Hi, I'm Raymond Evans  senior image creator at Misheye Image, and to kick things off we're chatting with the founder and managing director of Misheye. His journey began as a small venture in the year 2000, and since then has grown to a solid team of eight. Misheye Image has a range of experience across the corporate, architecture, scientific, and industrial sectors, capturing massive infrastructure projects such as the Metro Tunnel, Westgate Tunnel project, and the transformative Level Crossing Removal Project. Just to name  What really sets Christian apart isn't just his two decades of experience, it's his meticulous preparation, his laid back approach, and his ability to create and facilitate images that don't just document, but sing with creativity. A true master behind the lens. Christian Pearson, welcome to the show. 

 Thank you.  It's very exciting to have a podcast with Misheye now.  Just adding to our capabilities, I guess.  

 Shall we uh, dive straight in? 

 Yeah, let's go. 

 All right, cool. So, right from the beginning, what inspired you to start Misheye Image and how did the journey begin?  

 So where to start? So, Misheye Image was born out of  So, as a kid,  I had posters on the wall, but my posters had to be beautiful and aesthetic. And I loved art. And I was, I guess, a pretty creative kid. I did lots of drawing and I loved art through high school. But then as the latter sort of approached, when I went to high school, Australian studies kicked in and we had to drop something. So I dropped, I had to, I dropped art and picked up another science and Australian studies and ended up doing  degree in biological  Always still interested though in imaging my dad brought me my first camera. It doesn't sound like a big deal now, but back then it was. He'd been to Hong Kong for a business trip, brought me a camera back, and in Year 7 I had my own camera,  amazing. It's actually on the shelf But then in, you know, my early 20s I had a big life changing moment. 

My, my sister died and I sort of rethought my life, I guess. And one thing that really struck me about that moment  okay, so my sister isn't going to be able to see the world, but I'd love to see it on her behalf. So I  thought just going to live as much as I can live on her behalf as well.

So And I guess that's where my love of photography kicked in, and I really can trace it back to one day where, after my sister had died, my, my mum sent me up to the, Photoshop to get an image printed of her. and it was basically the, the image that was going to go on her what's it called, the eulogy card.

To sum up her and I didn't know what the photo was, my mum had been up there already and dropped it off and then I went to pick it up I opened it up and I was like, Oh my God, this  incredible moment, you know, it's my sister. And at that moment I thought to myself, this is, this is as close visually, unless it's in my mind, as I'm ever going to get to my sister ever again And you know, it was a profound kind of moment, it was a sad moment, but I don't know, I think something just clicked in my head about  how powerful images are in our mind and how much a massive part they are of our lives. And from that moment on, I I basically became a photographer and from there I, the following year went to photography studies college,  and by the time I'd finished that  diploma in photography, I'd taken a year off, I'd set up Misheye Image and Misheye, my sister's name was Michelle and so to begin with it was MICHEYE but everywhere I went people would say Mickeye or mitch-eye but I wanted them to say. 

Michelle, as in Michelle's eyes. And so we changed the C to an S, and now it's Misheye every time somebody says the word Misheye there's a little bit of my sister in it. 

So that's, I guess, The  start of, and where it, was birthed, I guess, it was, it's, it's really a,  I don't know, it's, it's, it always is for me a heartfelt activity when I'm taking a photograph, because it all comes back to that moment in the photo store in 1996.   

 You never actually didn't know that story. You haven't told that story about the eulogy photo. 

 Photo look. It's a I don't know it's a it's a heavy story I suppose and  I know that the team knows where the name was born, but I guess my Photographic journey  really in essence on that day.  four days after my sister passed away. 

 Thanks for sharing it

Well that was going to be my next question, is uh, the story behind the name Misheye, but you just answered that, so tick!  

Um,  uh,  what were some of the biggest challenges you faced when building Misheye Image and how did you overcome them? 

 I think back in the, in the old days I'll call it because in the old days it was film.

And so there was challenges and there was challenges that don't exist anymore today. So for example back in film days there really was a magic  was people who were experts. And so photographers were required because no one else could actually do it. So we would create professional images that had no peer.

They couldn't be compared, like they are today, to an iPhone.  someone could just pull out of their  pocket Anybody can take a photo today, but  25 years ago you really had to know what you were doing. So  one of the 

 Actually, quick question. Sure. Why, what about point and shoot, like 35mm point and shoot cameras back then?

