Growing up in a sanctioned Rhodesia (through 15 years of civil war) and farming in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe unwittingly nurtured transferable life/work skills grounded in the premise that NO problem, task or challenge was insurmountable—not that there was always a choice!
The process was simply called ‘Making a Plan’
Prerequisites to success included - dogged determination, creative? resourcefulness (read sometimes having to tread a thin line), risk tolerance, wit and a sense of humour. The smart people in my life would say I probably could have done with a little less of all of them.
Effective when 'plan' focused they yielded somewhat different outcomes when left to their own devices, some alarming, others life-threatening—well more than some really. Enough to fill a memoir more!
It’s an endeavour I‘ve been juggling for a long time and is epitomised by the late, great Peter Cook line -
'I met a man at a party. He said I'm writing a novel. I said Oh really? Neither am I.'
I digress...
At twenty-one I moved to Aberdeen in an attempt to swap farming in Africa for saturation diving in the North Sea—one that got away. I then inadvertently stumbled into and fell in love with the creative sector and nine years later exploited an opportunity to launch what would later become a full service design agency.
There followed multi-sector entrepreneurial successes and industry firsts, unexpected break-up’s inevitable? breakdown’s, and long periods where I have been totally lost, self and career.
Recovery wise I’m there on the ‘self’ but finding meaningful work remains frustratingly elusive.
*The photography bit*
At the start of 2025 I decided to resurrect a long forgotten passion for taking photo's (we're talking film and darkroom days here) with the intention of finding a way to generate an income. With an aversion to photographing people wall art seemed a good place to start and in April bought a budget(ish) camera and one lens and started both shooting and trying to get my head around modern post production—old dog and all that...
I then stumbled across product photography, the spirits sector in particular, and immediately thought that's what I want to do! A basic studio set-up arrived at the end of June and after producing my first pic (Jack Daniels) dared to believe I was on to something. I can't tell you how much I hope I am!
Outside of work I enjoy pushing a bouncy bicycle up a variety of Scottish hills before trying to get down in as short a time as possible without hurting myself too much. Success on the latter is variable. Probably sounds a bit Marmite. I love that too...