[Music]
creativity first came into my life
through music through school
i think the kind of creative influence
for me came it was kind of strange from
being an only child
i remembered i'd filled in a form and i
was still at school
i remember filling in that what i really
wanted was to have a creative life
my life has been two halves i grew up
believing i was an artist but i sat in
front of a machine when i was 10 that
spat out a piece of paper that said i'd
be an accountant and for
nine years that's what i sort of half
tried to be
you know i've been lucky with my success
over the years but i think one of the
best
early creative decisions was not to
play music i've never played a note of
music in my life
and even from quite a young age i was
obsessed by pop culture and pop music
and um music generally
it did sort of echo my head that i'd
chosen a creative life which has a cost
actually because you have to give up
things that are
maybe less creative but maybe more
grounding
so yeah i began to code in the evenings
and at lunch times basically i coded
every day
and i sacrificed a great deal for that i
didn't watch tv i didn't read books
i thought after a couple of months i
just thought
i'm actually quite good at this and if i
work hard and take it seriously
i think i can make a career out of it
the creative process is very mysterious
and i'm not sure that i
would ever be able to define it um it's
got a huge amount for me to do with
instinctive
almost as if you're kind of magnetized
towards certain things and not
repelled by others i was on a speaking
tour in china
after i made stephen fry's work for
penguin
i made another piece for the times
and i got to the end of my talk and a
girl stood up
and she said uh where'd your ideas come
from
and the whole room went silent i've
never been asked that before since until
this moment actually
and i said um it's two things
one of them is to put things together
that have never been put together before
and great creativity is about that you
know you look at the surface devices for
example the surface book it's about
tablet and a laptop it's putting things
together so again a lot of my work
that's what i try and do and then i
pause a little bit longer and i said
but you know what like when i was a kid
i used to roam miles from my house and i
used to
jump into rivers that were too deep for
me and i used to climb trees that i look
at now and think oh my god i could have
broken my leg
but i kept going because i believed i
would reach the top
and i said creativity is believing in
yourself
it's believing in your idea it's keeping
on going
and it's not giving up i lecture
on a music business degree course at the
moment
and i think i learn just as much from
the students as they learn for me
because they're bringing all these
crazy and wacky ideas in there and you
go no you can't do that and you go oh
yeah actually i think you can well
there's always elements of collaboration
so if that's with a particular artist
there will be a continuous collaboration
leading up to the kind of final the
final result and the work should be
considered
in my opinion as in exactly the same
category as fine art you know album
covers and
videos and photo shoots and all those
kind of things because they're they're
as
important i think it's great that um
loads of people in the world own a piece
of fine art because they own
sergeant pepper or they own the white
album even if i go out and shoot
landscapes or in a garden or something
there is still a kind of a communication
going on there's a conversation in my
head with
with me myself the camera and the object
and then there's also a kind of a
clearing of the head to in order to
be able to see the creative process is
not easy i i don't think if it is
something that just flows i mean there's
some
sometimes you you have to be very
persistent
and you have to make a lot of wrong
turns and
fail quite a lot before you get to
something that's really
precious i think the way that technology
i think it has its advantage it has many
many advantages and some disadvantages
the fact that
you can do things quicker and easier
[Music]
technology has been played a massive
part in my work because
because obviously when i began my career
people who did photography were inclined
to be in lab coats almost you know
and the whole processing
and printing and that whole system was
done by technicians
it allows you to be able to in essence
see the exhibition in a
three-dimensional form
before you put it together not
necessarily just about putting works
together but you know thinking about
things like sight lines and
how you how it feels i am at the
forefront of a movement in art and
technology
about our machines being partners in
what we do
and i think across the industry we all
have seen technologies a vital tool
and i think if i took adobe or i took
cameras
or i took digital away from you know
anyone making film
for example they would feel that but i
think they'd still make film
even if they went back to you know 36
millimeter or whatever it would be right
but technology is a vital vital part of
the way we work it makes it easier and
better
and it's there's so much information out
there
which is great but you have to learn
where that information is
you have to know how to harvest it
and then analyze it and then filter it
down
and then apply it and i think the beauty
of technology is you
can do that and anyone
anyone can be an entrepreneur at the
moment because of this technology
of course there was a massive um
quantum leap to make around 1997
from film to to digital um
and for a while i was absolutely
horrified i mean
the cameras that i was given to test
around that time were appalling i mean
they had delay and and they weren't
shooting the moment they were shooting
several moments after the moment but
what i see
is a shift into machines becoming more
like partners
and were various interesting interesting
implications of that and i do work with
adobe to bring that to life so
you know i build machines that allow
people to paint and then the machines
create
images parrots or whatever they might be
photorealistic very beautiful
but the machines can make mistakes that
doesn't happen if your camera makes a
mistake you get angry and you go and get
it replaced
when my machines make mistakes i treat
them for what they are
they're attempting something brilliant
and it's a different way of thinking
about
about ai and those tools
i think with digital technology
music is more disposable now there's
pros and cons but i think as we learn
and adapt
and as the the younger generation come
through with their ideas
and less of the old-school attitude
especially within the music industry
i think that could be really exciting
times we think that there's
45 maybe 46 income streams out there for
a musician or people connected within
the music industry
you're not going to tap into all of them
but you can find 13
15 of them and make a sustainable living
out of it
and i think that's where it comes back
to data and analytics of finding your
audience
it's hard to find your own path
as a creative person but
that's what you have to do going back
getting involved
um you know kind of putting in putting
in some kind of background work
for me it it that that's what made me
i think music has given me some of the
most amazing
magical moments of my life where hearing
a piece recorded for me
for the first time working with with
bands
working with johnny marr and and just
seeing sort of some of them the magic
there i've been lucky where i've worked
with a lot of big bands in my career and
and when you have that that payback
there's there's no better feeling as
well but it does
it just doesn't stop there like it gets
your creative juices flowing and it just
inspires you to to go on and and
and do something just as great as what
those people have created for you
so important i say this to say
young photographers or interns coming
you maybe want to photograph
so glastonbury they won't get a pass for
glastonbury but they might get one for
their local
event and there might be some band
playing up the road in a pub or
a club or you know the next town
possibly
who really wants their music to be heard
for example and then
that kind of collaboration could occur
between the new
image maker and the new musician to
collaborate on something you know what
what i've learned about
collaboration is that you have to be
very giving with your ideas
you have to you know we're in a room for
the people making something beautiful
now right it's not someone by themselves
that's how that works so
collaboration is critical your mistakes
are going to be more important than your
success
with your success it's like okay that's
all right let's keep doing that but with
your mistakes
what did we do wrong how can we fix it
and how do we move forward with it
um but have a vision have a strategy
make mistakes would be my advice there's
definitely a collaborative community out
there where
people can work together and everyone
succeed really i truly believe that
[Music]
you