 Yep. 

 Or disposable cameras. What was, why, why couldn't someone just rock up and use one of them as opposed to, like, a medium format camera something fancier looking? 

 Look, I think it comes down to  Well, there's, there's the technical side of things, which is still a big leap of faith. As soon as you say to someone what an F stop was  25 years ago, no one have any clue or aperture or shutter speed.

It was, it just wasn't part of the of the day. But then there was the other side of it, which was, you know, I, I trained at Photography Studies College in Fine Arts. So, I came with,  I, I learned all the technical capabilities, but really for me it was about the And so,  as always, and even today, the difference between the iPhone, and a professional photographer or videographer versus what was a disposable camera or point and shoot camera and a 35mm professional SLR of the day. 

There's differences, the main differences there is still the and the eye and what we can see and what we're what we feel I guess  and and that's something that always is part of what we  From day dot, people have always said there's always just something about what you produce that,  what's the button you push to make that?

There is no button. And so, that remains the same, the whole way. With respects to kind of building the business, probably the,  The hardest thing has always been  to be able to translate that there is the need for the beautiful aesthetic that's actually going to talk to your customers your people and that  unless you are intimately involved with a project, so for example using that photograph of my sister.

It was it was an amazing image of my sister  can, for me, summed her up. Her smile and her warmth, but to the outsider who wouldn't, didn't even know my sister, it's just a photograph.  With what we do as photographers is we make that intimate feeling between the viewer and the image a real thing. 

So that no matter who you are, if you've got no connection with a, with an object or a subject, you'll have some kind of connection because of what we see and  the heart we put into it is what we feel the viewer will get out of it. And translating that as a requirement to clients is quite often a  thing.

And back before photography was part of every day, like it is today, it was maybe even harder to convince people that it was worthy. Yeah.  everything else seems to have a worth or a  value assigned to it. But photography, even today sometimes, can be thought of more as a  tick box or a thing we have to do rather than a thing that actually has real meaning and real significance to  anybody who chooses to actually engage with it in a meaningful way  And that's always, I think, been the case  In terms of a business sense, it was always just trying to get my name out there. So  Before I studied  photography, I studied biological science and so I worked as a biochemist for a couple of years. And so some of my first connections were through connections I'd made through doing a little bit of science work here and there got me into government organisations and government organisations talk. And so I started to move within and outside of other government organisations  So, I always think in any kind of business it's about.  making connections, and then there's a point when you reach a critical mass, and once you've got that critical mass,  it has a mind of its own.

You don't know where it's going to roll to,  but getting the critical mass is the hardest part, and for me that probably,  it's hard to put a real figure on that, but probably around  2010 to 2012 was when that started, so I was thinking this is like 10 or 12 years for that to happen. Yep. For all of that hard work to finally  And doing everything. So, my first ever job as a photographer was doing Santa photography.  And, I would never want to do that. 

 You never told me that. 

 I would never want to do that ever again. That's why I don't tell anyone.  

 Well, everyone's going to know now.  

 And that taught me a lot. And I think, and I was just saying to all of you earlier, right?

If somebody asks you, can you do it? As a photographer, there's probably a way. I think we're also problem solvers, and so you work out a way to do it. And as a consequence, I said No to nobody.  and probably one of my big breakthroughs was I went to  I was doing everything I could to try to build a photography business without going down the path of becoming a wedding photographer or a portrait photographer which was still and still today when you say i'm a photographer people say oh, do you do weddings? 

And I didn't want to do that. But it was tempting because people would ask me all the time,  but I didn't want to do it. And So one of my big breakthroughs came through going to a business networking event  And the first big major client I reckon I ever had came through this moment where I was sitting next to a, some Commonwealth bank investors  really had nothing to talk about.

They weren't interested in me and I really wasn't interested in investing. And then towards the end of the program, two people came late and they were from a place called the Tulla. Sydney,  the Tulla Widening, CityLink Tulla Widening.  I can't remember the exact  acronym, there's so many of them around these days, but, basically they were widening a little section of freeway next to Essendon Airport, and,  it was their marketing team, or their communications team  And they asked me, have you ever taken photographs from a helicopter before and said yeah of  course I  should probably mention this is in Melbourne, Australia. 

 That's right. Not thinking that it would ever, anything would ever come of it. Yeah.  And so two weeks later they, they rang me and they said, Hey, remember us, we had that chat.

