Page 58 - Demo

58 || FITNESS MAGAZINE || JUNE 2015 || EDITION 2 It was later when he took a media course that covered design, photography, film production, and journalism that he first started taking pictures and bought his first manual 35mm SLR. A lot of things have changed in the industry especially over the last 10 years and Christopher feels very lucky to have learned to use a camera in the good old days of film. Fortunately he learned Photoshop in one of his design classes, which proved to be a vital skill later on when he switched over to digital cameras. In 2004 he turned these skills into a full time business and has since traveled the world as a commercial photographer for many high profile clients. Due to his background playing Ice Hockey for Great Britain, fitness has always been a big part of Christopher%u2019s life. Becoming a fitness and bodybuilding photographer is something that has then just naturally occurred for him over the last few years. He started with a few brand names that spread to magazine and private portfolio work, and now fitness is around 90% of his work load. However, working alongside some of the world%u2019s best fitness models, athletes, and bodybuilders each day rubbed off on him a little more than he would have originally expected. With a push from fellow bodybuilder photographers Gillies Crofta and Mark Coles at M10 Fitness, Christopher took it on himself to go through the shoot process first hand. %u201cI like to think this benefits the position I am in now knowing what everyone I work with goes through. I now have the utmost respect for the dedication of my clients%u201dFMM: You started with film-do you recall a particular moment you knew you had to make the change?CB: I started with film at college. I was studying media design because I wanted to be a graphic designer back then. It was design, photography, film production, and a little bit of journalism as well, but I really sunk into film photography actually.FMM: Do you still miss dark room photography?CB: It was really getting back into the dark room and actually developing your own image and seeing it all come through. That was the highlight for me, and that%u2019s what got me addicted. After that I did take quite a break from photography; I did a second college course, which I didn%u2019t finish because it was quite repetitive of the first course. Back then I was a professional ice hockey player for Great Britain and competing all over the world. FMM: When did you discover photography is your future?CB: One summer my dad started giving me a few jobs through his company doing photography. Back then it was just turning over into digital, so I did quite a few jobs and managed to get enough money together to get my first digital camera. I kind of knew a little bit of Photoshop anyway because of design class and it kind of sank in together really well. I did commercial work, and shot everything like trucks, forklifts, cranes, and that was the majority of my work. When the recession hit I switched and started doing a lot of wedding photography and sort of found new avenues as all my commercial clients had cut their marketing budgets at that point. It started building back up over the years until about five years ago when I did my first fitness shoot. That led to By Darcy Tharp>>>