Ep. 8 - Photography Adjacent Art Death Life

9 Apr

This week on Photography Adjacent, we spoke to Jonny Edward—known on Instagram as Jonny Creative.

His photography career isn't just a journey but a series of life-altering events that have pushed him toward his true calling.

From his beginnings in biochemistry and electrical engineering to owning a gym and later venturing into digital marketing, Jonny found, when he picked up a camera again, "This is it. This is what I'm meant to do".

But Jonny's story isn't a series of career pivots; it includes confronting some of life's sternest tests, including a terrifying episode that nearly ended his life. "I remember being in the back of this ambulance, thinking about my past... And now, after a day of creating art for the community, I'm suddenly facing violence," Jonny shared with me. This brush with mortality underscored life's fragility and fueled his commitment to creative pursuits.

Jonny attracts diverse clients, all drawn to his unique ability to reveal the profound and personal through his lens. "The range is wild... from designers to boutiques... But lately, it's photographers from every corner of the earth, which continues to amaze me,".

Jonny's work transcends aesthetic beauty, transforming lives. Reflecting on social media's double-edged sword and the quest for authenticity, he observed, "Despite its flaws, social media has been pivotal to my success... It's about rediscovering photography and, in doing so, coming back to myself.”

This story is one of finding the courage to embrace his true self. Finding his calling and creative space, and living a life filled with gratitude and fulfillment.

Tom Trevatt

Johnny Edward, welcome to Photography Adjacent, the podcast. I know you online as Johnny Creative, as lots of people will do. It's really great to have you here. I think I've been following you on Instagram for probably around about a year, year and a half now, seeing your incredible work, beautiful work. I think a lot of people are big fans of your work, especially in the photography community. So thank you very much for joining us today. Before we begin.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, where you're from? You're currently in Denver, Colorado. Tell us more.

Jonny Edward

Yeah, so I'm based here in Denver. That's where my studios at my background is I don't know that might take up the whole episode to go into my background I would I would

Tom Trevatt

Give us a snippet.

Jonny Edward

I like to describe myself as a Renaissance man. That might be a little bit egoic, but I've lived many lives. So I actually went to college for biochemistry and electrical engineering with a plan of going into biomedical engineering or medicine. Since no one's calling me Dr. John, obviously that didn't happen, much to the chagrin of my mother, who never lets me forget about that. But I worked, I owned a gym for athletes coming out of college. I was an EMT for many years. I worked in the digital marketing sector.

Tom Trevatt

I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Jonny Edward

I've done a host of things. I've owned tree businesses and masonry businesses. So sort of the life of the creative ADHDer until they sort of found their place. So it was probably almost a decade ago now. Wow, time is cruel. But...

It was probably a decade ago or so. I was working a corporate job and by all societal standards, I was doing very well for myself. So I was making good money and I had the things and all of that, but I was miserable inside. And I think most people can relate to that feeling of doing something and giving away their life for a paycheck, which is a brutal way to exist. And I was so miserable and a dear friend of mine said, hey, you know, when you were younger, photography was really important to you. Maybe you should pick up a camera again.

So I was a film shooter when I was younger, of course, and I shot Pentax. So I found like a Pentax K3, a little crop sensor camera, and essentially the Nifty 50 by Pentax. And I picked that up and I was in a bad way. I probably can't exaggerate that enough, But suffice it to say I got behind the camera and the camera was almost like a barrier for me. So it allowed me to go back into the world sans anxiety and all of the fear and apprehension and tension I was feeling and start to create.

Tom Trevatt

Me too.

Jonny Edward

And there was this really pivotal moment where at that point in time, I was still living in Denver, but across from this beautiful park called City Park that had a lake. And so I walked across the street and I was dealing with just this high grade anxiety all of the time. And there was this stunning crimson red sunset. And I sat there and I took this photo across the lake. And so it was reflected. And I just looked at the back of my camera and I burst out in laughter and tears simultaneously. And it felt like I had forgot about myself for so long.

and it was this really beautiful reconnection to a deeply seated part of myself. And that began my love affair, I guess, a reconnection to photography, and it was landscapes and flowers and urbex stuff, and then street portraiture, and then people are like, hey, I love your work, will you photograph me and let me give you money? And I was like, that sounds horrifying, no.

And they kept pushing the issue and so I started doing that and fashion, maybe not even fashion, but style has always been a big part of my life. And so then people were like, hey, I have a boutique or I have a line coming out, would you like to photograph it? And so as far as the professional side, it just sort of evolved very organically. I never expected to be doing this for a career, getting paid for it, but it was something that I loved so much. And then my professional world and my personal world and these passions sort of merged.

and it's just been a blur in the best possible ways ever since. So that's sort of the cliff's notes of my coming home to photography, if you will.

Tom Trevatt

I also have a kind of coming home to photography story, which is somewhat similar, but I never had that kind of corporate job, which was sucking my soul. So my experience was very much more kind of in academia, but in the art world as well. But I, you know, I know this kind of maybe get to a kind of like mid thirties, late thirties point and re -examining your life thing. For me, it was in the middle of COVID.

Jonny Edward

Okay.

Absolutely. It's.

Tom Trevatt

For a lot of people, it's like, oh, I've been working my ass off doing something which I maybe don't enjoy that much. And photography often seems to be this thing that they pick up. It's like this thing they've kind of had in their mind they really love doing. And it's like, oh, actually, now I want to do this. And people go into wedding photography, portrait photography. You started in all sorts of places, but you settled really on...

Jonny Edward

It's true.

Tom Trevatt

Let's say portraiture, but it could be a kind of expanded version of portraiture.

Jonny Edward

I think it's sort of hard to categorize. When I first started, I would say developing a sense of style for myself, I sort of got pigeonholed into this idea of fashion photography because I was photographing fashionable folks, or at least in fashion -forward ways. So my work has always been informed by fashion photography. I always say this whenever I do one of these, I loathe the fashion industry. So, you know, fast fashion, the environmental waste, the labor elements, the objectification, all of these things. So, I've tried to distance myself from that fashion photographer element. My work has shifted a lot since then. But I don't know. I like to think of myself almost as an editorial portrait photographer, because in my mind, editorial has to do with narrative. And I feel like what I'm always trying to do is to tell someone's story or to tell a version of a story through my interactions with individuals. But it's an ever-evolving thing. I think one of the big sort of, what do I want to say here? A big shift for me.

internally was when I stopped referring to myself as a photographer and started referring to myself as an artist for whom photography is my main medium of expression. I feel like we do so much encapsulating as creatives and the more barriers and boxes we put around ourselves, the more we containerize ourselves, the less creative we can be because we operate within those bounds that we create for ourselves. And that's a whole other rant and thing entirely.