You said you'd taken photographs from a helicopter before. We want to get some aerial shots of our project. This is way before drones. Are you available in two days time?  I said, yeah. Okay. And so then I just went about working out what would be the best way to shoot from a helicopter. And if anybody's taken photographs from a helicopter before, it is not easy.

But professionals, as in professional photographers, we have a way to problem solve and  we can work with shutters and apertures and put polarisers on and all those kinds of things.  we can negate the shake of the helicopter. And, you know, two days later I went up there and I was pretty scared.  Both because I didn't want to fail as a job, but also I was going in a helicopter with the door off for the first time.

I was harnessed to the floor. Were you afraid of heights? Afraid of heights.  And, but like I said, I was going to say, never say no to an image. Did you get airsick? Ah, yep. A whole lot. And so two days later though, I went up there and, and completely nailed it. And then every month, for the next 18 months, I went up in a helicopter and documented this project  And so then Did you still get airsick and afraid of heights? Yep. Yep. So how would you do with that every time you went out? Very interestingly is as soon as, and  it's probably not a great analogy, but I think of how, how a war photographer goes about their  they always talk about when they've got the camera in front of their face, there is a degree of separation between you and your subject.

So when I had my camera to my eyes, I wasn't in a helicopter anymore. I was making photographs of this amazing perspective of the world  But as soon as the shoot was kind of over, and I took my camera away, I started getting cold sweats, and I just wanted to land as quickly as I could. 

And that never left me. So, yeah. But that, that really propelled me down this big path of  big project  wow.  Yeah, I'm not sure if that answered the question.   

Yeah, some of the challenges you faced. Yeah, so I was gonna, I was gonna ask like, oh, just, just going back quickly a little bit. 

You said you would say yes to every job. Was every job a paid job? Yep, to some extent. Some were,  some were like, I'll come here. I might have been through a friend who just wanted to some photographs. And when people say that, you know,  it's not great. But sometimes the experience was worth more than the  And I knew I needed experience and I needed to build my portfolio.

I needed to build contacts. But also like all, all of those kinds of things just build your  that the next time you go out on site  a potential client, you can start to feel confident and talk the talk a bit.  I knew I could walk the walk, but the talking was this whole other thing, you  I, I did a lot of training on business back in those days, not the photography side of things, but just being in business in photography or being a creative and  it really hit home to me and was that, If you're in business, maybe  15, if you're really lucky, 20 percent of your time is going to be spent taking photographs.

The rest of the time is running a  And I think a lot of people get stuck just wanting to take photographs, but the business side of things don't work because  business minded or they just don't want to deal but very early on, I, I decided, okay, if that's the deal, I'll just pretend that's going to be the case.

And it  I think even today when we, when we do all our big drone assignments,  it's probably 95 percent paperwork, 5 percent  the shooting part is the funnest part and that makes up for that's why we do it.  Back 
 in the day, how would you even know what to do.
I didn't. I got a little bit of advice back in the day. There was a professional photography, society, the AIPP, the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers, and they kind of had a baseline  how much we should be charging as an industry so that we weren't underselling ourselves, we weren't undercutting others.

But there's, there was, there's also a time where you just got to decide this, I need to be paid this much to actually A, earn a living and B, stay in  and once you kind of negotiate that with yourself,  you can feel comfortable. And I was just talking about this some with somebody the other day, actually about  when still, when I invoice, I still,  sometimes feel a bit guilty about it. 

But I also know that if I don't invoice to that extent, I won't have a business anymore. So  that's,  that's always a point of conjecture as to where you sit.  I mean, you have your very high end image makers, you have people coming straight into the market, you have your serial offenders who are just undercutters, but where do you want to position yourself,  always thought that what I produced was really high quality work and I've put everything into  Sometimes I would practice for two full days on it before I went out on a two hour shoot.  Because I just wanted to produce the best ever image I could. So when it came to invoicing, back in those days, I was like, well, I was only there for  the value of what I just produced is so high that I just have to charge you  I gained confidence over time to know that what I was doing  How would 
 you how would you convince the  

 Well, if it's  Just like,  I imagine it would have been more valuable back then before digital photography   So, did,  I assume it would have been easier back then to, to Yeah, and maybe, or maybe a better question is, how does it compare back in film days to digital today?

How do you get across that value  to these days?

