and give better results on overcast days. I really felt like a knew my tools, knew my film, knew my subjects. I’d become adept at understanding swell charts, days in advance, detailed meteorological maps, able to predict the winds, choose the best days almost a week out. I knew my spots, secret spots, which place fires on a small swell, where to go when the Seabreeze comes blasting in, where to go before the storm when the dreaded north westerly blows.
I’d surrounded myself with gurus, weather nerds, other photographers, videographers, industry people, editors and of course the best surfers in the world, I still didn’t feel like a pro.
One day at North Point in Cowramup Bay, the swell was a few times over head high, the best of the best were out, I was in prime position, I made the decision to give it all away. Digital had come about, a guy over my shoulder rattled off more frames of the wave of the day that I had frames on my roll of Velvia, he got the shots, he delivered them the next day before my film was even developed, he got the feature in the magazine, I stepped away, gave away my gear and called it a day.
I’ll never make it in this industry thought the imposter.
Part 6
Thankfully, I’d maintained my job working at the camera shop. It had changed forms a little over the years but all along my job was there, a relative constant, some weeks I’d only work a few days, I’d go months away on surf trips but my understanding boss kept my job for me. It was a fall back as much as it was a constant, in case I failed.
Roles changed, businesses changed hands, still in sales I found myself working at an Apple Store, they made me a ‘team leader’. Keen to push into the photography business, I fit a role they were looking to fill in the Perth city store. Finally some exposure to the new digital world, some long overdue training in emerging software that no one in the world was better placed to give at the time. I’d had digital cameras but nothing serious and certainly not depth of experience processing digital images. Lightroom hadn’t been invented yet and things were clunky. Apple were on a mission to smooth up the imaging workflow and I had a great time for a while helping things grow in the company and learning new skills along the way.
At the same time, we were expecting Isabella, our first born. Building our first home, the cash I’d recouped from the sale of my camera kit helped pay the deposit and my income from peddling Apple products was doing a lot to help in my transition to homeowner and fatherhood. The cash was welcome, the stress however was not. I learnt the term KPI, short for ‘key performance indicator’ a means of valuing one’s every move. These KPI’s brought me unstuck, bringing me to tears one stressful pre-Christmas day in 2007. In retrospect, I think what I experienced was some kind of breakdown. What I can say with absolute certainty is the corporate world is not for me.
Back to photographic sales I went. Some long term friends offered me a role in their photo retail business, a chance to rebuild, get back to being me after giving up so much to fulfil my last role.
After six months or so, I began to feel human once again, my personality came back slowly and I was ready to start returning to photography.
I met Perth commercial photographer, Steve Nicholls at work, nice guy, not a fast talking salesman, a no bullshit, get it done kind of guy…. my people! Steve asked me if I’d be keen to help with some photography of houses for an annual contract he looked after. I jumped at the chance. I’d been photographing some homes for a friend in real estate so knew my way around shooting houses and the skills I’d picked up at Apple were more than enough to tackle processing my first serious digital work. The contract went super smooth, stoked with my work, Steve asked me to help the following year and of course I agreed.
Photographing my sister’s new holiday villa business in Bali while working in photo retail had also been great practice, things were coming together. I was feeling quite at home with the new look of professional photography, was confident in my processing skills and keen to move on in the industry.
Part 7
I’d had a few requests for prints of some of my surfing images and of course with a newborn at home, needed plenty of prints to share with the family. I found myself visiting the old labs again but things had changed. Everything had shifted towards digital, even in printing. The language I used to speak fluently fell on deaf ears at the front counter where I’d place an order with detailed instructions only to receive something completely different back in my hands. I just couldn’t do it! Start again, learn another language of photography…. The imposter had returned.
I’d been selling and installing wide format printers in my photo retail role so thought, ‘hey! I can do a better job of this myself’ and bought myself a printer. Before long, friends came calling, also frustrated with labs. They’d give me their competition prints and exhibitions to print out. It turned out I’d learnt a bit along the way as my prints were comparable to the best labs around. With the help of the legendary Les Walkling whom I’d learned about on a Christian Fletcher workshop, I obtained some incredible profiles for my printer and the rest as they say, is history. Perth Pro Lab came to be, in my computer room at home.
Finally feeling like a pro, not a professional photographer, rather a professional print maker and a self employed one at that! My confidence really got a huge boost, so much so, I left photo retail, I left my last form of paid employment behind and went 100% into self employment for the first time, no more backup plan, no pay cheque at the end of the week…. On my own!
Working alone at home was difficult for me. I felt great about the product I’d create but would get incredibly anxious whenever anyone came to the house to print with me. It’d create a really uncomfortable situation at home, as every parent knows, a home with young kids can be a mess. I didn’t want my clients to see my mess, I was afraid of their judgement, again feeling like an imposter, a fake, just a guy at home pretending to have a business.
I found myself being irresponsible, self destructive behaviour. I’d finish my prints and go out skateboarding, return home bloody and bruised. I’d take on jobs fixing people’s computers, why? I don’t know, maybe that’s what I thought I was, what I was real at… not some pretend photo lab guy.
Opportunity once again came knocking in the form of my long time friend, James, offering me a spot in a share space he was organising with some like minded photographer friends. This is where Perth Pro Lab moved out of the home, out on its own with nowhere to hide…. No going skateboarding at 2pm, no fixing people’s computers as a side hustle, legit now!
Part 8
Working out of a share space for a number of years was a real buzz but took its toll on me personally. I’d been struggling to cope with the stress of dealing with my aging parents and their dependency problems, struggling with my role as a supportive husband, as a Dad raising these two growing people with massive personalities. Time management became an issue, constantly feeling the pressure of juggling a growing business, school pickup and my responsibilities at home.