Tom Trevatt

Mm -hmm.

No, it's great. I like this understanding of yourself because in a way, like we are all working within a kind of commercial setting, you know, as photographers and you know, you have to make a living, you have to run a business and you have to think about it in those terms. But I was talking to Barry before we started the interview about your work and we were very much saying you're an artist first.

This is primarily what you do and you show the work that you want to show you create the work that you want to create. And in a way you're not actually bowing to a certain pressure that may be coming from the outside. That's at least how it appears on Instagram. That may be.

Jonny Edward

I would say in the here and now that's probably quite accurate. But it's taken a long ways to get here. There's just the normal societal elements, there's the normal psychological elements, there's of course the manipulative sort of pressure being exerted by social media consistently.

And I don't, you know, so many people knock social media. I just went on a little rant recently on a real or live or whatever I was doing. And I said, I'm so indebted to social media. There's definitely a vile aspect about it, but I owe so much of my success and the connection to individuals such as you and all these people I know in this industry to that. But it's, once again, I think even there was this coming home to photography and then there was a coming home within photography to myself.

And so much of that is shedding what I thought I ought to be or ought to do or ought to create or what was going to be marketable or what people were going to respond to. And I think for me in the current marketplace, at least people are craving authenticity in all forms. I think, you know, COVID brought out a lot of really bad and a lot of really good, but we've sort of gotten to the stage where at least the people I interact with on a regular basis, they're craving authenticity from artists, from experiences, from businesses, from all of these things.

So I think it's being heralded in a way that maybe it hasn't been in the past decade or past couple of decades. But ultimately, I think it comes down to memento mori for me. Like I always keep in mind the fact that I'm going to die and not in a macabre way, but in a very stoic way. And the question becomes, how do I want to spend these very finite days and moments of my life, you know, trying to appease to this sort of whatever this idea is that exists externally or serving myself internally, which ultimately allows me to better serve those that I encounter in my life.

Tom Trevatt

I think that's absolutely a vital way to think about this kind of work is that you, yes, you are serving other people, but in order to do so, you've got to be the best version of yourself. You've got to be the truest version of yourself. Lots of people I speak to on this podcast, authenticity is an important word for them. And, I'm interested in this word in many different ways. And I think one of the reasons why I wanted to kind of pick up on this word is the idea that for a lot of people, authentic expression, is authentic expression necessarily this idea of truth? Is it the kind of proximate to truth? Or is it a kind of form of storytelling in a sense? Like, you know, or like what's its relationship to a multiple sort of valences of truth? And I think that, you know, because for example, I was doing an interview with a photographer based in Hong Kong a couple of months ago, a couple of weeks ago, and his work is primarily shot on film and either medium format or large format film photography. And he was talking about this idea of authenticity and analog to truth, because it's like, you've got this kind of almost documentary style of work there to take, you know, you're taking those photographs. There's one opportunity to get a good photograph with, with a large format camera or something. Whereas your work is really staged. Your work is really like, um, stage managed crafted.

You've got multiple elements that are part of that process that about like, you know, revealing and concealing and playing with this kind of light and dark, this kind of, you know, doesn't make any less true. It doesn't make it any less authentic because it's authentic to you, but it's absolutely more performed and staged and, you know, engages with this kind of concept of art, artifice as well.

So I think it's kind of an interesting, it's an interesting thing that you would bring this up as well as my sort of documentary photographer friend.

Jonny Edward

So I think you're right. I think like all things, there are shades of gray in between there. I will say I infuse a high degree of theatricality into my work. I think that's something that drives it heavily. And it's very performative in that way. So what I like to do personally is create this stage. So obviously, I'm boxed in by these things to limit the echo here. But I like to create these grandiose stages and sort of allow.

the individuals I photograph to embody different characters or iterations of self. And so there is a performative nature, but I feel like performance offers us an opportunity to get in touch with ourselves in a deeper way that we may not allow ourselves to do off of the stage, so to speak. So I have a great deal of respect for film photographers, for analog, for reportage, for these things that are literal replications of that moment in so far as we can replicate or archive one of these passing moments.

For me, I think the authenticity is an expression of an internal state. So there's that variance in that, like what is authentic to an individual and just what does the word even mean? And we start to get into the weeds there a little bit. But I don't necessarily think that it is in line with truth. Like one of my favorite photographers is Paolo Reverse. I absolutely love his work and so much of it are these dreamscapes. He's painting with a mag light and it's large format and it's long exposures. So, very little of that is what someone would see in the moment, but it is his truth. It is how he sees the scene, how he experiences the individual. So I think there's that subjectivity in it. And to me, that's one of the great beauties of art and of photography, is we have this singular medium that allows us all to sort of reach into ourselves or reach into the world and catalog and archive and express in this multitude of ways. And it's very fascinating.

Tom Trevatt

Of course.

For people who are listening, rather than watching this, Johnny is sat in his studio with a number of backdrops behind you, which I think are hand painted backdrops. But then also there are two big V flats, black V flats that are kind of encroaching on the space. It looks purposeful, but you started with just the backdrops and not the V flats. The V flats are there to limit the echo from the massive studio that you're starting.

Jonny Edward

Correct. Yeah. So, so I have, I have 15 foot ceilings in my studio and it's all these really lovely concrete floors and there's, there's no sound deadening in here. I mean, this is as echo as echo E is it can get. So, um, Barry and I were on here trying to troubleshoot this and I said, well, I could build myself a little room to try and limit the echo. And at first I had the white side of the V flat. I sat down and I'm like, Oh, that's just gauche. Like I can't deal with that. So I turned it to the black side and I'm like, this is going to be better for the light. It's going to go better with the scene.