Yeah, so, look, the, back in those days one of the things that was, prohibitive was the cost  production.

 So, you know, a professional roll of film, even back in the late 90s, was 30 

By today's standards, what's that? I don't know probably? So the cost of film really hasn't changed all that  And getting them processed was 30 bucks a roll. So straight away, you know, straight off the bat, it's 60 bucks in the 90s just to shoot 36 frames. 

Of which, you're doing exposure corrections throughout, there might be 12 usable frames.  So you might want to shoot, you know,  three, four rolls of film and all of a sudden they're up for 400 bucks  you haven't made a cent  So  the value for me was always in this idea that there's technicians and technicians are fantastic.

They'll produce really beautiful  But for me, my,  superpower was that I came from a, an art point of view. And so my way of operating and talking to clients was  there's an intangible in what I do, which is my value.  And you can compare, you can go and use somebody else, then you can use me, and you'll find out that  with my images there is an art in  And that was kind of my superpower back then, and I still feel that's our superpower now as a business in that,  you know, we're, we're, we are brilliant technicians.  understand. I, I would think there wouldn't be anybody in Australia who knows those cameras more than you do. For example and I know that for a fact because when you went to the professional services, you were teaching them some things. 

I don't know if we're allowed to call it that. Brands, are we, or? Oh,  I don't think that is, but I don't want to, I don't want to make them look bad. No, that's right, so we won't. But, you know, like, we know our stuff inside and out.  And and once you know your stuff inside and  the rest is up to what we see  and what we produce.

And so we don't rely on our technical ability to produce great  We rely on our aesthetic, our eye, our art background, our film background. You know, we're, we're so well trained  Seeing  that what we'll produce will be nothing what you're expecting you will be  Particularly with a construction site, which is messy.

It's ordinary. It's  We make them look absolutely stunning  we don't go for that gritty kind of look. We, we still are about the  light and it's airy and there's places to move and you can let your imagination sit in the  And that's, that's the value.  How you translate that is  But I think that,  along with some other things that, you know, we'll probably talk about there's a whole lot of things that add up to value. And that's one big chunk.  And look, I also think that as a professional, there's an assumption you're a great  you can't sell yourself. I've never thought  I can sell that I know how to use a camera. 

Can't do Because of course we do, that's our job.  So the rest is about how beautiful, how aesthetic, how  engaging can we make our imagery. And I think we're one of the  Yeah,  great.  

I think that's a, that's a, I think my next question,  I think it'd be good to continue on from that by asking, I'm going to skip a couple of questions because I feel like we're already in that same vein.

 So I'm keeping in the same vein In terms of value,  because you,   So leading on from that how would you describe the work culture at MISHEYE? And what makes that 

Yeah, it's super important. And again, that sort of adds on, like you mentioned, that's part of our so,  one of the things that I think is always lost when it comes to working with anybody is how enjoyable it is to work with somebody. 

And so my go to was always when it was just me. I'd head out onto location and I would be, I'd just be myself. But I'd always be really  Photographers back in the 90s had a bit of a reputation for being cantankerous  and demanding  I never, I'm not, I'm not that kind of  Why do you think that I think maybe that was born out of that,  that bombastic period in the 80s where photographers wanted to be like rock stars.  And because photographers in the 80s were, you know, there were some really famous ones out there. And,  80s fashion kind of aligned with that. And, you know, if you were a photographer doing  something 80s, you sort of had to go with that kind of vibe.

And,  I don't know,  it really struck me. When I was,  in forums with the AIPP and that, some of the personalities in  strong,  full on personalities, and I just wasn't that, and so I wanted to lean into that as well, and As a consequence, you know, some of my early clients mentioned that I was just so laid back and easy to deal with and back then using film and old medium format cameras and  flashes and you didn't have any previews about what an image was going to look like and it was film, there was a lot on the line, sometimes you'd have a whole day shooting, you'd have great big sets and you'd have,  you know, an art director and you'd have talents  you'd be working your butt off all day. 

And at the end of it, you didn't know if anything really worked.  So, you know, I had to be, it was kind of like a  duck above the water, you know, I might've been panicked on the inside, but on the outside I was really calm and relaxed. And clients would often mention that to me and I thought, Oh, there's something in that that's, that's valuable.

Hmm. Because obviously they've worked with other photographers who are stressing and whatnot. So that's one thing I'd always built into myself is to just, you know, be calm and  considerate and kind and friendly and  that was a big part of it.  Just like, you know, I know other people want to work with people that are good, I also want to work with good people.