I sought an escape, an escape that would lead me to question everything.
Over time, my marriage started to suffer, it was all on a knife edge. My life with my family, my wife, my kids, my home, at odds with the wildly free, creative environment with my friends in our share space, a place where I was away from the worries of my daily life, an escape where I could create this new me, maybe a me that wouldn’t feel like a fraud, a wannabe. Maybe I’d find my place in this industry after all these years.
My own issues took a back seat one day after a phone call, Dad was unwell, asked to attend a meeting with doctors at Joondalup Hospital, it wasn’t good. He’d been struggling to catch his breath for a while. We suspected it already, it was cancer. Dad lived about a year from that diagnosis. He put up a good fight but the cancer took him in the end. Absolutely gutted, like anyone losing a parent, I was unsure how my future looked. Mum wasn’t coping without Dad, she become more needy, she was going too, she’d checked out. I needed to get away, I needed an escape. This time I wasn’t going to run away from my family, rather find a place to chill, manage my stress, manage myself, learn how to be me again.
Help comes from the strangest of places.
Walking through a park near home one afternoon, I came across a group of people gathered sitting on the grass tapping their phones and having a good old time. I asked what they were up to to which I received an almost chorus like reply ‘Playing Pokemon Go’ ‘What a bunch of weirdos I thought as I walked off but something inside me saw an opportunity, a chance to get away, to not be me for a bit.
Before long, I found myself meeting up with this group of diverse and unusual people in parks, driving in convoy, we’d go to Kings Park at night and drive around together, finding Pokemon. We had a group chat where someone would share the location of a rare Pokemon and we’d all run, drive, get there to catch it, no matter what! Late one night, I was stopped by the police crossing a road at 11pm ‘What are you up to?’ They questioned. ‘Just chasing a dog with horns’ I replied. We all laughed as they realised I was just a Pokemon tragic running out in my PJ’s to catch a rare Pokemon in a local park.
This escape really resonated with me a desire to seek, to find the unseen. Something I’d not experienced for a long time since my days of surfing would have me always going the extra mile to see what’s around that next headland. Hopping on the next ferry to another random island, finding the gems, wherever they lay.
Maybe the real me is a collector, a hunter, maybe that’s why I started taking photographs to begin with, maybe it’s that desire to find the trophy and share it.
Those days of chasing horned dogs through parks served me well. It got me through losing both my parents, seeking comfort in a group of relative strangers that didn’t ask questions, just worried where the next shiny Pokemon would be found. Maybe not the most conventional grief management strategy but it worked and it opened my eyes to the possibility that maybe there’s more to me than just a pretend photographer.
Part 9
Austin, my youngest had a really hard time transitioning to high school. He’d become the target of a group of bullies who were making his life hell. Like any parent, it cut me deep and I just wanted to help. The school seemed unwilling to help, incapable of effectively dealing with the situation so I took it upon myself to fix it, never much a fan of the traditional education system, I would become a homeschooling Dad.
Homeschooling was a natural fit for both of us as Austin shared my new solo workspace in the lab in Wembley. He was with me every day, we’d complete our curriculum work online and go exploring national parks, lakes, creeks, lookouts, you name it! Our adventures in many ways became as much about providing an education as our curriculum work.
I’ve always enjoyed nature, always been on the lookout for cool birds, interesting creatures. I think it harks back to childhood adventures in the bush with The Gould League. It became our new Pokémon, discovering new things, finding the unusual birds and endangered creatures. It gave us the license to go the places we’d never been, a constant quest to discover the unseen. We discovered numbats, quolls, woylie and the endangered black cockatoos which I came to become infatuated with.
Teaching Austin photography was a very organic thing. Having him at work with me each day at the lab, we’d talk about settings, technique, composition. Austin would spark up colourful conversations with my clients about cool things we’d seen and learn of things we had not yet. Craving more, we started taking cameras along on our adventures, recording images and sharing on Instagram as well as providing images to conservation organisations and charities.
It was clear, I’d rediscovered my own love for photography, through sharing my experience with my son, I had discovered something in myself that I missed and craved for. I didn’t feel the imposter creep in, I was free to enjoy nature, capture my discoveries and share the experience with my son.
A year or two into capturing images again, I entered the state awards. I’d entered competitions before but not expecting prizes, hadn’t taken it seriously. This time around though, I knew I had the goods. I achieved a Gold award for one of my Black Cockatoo images and was named a finalist for the highest scoring print. At the awards night, surrounded by friends, that old familiar tightening in my chest returned. That sense that I don’t belong, why am I here, I’m just the print guy… that old feeling of self doubt, the imposter had returned.
That gold image hangs on my wall in the lab, beside the door. It’s been a few years now, it has sold five copies in grand format, from which I’ve been able to donate several thousand dollars to the rehabilitation of my beloved black cockatoos, my new muse, my trophy find. I love these birds with all my heart. Since learning of their plight, understanding them, their behaviour, capturing precious portraits of them, helping in their conservation, I have found purpose with my photography, so why, why do I still feel this way? Why is the imposter still lingering?
Our adventures continued, exploring further off the beaten track, a seemingly endless quest to discover the most unusual wildlife. The realisation of the clarity I experience when free of the distractions of busy life has truly been life changing, the bush has become a happy place, somewhere I am free to explore and create.
A few years passed before entering another competition, this year, 2025. Thirty years since peering through that mini lab machine window, literal decades since I’ve hung out in a darkroom. Was it me all along or is the imposter still here?
I freeze in front of the microphone, incoherent babble comes out, the imposter is here. A crushing in my chest, the squirming awkwardness as the imposter speaks. A shiny trophy, the name on it, mine.
One day, I hope to be the real thing, I hope it doesn’t take thirty years.
Thirty years an imposter.
PJ