But there I think for me, you know, even when I do things like this when I'm on camera or when I'm out in the world I there's a level of eccentricity to my personality and it's it's almost this very fascinating Social experiment to me to see how people respond relative to how we present so, you know you walk out and you're in an old -world blazer and you're in a bowler like I'm wearing right now and people are like, oh, it's very Gentlemanly, it's this it's that you know, I walk out and I'm wearing a black trench coat and something else and people are like, oh, you're very intimidating or whatever else. So it's almost this game that we get to play with how we put ourselves into the world and how we are perceived relative to that presentation. And it's not in a way where I'm trying to manipulate anyone. It's just fascinating to me to see sort of the in -out process of that, you know, input versus output, so to speak.

Tom Trevatt

Yeah, absolutely. And this, this is infused in your work. I was looking at the work in more depth before I started this conversation with you. And one of the things I noted was that you do a lot of personal work, self portraiture mostly, you know, this is a kind of self portraiture work. And I think that there's there's something beautiful about this work that's really like an in depth engagement with yourself as a person and as a photographer that kind of double moment where you're both the photographer and the subject. What led you to do more? Like, presumably this is like an exploration process for you, but it's also a kind of technical exploration process. It's a, it's an ex yeah. Tell me more about the self portraiture.

Jonny Edward

No, very much. I think there's sort of multiple elements of that, like most things. When I was younger, I was a dancer, I was an actor, I did modeling, I did those things. So I have a degree of familiarity with being on camera, and also a certain passion for it. Going back to that performative element of my respective personal archetype, or however we want to phrase that.

But photography, I would say, and it's not an exaggeration, quite literally saved my life. And so I feel very indebted into it. So it gave me a second chance in this world, and then it became a conduit for me to go even deeper into myself. And that's what self -portraiture has sort of been for me. It's been this inward spiral, especially into the dissonant parts of myself. Whenever I speak to other photographers about self -portraiture, there's generally this anxiety people getting in front of the camera, oh, me taking a photo of myself and there is because it's inherently vulnerable. And it exposes us to parts of ourselves that maybe we don't necessarily want to see. It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be perceptual, it can be all of these things. So for me, it started almost as an egoic challenge to say, hey, I want to get great photos of myself. There was an absolute vanity associated with it. Like my work starting to get caught, I'm, you know, in galleries, I'm doing these things. I want a photo that makes people stop and go, who the hell is this guy?

So it started there, but as I delved into it more, I realized that it was revealing a lot of insecurities, a lot of discomfort and dissonance within myself, about myself and my place in the world. And it became almost this very direct therapeutic practice with myself to the extent where it was almost meditative. And then COVID certainly magnified that exponentially. You know, before, like so many of us, before COVID hit, I was in a very dense flow.

Tom Trevatt

Yeah.

Jonny Edward

I was creating all the time. I was working on big productions. I was working with editorial teams and I was defining myself very much by my work. So I'm like, I am an artist. I am a creative. I am a photographer. I am an art director. It was all of these things. And then it just stopped and there was just silence. And I went, Oh, now that I'm not those things, who am I? And so it sort of spiraled me into this very Nietzschean existential state that wasn't exactly wonderful.

And I said, well, I'm still a creator, regardless of whether I'm creating or not, but I spelt that compulsion to still be creating portraits. And I went, well, now I am the subject. And that was also a point where I was trying to define my style a little bit more and experiment with lighting and set design. And I said, all right, well, I can connect to myself. I can be the medium. I can be the subject. And I can also be the test subject. So there is this element, like you said, of going into myself. But there's also this bit where I'm like, all right, I want to test light.

And I don't feel like looking like a noob or an amateur when I bring a friend in, so I'm gonna use myself as the test subject and take off the pressure. Because I feel very compelled by wanting to deliver an exceptional experience to anyone who steps in front of my camera. I want them to walk away and feel better than when they walked in. That's sort of part and parcel for my process. But when I'm experimenting overtly, when that's my only end goal is to experiment, I don't feel like I can deliver that.

So by photographing myself, I'm like, well, I owe nothing to myself. I'm not indebted. This is just my time, my life. And so it allowed me to play creatively in a way that I had not allowed myself to do before, which is where I think growth really takes place in these areas of the unknown or these areas of discomfort. So then it became this sort of full package totality where I'm like, all right, I'm going into myself. I'm learning my craft.

I'm experimenting, I'm exploring. And then it was never the intent. But when I started to share some of those portraits, they ended up being some of my most, I would say, revered or liked or shared or well -known work to the extent where I'll still see people and they're like, oh, I love that you're a self -portraitist. And I'm like, well, I am. That's not really all that I am. So it almost took on a life of its own that was completely unexpected. And I'm sure that's in part because of everything that I put into it in that sort of energetic element of the work that we create.

Tom Trevatt

Yeah.

Jonny Edward

or lack thereof.

Tom Trevatt

I want to talk a little bit about the work. I'm going to try and describe your work a little bit. People who are listening in or watching in, you will have to go and look at Jonny's work to get the full picture. It feels to me like you're exploring parts of people's lives that they don't get the opportunity to explore in their day to day life.

Jonny Edward

Please.

Tom Trevatt

It feels like you are reading somebody who comes into your studio and you say, let's try this crazy idea out with, I don't know, a set of angel wings or let's put this intense light situation here. But on the other hand, you have these very sensitive, delicate little moments in those shoots. I can remember looking back at your work. It must've been about a year, year and a half ago. And I was like, there's a whole series of photographs here of this one woman.

And there's like, you know, the big expansive set that you set up in your studio. And then there's this really gentle, delicate looking out of a window photograph. So there's this kind of whole range of editorial style photographs where it's like, on the one hand, it's like an insane amount of work, but then the other hand, it's like, I've taken a quick snap of a moment, a fleeting moment in her mind or their minds.

And it encompasses both on the one hand. I mean, both you and I are big fans of hand painted canvas backdrops. You've got a lot of them. They're all scattered all over your massive studio. Um, you set them up in different kinds of ways to overlap and so forth. Um, and then you use light in very creative kind of ways, but you also use lights and very kind of like, there's this interesting play, right. Creativity and pushing the boundaries, but also kind of kind of some kind of conventional use of light, which.

Jonny Edward

Thank you very much, sir.

Tom Trevatt

shows a very kind of beautiful kind of, let's say a stylized portrait look. Am I kind of approaching what, is that how you think about it?