So  my,  and I've mentioned this a number of times, you know, I feel like we are  really good people. First and we just happen to be really amazing at what  And so part of our value is you get amazing images  and maybe we are sometimes ducks above the water, you know, because things go wrong.

We are dealing with a technical.  mechanical digital device. But we're always amazing people to deal with, whether it's your first point of contact via email or phone us out on location,  good human beings. And so that is part of the philosophy of MISHEYE. You know, I  as well.

So I, I only want to employ people who are,  And I think,  I don't know, that's, that's the feedback we still get. It's the same, you know, from when I started. And all of our members of staff, we get the same  know, we're,  we're just great to  And then at the end of the day,  in 48 hours they get this bonus, which is unbelievably engaging content. 

And sometimes, I don't know, that's part of being  if you have a great experience,  that's almost as important as the product or the thing that you purchase.  just telling David actually about there's a great nursery around the corner from my house called Poynton's, quite well known.

Just quickly  David is our production manager. 

Yeah. So I was talking to David about.  and what people go to enjoy and experience.   It might cost more, but maybe it's worth it. And I use the example of this nursery around the corner from my house called Pointons. It's beautiful. Absolutely sensational.

It's by the river. All the plants are healthy and just, it's a beautiful experience. But it's expensive.  Whereas we have another nursery,  probably the same distance in the other direction from us.  It's just gravel and it's crates and yeah, it's cheap.  Plants are good quality, but  every single time I think I'm going to Pointons.
I want the experience. I want to have a nice time and if I'm spending some money, well, I want the nice experience to go along with it. And that's part of what we do as well, you know, we're nice to hang out with. And, you know, as a photographer and videographer, if you hire  photographers and videographers, you are spending a lot of time a relationship might be just for a day, but it might be for years to come. And if it's for a day, you don't want to hang around with somebody Well, I don't,  and that's one reason why I think we're in business and a lot of people  who start up. Sort of get mixed up with it's all about the gear  or It's just all about the image  and  product  our product is our people  our service  gear  couldn't say it any better

 What's, well continuing on with that sort of theme as well, like what's, what's your personal philosophy or ethos that drives you and how does this influence the direction  

  Yes, so look, my,  I guess my drive,  I mean firstly my drive was just to make beautiful things for me. And then it became making beautiful things for other people. my, my drive came from seeing their reactions and getting those comments. And,  you know, whether it was Santa photography or it was  some of the projects, or, or shooting, you know, shooting from a helicopter, for example, the end result is just beautiful. Just as important to  and but what I found  it Entertained me to make beautiful images and if it didn't entertain me, there's no way I was going to entertain my clients So I strove to make so many good images that when it came to editing there wasn't that many to kick out Because if they entertain me the client's going to be entertained.

I see so many images that I trust my instincts. Yeah, you know totally 

 So, were, were there ever instances where you felt like you had to make the images look a certain way  So maybe it was like a  brand style or, or were you always creating the images that you think look best and the clients would come to you feel both I

I mean, I'm Obviously aware of what clients want. It  doesn't mean that I don't think that what I think I could do would be better So I was always very  accommodating to photograph what they wanted, but I'd always do some work that interested me. And more often than not, the work that interested me was the imagery they ended up going with.

And that creates trust, because you're doing what the client wants, but you're also doing, not what you want, but what you think is going to be best for the client  And so you become this person that they come to knowing that  they can trust you, because you haven't just gone and done your own thing.

You've also, without telling them so, created work that you know is going to be better for them  And, you know, it doesn't matter if they recognise that or not.  my images are the ones that they actually end up using. That doesn't matter. But that also, for me, started to  There was some clients that didn't want to go down that path and that was almost like a filter for  I felt like, you know, with my education and my eye and what I was producing, I was totally confident in my work.

And that's really hard as a photographer to get, you know, we go through waves of is this good enough, I don't know what I'm doing, but there was a point in my career where I was like, What I'm doing works.  so come with me, trust me, and I'm going to make amazing imagery for you and it got to a point where clients weren't necessarily asking me for something or a certain style.

It was, we want your style. We want you. And that wasn't through. design it was kind of just what happened  and looking back on it now it feels like it  The right way to go to produce an authentic product and I think again another part of our value is our authenticity. We're not trying to emulate somebody else.