Jonny Edward

No, no, that might be the best description I've heard in a long time. So I appreciate that. I think, you know, especially where you led with this sort of exploration of iterations of self, that that is a major driving factor for my work. And I think societally, at least in this part of the world, we are overtly pressured to be a thing.

whatever that thing is most of the time. And there's a familial element, there's a societal element, there's a psychological element, there is of course the social media, the digital element and all of these different things. But very few people I think feel as though they can explore or express themselves in earnest in a space where they will still be seen and heard and accepted for that exploration. So I always want my studio or whatever space I'm creating and to be that space for the individual to say like, hey, I'm not going to...

impose anything upon you, but I'm going to suggest things based on what I'm getting from you energetically or personality wise or story wise. And a big part of that is, you know, if you came to me for a session and you were a client, I might book a half day for you and I won't even have things set up, which I, it's going to make a lot of people out there aghast. Like how dare you not have things set up for your client. But because what I'm doing is for the first 30 minutes or so, as I'm setting things up, I'm talking.

I'm going, oh, this, oh, that, and I want to learn about the person so that way I can make informed suggestions based on the information that they're giving me. So I'd like to say that I have telepathy and someone can walk into the room and I'm just like, I know you want to be, you know, King Louis the fourth or whatever it might be. It's not that, it's a process of give and take. I'm obsessed with people. I'm passionate about people. I really do love humans and humanity despite all of our awfulness.

Tom Trevatt

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Jonny Edward

And so I want to get to know people. And then in getting to know people, I feel like it affords me the opportunity to put things out there that may challenge them from a place of love and acceptance. And it's hard to even quantify that. It's become much more important to me over the course of time and with age, I think as well. We prioritize things very differently. So there's that element. I think even in those editorial series, if any of you know my work, you know that it's very rare to see a single photo from me.

That's just not how my mind operates. It's usually a series of six, eight, 10, 12, even more. And for me, that allows me to explore the individual while the individual is exploring themselves. But even the grandiosity, I think there's a certain element for me of short circuiting the brain to hopefully create moments of disarmament. And so, you know, there's all these scenes and there's sets and there's three lights or there's seven lights and they're wearing, you know, a fur coat from the 1800s that a fur trader sold to the Lakota Sioux tribe here in Colorado. And it's just so almost over the top that people get lost in that element in the space and all of that. And then if we take that off and we put them in just a t -shirt or a turtleneck or something that's subdued, there's this breath. So the whole thing is like this big inhale. And then there's those moments that are the exhale.

And that's one of my favorite things. I would say people probably don't know that for me, but that's always what I'm pining after. Those moments where we're just literally two human beings co -occupying a space, present and quiet together. So, so much of the noise that I create is in hopes of reaching a place of quiet. That's probably the best way of putting it. And then lights, I'm just, I'm a nerd. Obviously with what I went to school for, I'm obsessed with physics and this interplay of light and shadow and sort of the poetic elements and dimensionality and everything else. So, so much of that is just, there is a conventional thing where I don't want, over the course of a series, I don't want my lighting or my set design or styling to overshadow the individual. So, I think even in that, the fact that I share in series, it gives me a chance to do things that are much less typical or much more exploratory, but also return back to something that I think is much more easily digested or much more subtle, where the individual then steps forward into the limelight instead of being part of the foreground or background. And it's always this give and take and trying to find those moments or carve things out. And it's chaos. I mean, that's sort of how my mind operates and the process itself is chaos. But in that chaos, I wind up usually discovering some calm. And that's always a really beautiful moment for me.

Tom Trevatt

That's, I think I find this really interesting. You think in series then, so before you even sit down to look at the photographs that you've taken, you've thought in a way piecing them together in a series of six, eight, 12 or whatever. Makes me wonder, who are your clients?

Jonny Edward

It varies a great deal. So I do work in the commercial sector. I work with designers. I work with boutiques. I do look books. I do that type of thing. Mostly these days, it's kind of curious. It's other photographers. So photographers come to me from around the nation at this point around the world, which is just insane to me still. I haven't quite accepted the fact that someone would come from the UK or South America. It's beautiful. But that's something that I still need to internalize properly.

But it's photographers who I think want to explore themselves. And so there's an individualistic element. But that's where most of my day -to -day clients are now. They're fellow photographers or artists of different mediums who want something that's atypical, but that's still also true to them. And I think that's something that I try and do with my work is even though I have my own style, I have my own voice, I don't want that to be an overlay on the individual.

So everything sort of starts from a baseline. I have my studio and my ways of doing things, but I think people have sort of seen or heard or felt or gotten from a person who's been here with me this aspect of exploration and of individuality and that's what they're seeking. At least that's what I hope that they're seeking. So that's a really big part of what I do these days is folks coming in and they're like, hey, and sometimes it's, I don't wanna say vain, but it is more superficial. Someone's like, Johnny, I want to feel like I'm on the cover of Vogue in the 1980s. And I'm like, absolutely we can do that. And then that sort of cover photo element of the shoot then evolves or devolves into something that goes deeper. And that's it. So yeah, it's sort of curious to even reflect on that. And that's changed a lot over time. I used to do a lot more directly with models and I still work with models. So I work with modeling agencies and I do that type of thing. But in terms of the people who are coming to me in earnest, it's usually artists who are looking, I think, to explore themselves and maybe reach a point of contentment or acceptance with themselves in a way in hopes that the session will afford them that and also give them these images that sort of archive this respective phase of their journey as an individual and as a creative.

Tom Trevatt

Hmm. That's interesting. I have, um, a shoot coming up in a couple of months time with a client who called me and said, she doesn't want photographs for, cause I, I do predominantly headshot photography. She doesn't want photographs for anything. She just wants to do a photo shoot because she wants to explore being in front of the camera from a sort of therapy perspective. So she has a therapist and a therapist suggested to do something along these lines. Um, and I just thought that was such a beautiful thing. She doesn't need photographs for, you know.

Jonny Edward

Oh, interesting.

Tom Trevatt

she doesn't need headshots for her LinkedIn profile or so forth, but she needs photographs because she wants to experience being in front of the camera. So I love this thing about, I said to her, I was like, if you are concerned about your self image and you're worried about that, it might not be the experience that you want it to be. It might not be an experience that you actually enjoy in quite the same way that you think you're going to. So you have...

Jonny Edward

It's true.

Tom Trevatt

you have a style that people come to you specifically for that style. They know what they're getting when they come to you. And we all, we all want that. We all want to be in that situation where it's like, someone's coming to us specifically for what we shoot. Now, there is no way that someone's coming to you and being like, so I want something that looks like this. And it's all in like stock, like bold, like yellows and blues, and it's bright and like, you know, kind of, they, they come specifically for the kind of thing that you do.

Jonny Edward

Generally not.

Tom Trevatt

Or does it ever happen that someone comes along and goes, oh, no, I don't want to do what you do.

Jonny Edward

To be honest, probably more than I think most would think. There's an element, at least I think there's murmurs about me in the industry, let's say in the modeling world or different worlds, the experience element. So sort of the experience that I create for the individual. So I will get notes from people who go, hey Johnny, I've heard amazing things from so-and-so about their experience with you. Like I would love a session, this is what I want. I know you don't do this, but would you do this for me?

And there's this ask on it, and sometimes I'll say yes, and sometimes I'll say no. If I feel like I'm going to have to trade in on something that's sort of integral to my process or my aesthetic, I won't do it. I'll recommend them to someone who where that's their wheelhouse. But there's other times when I'm like, if they come to me in earnest, and you know, I think I have sort of, and maybe I'm wrong with this, maybe it's perfectly typical, but to me, in my mind, it's a bit atypical where I have clients who will come to me at major life transitions. So like I just had an individual reach out to me and she was like, listen, I'm going through a brutal divorce. There's been a lot of abuse of different sorts. I lost myself in the process of this. I'm looking to reconnect with myself. I'm hoping that this session for you can be that. And that's beautiful, it's powerful, it's also horrifying.

Tom Trevatt

Mm-hmm.

Jonny Edward

Because the weight and the gravity of that for me, and to me it's such an honorific, it means so much to me truly. Like I think that speaks to everything that I've worked for over the past decade. But I'm like wow, there's this very vulnerable, raw human being walking into my space looking for something overtly life changing. So you know, it's almost like Russian roulette. I feel like you know, there's a bullet in the chamber and it's cocked.

when they walk in and there's part of me that loves that, that revels in that, the challenge of that, but there's also this part of me that goes, wow, if I fuck this up, like I am ruining a human being and that's probably me being egoic. I doubt that a bad session is gonna lead someone down the primrose path to something atrocious, but I like to sort of honor the individuals who come in. So I don't know, it's curious and I'll be interested how that session turns out for you with this individual who contacted you. And in fact, I just had a session with a friend of mine. She probably wouldn't mind if I called her out name wise, but I won't out of respect for her. But she came in for something very similar. So a fellow photographer who's based here as well and was like, listen, I need to be photographed, but I don't want any photographs. I just want to do this for the experience to be in front of your camera. And I went, okay.

Tom Trevatt

Yeah, I'll stay and talk about that later.

Jonny Edward

And we created to me a beautiful collection. I love it with her permission. I'll share it even if she doesn't want to share it or doesn't want photos. Um, but it was this really interesting experience because I didn't, it sort of took the need to produce off of me, right? If someone buys a package and they're getting 10 images, or of course we operate businesses, so I'm thinking about the possibility of upselling or ancillary elements, I knew that wasn't part of the equation, like there was a flat rate associated with it and I'm like, if she follows through on this, there is nothing else to be done. So one part of me, I guess, was a bit vexed by that, but in another way, it was liberating, because I said, all right, I just get to create. There is no docket, there is no brief, there is no intent, there is no endpoint. And it was a really interesting sort of free-form, intimate session that was really lovely for that reason. But it's surreal at the same time, when you get something that's so outside of the norm.

Tom Trevatt

Hmm.

Jonny Edward

It challenges you to think differently and do differently and be different in terms of what you're doing, why and how. And I think that's a good thing, honestly, for us.

Tom Trevatt

Sounds good. You talked a little bit about your, a little bit about the way that you construct your business there, which is that you have obviously a session fee and then people might buy images or do, is it prints that they buy or do they buy images that are digital images? Yeah.

Jonny Edward

So it's both. I would say at this point, it's probably about a split. So I used to be very keen on sort of that like in-person sales and print oriented and everything else. And it got to the point where a lot of the people who were coming to me at that point in time, simply, and I know there's gonna be someone out there who's gonna be contentious about this, but they just didn't want or need prints. And we can go, oh, you have to educate people on the importance of prints, and I agree. Tangible, tactile art archival quality things like this drives me. I'm surrounded by prints in my studio right now. But I'm not, once again, I'm not going to impose a thing upon someone. If they're like, hey, I simply want this portrait of me to exist digitally, and I just at least give them an opportunity to see prints, I'm not going to force them into that hole, so to speak. But it's a mix of those things. So generally, I have a session fee, and that includes nothing.

So that's literally time with me. That's not hair and makeup. That's not anything additional. I'm like, this is for the half day we're gonna spend together and the experience that you're going to have. And I'm like, listen, I don't know that you're gonna love the images. I hope that you do, but I do know that you're gonna have a spectacular, singular, one of a kind experience. I can guarantee that. I'll put my money where my mouth is on that. And then I never want someone to have an image that they don't love. And honestly, I would probably be a bit richer if that wasn't my mindset.

But I want someone, if someone gets 20 images, I want it to be because they love those 20 images, not because I managed to use neuro-linguistic programming on them during the consult and kept flashing 20 during our Zoom meeting. And so they bought the 20 package. So I think that's one of the things, but it's relatively free form. And I do have packages, so if someone knows, if it's a branding thing or something commercial or a lookbook at that point, that it's very cut and dry commercial usage type of thing.

But for individual clients, there tends to be that base. And then there is, hey, we can sort of commoditize this and lower the overall investment if you know what you want upfront. However, let's just do this. And it keeps me on my toes. I think that's one thing that sort of is a driving factor for me is I respond very well to pressure. And when there's no pressure, I tend to become very indifferent and almost apathetic. So I like that element of being hungry where I'm like, they paid their session fee.

It's nominal, like I charge what I'm worth, but it's nominal relative to everything else. Now I have to deliver something. Like if I want to eat, I have to deliver. And I know there's people out there going, oh, that's a terrible way to exist, but for me, it keeps me invested. And I think that's one of the biggest things for me is how do I stay invested in my art? How do I stay invested in my process? How do I stay present? How am I there 100% so that I can give 100% to these people who I am fortunate enough to have in front of my lens and Part of that is keeping things a bit more open-ended and that's certainly not for everyone and there's probably some weird Miswiring in my brain because of trauma Work there, but it's just it's a function that iPhone works best for me

Tom Trevatt

Nice. I also love having a longer session, spending some time talking to someone beforehand, not really planning anything, not having anything set up or even leaving it set up from the night before being like, you know, whatever it is. And really going, Oh, what is it? What is it that you want to do and trying to kind of match my vision with theirs?

So I totally understand that. We work on very different scales though. Most notably in the sense that your studio is enormous. Now size isn't everything, but it does help. You've got, I mean, I've seen short like reels videos, behind the scenes things of your studio. I love a good studio tool.

Jonny Edward

Yeah.

Tom Trevatt

I search out studio tours online and I'm surprised you haven't done a really in-depth studio tour yet.

Jonny Edward

So it's on the docket. What's really funny is if you go to look for anything about me online, in terms of video, there's very little. There aren't tutorials by me. There's a couple of things that I've done with Nanlite. There are a couple of things that I did back in the day with ProEDU that are more exposés, but there's really nothing out there for me, and I need to do a proper studio tour. That's definitely high on my docket. In fact, I'm doing this whole education platform thing over the next month or two, which will sort of consolidate all of this, and I'll actually put pen to paper, so to speak, and people can find out my editing process and some of the rationale and you create a process in general. But yeah, the studio is huge, to the extent where it's probably overwhelming. And for most people, I think it looks more like an art gallery or a museum than it does a studio. People in general, at least especially the lay person, as much as I load that term, individuals who aren't actively involved in the photographic industry, they picture a studio and they think sterile.

They think a cyc wall, you know, they think this very clinical almost type of environment. And I wanted to have something that was very antithetical to that. So, I mean, you walk into the front door and there's antiques everywhere and there's old pianos and there's candelabras and there's art on the wall. And it's literally floor to ceiling canvas in here. Like, I just built this set that's behind me now and there was a patch of white wall that was there and I started getting a twitch. So I had to I had to I had to piece in something.

Tom Trevatt

Mm-hmm.

No white wall, yeah.

Jonny Edward

to sort of fill it, but I think even then, like there's a grandiosity to the studio that plays into my process, that plays into my personality, and while it's very full, it's also relatively minimalist. So there's things on the walls everywhere, but like if I could turn this camera around right now, there is this vast empty space in the center of the studio. So I sort of toe this line between maximalism and minimalism, but the space affords me the opportunity to work in a way that my last space didn't. So my last space was, I want to say about 550 square feet, and I had eight and a half foot ceilings, and I created beautiful work there, but it was ridiculous. Like I had the lion's share of what's currently in the studio, so if I wanted to switch sets, I had to like deconstruct, it was like Tetris. I would take, you know, the seven old steamer trunks that I had and move them to the side, and the wardrobe rack would move, and it was like a crossfit workout every time I had to switch sets.

So in here, there's all of these different vignettes and they're set up based on texture and they're set up based on period and they're set up based on tonal cohesion or tonal dissonance and all of these. So it allows me to pivot when I'm working with a person and since I am so sort of spontaneous and chaotic, I can say, you know, I know you didn't bring it in, but like, how would you feel about that turtleneck? And we've been shooting with all of this constant lighter strokes, let's go to the front. Let's go to the front on the olive set and it's just natural light. It's coming in really beautifully right now. So there's all of these scenes set up.

and I'm so ADHD that if it's not in front of me, it doesn't exist. So if I have things that are packed away seriously, I just did an inventory in my studio and it was like a trove. It was like a kid at Christmas. I'm like, I have all of these cool things. Why do I have three gimbals? Like why would any human being, when I don't even do video work, so I started posting on Facebook Marketplace right away. But if it's not in front of me, it doesn't exist. So I like to have these options so that I can turn and I'm like, actually maybe we should be on the taupe instead of the brown because your skin tone plays so beautifully with that. And I like that element of service for my clients as well because they walk in and they're like, well, what are we gonna do? I'm like, we're gonna do all things. We're gonna find out what works best for you. All of these things are here. This whole studio is here to avail itself to you in your session, your individuality. And it's wild. So I still have that moment. This was the studio I dreamed of half a decade ago.

You know, when I got my first canvas backdrop, it was like one from Savage that I had bought from a wedding photographer on Facebook marketplace and it had footprints on it, you know, and all these other things, but I had it up and I was like, ooh, texture. And I would see the Oliphants and I would see all of these things and I'm like, that's never in the cards for me. And now sometimes I'll sit here, you know, with a glass of wine or, you know, a snifter of something rather. And I'm just like, holy shit, like this is actually mine. Like I've built this.

And not just for myself, but for my clients and also for my students. Because education is a big part of my world now. So having a space like this to be able to teach in where there's three models or subjects that are up and it's very immersive and there's space to breathe and play and create and explore, it's pretty fantastic. And I'm immensely grateful. I lucked into this space. It was synchronicity. I won't get too deep into the weeds with this, but a couple of years ago at my old studio I was stabbed. And it was a very life changing experience, total random act of violence, and they ended up severing my femoral artery in my left leg. And so I almost bled to death on the street in front of my studio, which was so surreal. And I remember thinking when I was, and luckily I always have to say this, there was someone who stopped who managed to get my belt off. I told them I needed a tourniquet. They put it on and they saved my life. And I tried to find this person for six months. I put social media posts out and posters out. And literally, if there's such thing as, you know, angels of any sort, that's what this person was. And they sounded like Macho Man Randy Savage. They got out of their car and they're like, "'Hey brother, you don't look so good. "'What do you need?' And I'm like, "'I'm bleeding to death. "'Could you put a tourniquet on?' And he was like, "'Yeah'" and he puts it on like this. And I was like, are you an EMT? Are you a doctor? He's like, army medic, served five tours So the exact person you want in that scenario, and I was in the back of the ambulance, he came over, he smacked me on the ass, gave me a kiss on the forehead and said, you're gonna be okay, sweetie, and walked away. It was the most surreal thing ever. But I remember, seriously, and I remember being in the back of this ambulance, I was like such a deviant in my 20s and in my late teens, like a maniac.

Tom Trevatt

Wow.

Right.

You're an angel.

Jonny Edward

And I'm like, I did all of these things where someone should have stabbed me by all right, and now I'm leaving my studio after a day of community-oriented artwork and I get stabbed. Point being is I was going through all of this recovery, and when I got out of the hospital, I went, well, I can't be in that space anymore. When I first went back to my studio, there was still literally a pool of blood in the street that hadn't completely abated. And so the association was just too much for me.

Um, and I, I can say with, with absolute certainty and complete comfortability that I am not strong enough to deal with that on a daily basis. So I started looking for another thing and I had a friend here, Mike, who had a cohabitated artist space. So there was a fashion designer. He's a painter and a sculptor. There was another painter and managing artists is mostly a task to keep things PC. It's a lot. Um, so he was looking to get out of his lease and he's, he was calling me for advice.

And I said, I knew the space and I'm like, I love the space. Like let's, let's meet and chat. So I crouched my way over and I walked in and it needed so much work. There were old drop ceilings and defunct HVAC ducting and the back was a mess and floors needed to be this, but I looked at it and I saw potential and I had this talk with myself and I went, if not now, when, like I just almost died.

Like if that's not enough of a catalyst for me to jump, for me to take this leap into something I've always wanted and I know I need, then it's never gonna happen. So the sort of the question I asked myself was, are you gonna take this leap or are you gonna get out of this entirely? It was one or the other. Cause I felt like if I didn't do it, I was telling myself that it was never going to be important enough, in which case I needed to pivot my life. And if I did do it, I just needed to say to hell with it, whatever comes will come, but I'm going to try. And so I decided to try.

And I was in here, you know, painting walls and scraping things and my leg was the size of a, you know, watermelon and my physical therapist was like, you're an idiot. And I'm having these like, if anyone's seen the notebook, like these Ryan Gosling moments where I'm crying, like, what am I doing with my life? This was the biggest mistake I've ever made. And then day by day, it started coming together. And then pieces of the studio started showing up here. And it was this very cliche to say, but this giant leap of faith for me to say, you know, I only have this one leg for the moment to leap off of, but it was so significant, or it felt so significant, it was now or never, and I'm so thankful and grateful that I decided to take that leap, and for the people in my life who said, go, jump, you know, and if you fall, you'll fall into water, you'll fall into a net, you'll find you have wings, but like you have to do this, and I think we're challenged on our journey especially as creatives to take these leaps.

And it's usually at the point of the greatest discomfort when I feel like we're on the precipice of something so significant for ourselves. And it's challenging is anything, but the reward is spectacular.

Tom Trevatt

Mm. I mean, that's one hell of a challenge. So it's not quite the same as everyone else's challenges.

Jonny Edward

No, it was weird and it's funny. I talk about it now and it's in passing. Someone would be like, oh, Johnny got stabbed and it's so matter of fact to me. I've had a very colorful life starting at childhood and I've gone through a lot of things. So it was one of those bits where I came out and at first I almost died and then, and let me know if you hear my heater at all. It just kicked in my furnace. Everyone, this is the chaos that exists right now. This giant furnace is probably gonna fall on me as I'm talking. No, knock on canvas. That's not gonna happen.

But yeah, so it's just, I think it's circumstance and it's perspective. For me, as I started to emerge from that, I went, all right, I could have died, I didn't. And then I could have lost my leg. They almost couldn't save the leg because of nerve damage, so I would have lost my leg from the knee down, and I didn't. They thought there was gonna be so much nerve damage that I wasn't going to be able to lift my foot. I was gonna have a condition called drop foot for the rest of my life. That didn't happen. And so, as horrible as that was, I'm...

Not necessarily, I'm not grateful that it happened. It's awful, but it could have been so much worse and it pushed me in this other direction or maybe I allowed myself to be shifted in this direction. So I just like to maintain perspective. And the other thing about it too is we all respond to variables in our lives differently. So you have someone who goes through something that overtly we would all say isn't a big deal and it breaks them as a human being. And then you have other people who walk through fire and get out on the other side and go, I'm thirsty and laugh about it.

And so there's this beautiful sort of subjectivity to experience. So I never want to magnify or minimize my experience. And I actually pale sometimes to talk about that or some of the other things I've been through because I never want someone to minimize their own experience based on how they're maximizing mine. And so there's a certain guardedness about some of that trauma for me where I never want it to be a counterpoint where someone goes, well, Johnny's doing great and he has a 2500 square foot studio.

he almost got murdered, so what am I doing with my life? Like, I don't, I never want my story to be that. And I can't control that, of course, but I'm very hyper aware of it.

Tom Trevatt

Of course. How long ago was that?

Jonny Edward

Uh, two years ago, as of March 22nd to the day.

Tom Trevatt

Oh, wow. Okay. So, okay. So that's pretty recent. And like, this is almost like you've, I mean, obviously, you had the studio before you're doing all this work, but it's like, you came into this space, and suddenly the everything kind of clicked and came together and the work just almost like grew to fill the space in a way. Yeah.

Jonny Edward

Yeah, relatively, yeah.

Very much so. And I think for me that element, once again, it was the catalyst, even as far as what I consider to be authenticity in my own work, creating work that speaks to me first and foremost, or that speaks to the individuals that I photograph, not keeping the algorithm in mind, not keeping marketability or PR in mind, just going like, I'm gonna create what I wanna create because time is limited, going back to that memento mori. I've always been a death obsessed person, even as a kid, morbidly so.

You know, like other five year olds were asking about Santa Claus. And I was like, what happens when my body decomposes? Dada. Like it was very probably off putting to my parents, bless their hearts. Um, but I think for me, it brought it to the forefront. So it was this thing that I know that then I experienced and I'm just like, you know, and pardon, pardon my, my French, so to speak, everyone, but I went fuck it. You know, I went just like, what? No, no, like I'm beholden to myself and that's it. And.

Tom Trevatt

Mm-hmm.

Jonny Edward

into the people in my life who are important, into society for whatever impact I want to have directly or indirectly. And so I felt like the whole experience in totality was an untethering of sorts, where any of the constraints that I was placing on myself, it was no one else. It had nothing to do with the world. It was something that I had wrapped myself into. I sort of unshackled myself and went, let's just go. Let's do this. And let's actually get in the driver's seat, so to speak, because I'm only accountable to myself.

And ultimately, in the end, if I have a moment to reflect before I pass on to whatever is next, it's my responsibility to have said, I led a good life. I did what I wanted to do. I created what I wanted to create. I connected, I traveled, I did all of these things that I wanted to do. That is wholly on me. So just wanting to own that beautiful responsibility and do the most that I possibly could with it and can with it.

Tom Trevatt

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the motivation from the very beginning, really the beginning of our conversation, where you described how you left a job, which by all societal measures was a good job, but was killing you in a sense, you know, it's the same, it's the same thing. It's, you know, the job was the stab in the same way that the stab was the job, right? It's like, it's kind of this thing that's just, um, you know, I, I've never been a person to have a job.

Jonny Edward

Yeah, absolutely.

Very much so.

Hahaha

Tom Trevatt

So I had a job for a, it shall remain nameless, a large financial institution a number of years ago when I first left university. And I remember going up to my line manager one day and just being like, you have to sack me. And she's like, what the fuck are you talking about? I was like, you have to sack me because I want to sign on and become an artist. And she was like, I'm not gonna sack you. I can't just sack you.

Jonny Edward

Yeah, I love that.

Tom Trevatt

And hilariously, we were sat in the meeting room and she sat down and sat on a big bag of weed. This big bag of skunk. This is in Brighton. So there's like people dropping weed left, right and center. And, and I just was like, damn, I should have pretended that was mine. But no, I left that. Yeah, I left, I left for lunch and turned my phone off for four days. At that point, but

Jonny Edward

Get off the goods.

Tom Trevatt

That was the only job that I had that I could consider to be a job that was like a job job. You know, I've taught at university for over 15 years. I've, you know, obviously run this business for a few years. And I've had other kinds of things like DJ, I've, you know, always worked in bars and all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, none of that has felt like I'm trying to make shareholders richer.

You know, of course, I'm sure some shareholders have got richer off my work along the way, but never has it felt like I've been in that kind of corporate grind. And I just don't think I've ever had it in me to do that. It's never been something I've been able to do. I've been incredibly lucky in the sense that I've fell on my feet, even the poorest times of my life where I've been earning no money. I've fallen on my feet.

many, mostly because of, you know, friends and family and stuff around being incredibly supportive, being like, yes, of course, you can come and stay with me, sleep on my sofa, whatever. But, you know, for me, it's like my moment of leaving the job and starting a gallery space.

I think is a defining moment for me in my life as well, because it's so important these spaces, and I think the studio is actually a vital story in this. I think that's why I think for you it's a really vital part of this story. It's creating these like literally physical spaces in which people can congregate and do things. I ran a gallery for a number of years and it was like you bring people into that space. It's very different from just being an artist.

Jonny Edward

Oh, absolutely.

Tom Trevatt

just being a photographer, having some sort of place to invite people to, whether that's for a party, whether that's for a community forward thinking kind of space or conversation, whether that's for an exhibition, whether that's for a studio.

the space is so important. And for me, that's like the driving force behind all of this is like being able to get into a situation where I can like have that space, whether that's a studio space or whether that's my home or whatever it is. For me, those things are super, super important. So I love the story because I think it's, it exemplifies in a way, on the one hand, like what the fuck are you doing with your life if you are just making a shareholder rich? Which I love, I love that kind of, oh.

of grit about that story, the longer story. But it's also like, it's like you are really creating something properly welcoming for people, you know, that people can experience a little element of the thing that you care about, the memento mori. And I think that that's such an important phrase for you, because there's something like deathly about your work as well.

There's something macabre, there's something gothic about the work. On the one hand, it's incredibly beautiful and exploring this kind of like, you know, angelic kind of stuff. But then there's also a very, there's this darkness to it, which I think is, is this kind of other side of you, which is very much like remembering I'm going to die, which is wonderful.

Jonny Edward

Well, it's, yeah, I think, and I appreciate you saying that. I think for me, you know, sort of the full circle has been the duality of all things. So wanting not to shun one thing for the other and they're not being good or bad, they're just being things.

Tom Trevatt

Mm.

Jonny Edward

and wanting to embrace it as a whole. And I agree regarding the physical space. I think it's so important. And one of my favorite things is when someone comes into the studio, it could be a client. It could be a colleague. I'll have the UPS driver come in sometimes to deliver these ungodly numbers of canvas backdrops that I'm ordering. But people go, wow, I love it in here. I want to live in here. I want to stay here. And so I think a big driving force for me with the space, too, was I grew up.

Tom Trevatt

Mm-hmm.

Jonny Edward

with a lot of absence. So I didn't really have like family, I didn't have support, I didn't have stability, I didn't have a space. So for me, this is me creating something for the world and for others that I didn't have. Now the relevance of that might not be the same because if you had that, it's not going to mean the same thing, of course. But I wanted to have a place where people could come in and they would just feel easeful and they would feel peaceful and they would feel welcomed and they would feel almost at home, they would feel like they don't wanna leave and they're just like, wow, I just feel so good here. And it's this thing that can't even be articulated. It's that sort of fourth dimensional, metaphysical, energetic aspect of like, I feel good in this space. And that's my greatest compliment. If someone comes in and they're like, oh wow, Johnny, you have a great collection of backdrops. I'm like, that's nice to hear. Or like, why do you have so many lights, you freak? You know, like that's all things. But like when someone speaks to the actual experience, the feeling of being in here and it's so positive and it's so Such a counterpoint to what they generally experience in their everyday life Nothing brings me more joy and if there's moments when I doubt myself or I doubt this investment or I doubt this space I go back to those conversations I go back to those expressions from these individuals who I've crossed paths with or who have come through the studio and I'm like now This is this is right and it might not be right or proper a month from now or a year from now, but insofar as I made the decision and I'm here right now, this is exactly where I need to be and this is exactly what I need to be doing.

Tom Trevatt

Yeah, that's fantastic. Johnny, we're going to wrap up very shortly, but I'm going to ask you some very prosaic and maybe even geeky questions. What camera do you shoot on?

Jonny Edward

Okay, let's go for it.

So I'm a Sony shooter. So I shoot with the Sony A7R IV and then I also shoot with just the A7IV. So I've been thinking of upgrading to the R5. I haven't done that yet. I also am incredibly fascinated with the GFX system and I've been talking with Fuji about sending me a loaner for literally over a year and they never have any in stock. They go out to their Fuji ambassadors. So Fuji, if you're listening to this, I'm potentially ready to jump ecosystems, throw me a camera to use for two weeks so I can see if I love it or not.

Tom Trevatt

Ep. 8 - Photography Adjacent Art Death Life

Finding Your Visual Identity

Ep 7 - Photography Adjacent f/N Changing the Future