We're not trying  Dictate a style.  I think we we know what  and our confidence in that allows us  Produce outstanding content every time  I think that was the question. Yeah, yeah, that's great.  

 This is fun.  

I feel like time's flying too. 

It is, isn't it? 

 Misheye is known for treading lightly and being environmentally conscious. How do you incorporate these principles?

 Yeah, so, currently we're working on what's called B Certification. 

 B Certification means you are legally binding yourself to a way of  fundamentally means you tread as lightly on the planet as you possibly can to do the work  Blair   

what does that mean? What companies are part of the B Corp?

  What the, the biggest, probably the, one of the founders, I guess, is Patagonia. That's,  an American company that produces mountaineering apparel, but also  bleeds down into surfing  just t shirts and jumpers and hats and vests and whatnot. They're one of the big champions of it. Their lead,  owner is called Yvon Chouinard and he,  he started his company because And he started being a big believer in decertification because his company was creating a lot of junk,  disposable rubbish. 

And he just thought, look, I'm, I'm making stuff to go out into the mountains.  But at the same time, I'm, ruining these  trash, leaving these hooks in the mountain themselves. So he decided to try this, this hook that could be reused over and over and over again.  And the community that he was trying to sell his product  also was of the same mind.

They wanted to not leave a mark on the in too. And so they leapt onto this product and his business went well. through the roof as a result. And I kind of started him on this this progression through making every single thing he does  lightly on the planet as  But,  in Patagonia's case, you pay a premium for  If we come to a couple of Australian companies that people would know you know, keep cups.  It's just a reusable cup instead of a non recyclable coffee cup.  Um, who gives a crap toilet paper? Basically, to do business we could do it as dirty as we like, or as clean as we like. And, you know, my principle, I mean, I started off as a wildlife photographer and it would feel stupid for me to not think about any of that.

And,  you know, the whole idea of treading lightly is super important  my daughter, she has this slogan, it's called pick up three for the sea And so every time I go to the beach,  I pick up three bits of  rubbish and I just think, God, if everyone just picked up  how much  microplastics flowing around the ocean.

There's really simple things we can all do and B certification legally binds us to that another thing we're, we're currently about to be ratified, I suppose, is it's called 1 percent for the planet and 1 percent for the planet.  It avoids this idea of greenwashing. There's a lot of companies out there saying, we're doing this and we're doing that.

But 1 percent of the planet means that rather than sitting 1 percent of our profits and most companies, let's face it, we, and I do it, we try to minimize how much tax we pay.  So if you don't make any profits, you don't pay anything to these. So a lot of people would say, Oh, we're donating 10 percent of our profits, but it might be 10 bucks.

Whereas 1 percent for the planet is 1 percent of your entire revenue for a year So no matter what your revenue is, and again, it's a legally binding document, you need to pay 1 percent of that revenue. So your turnover, so doesn't matter,  that goes to a frontline charity  So 1 percent of the planet.

1 percent for the planet  it goes to. We pay a fee to be a part of them, but every single cent that we earn of that 1 percent then gets delivered to people of our choosing. So we can choose people in Africa, or we can choose, and I choose, and we're going to choose or grassroots, local. And, you know, it's believed that if you can  influence your local community more, it only  slowly moves out further in terms of its influence.

So I figure we work out of our studio here in Brunswick, Victoria, Australia. So we're going to try to influence the area in a positive way as much as possible So it's, and again, going back to Patagonia, their first environmental campaign they did was in the dirty river that was in the location of where they first had their very first  that nobody ever cared  that's now a beautiful little river.

And  so their idea is, you know, it's local,  can. And that's, that's part of  also be cert as look after your own backyard. If you look after your own backyard, that can only breed a better backyard. And therefore the next backyard needs to live up to that backyard.

And that's,  It's this snowball  and you know, I want to be part of that  it's a real driver for me it's a it's a big driver for me full stop I don't want to be  you know, like  I can talk about legacy and all those kinds of things But you know, I don't want my kids in 20 years time to say hey How come you never did anything a little bit more when you  I don't want to say Well, I could have but I  and we all can so it's all the time. 

And I guess further to that I preach this idea, I really don't preach it here, but I preach it to my kids, and that is there's goners and doers there's a lot of people, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, I wanna do this, I wanna do that and I just don't ever  I say do it, then we'll explore it, and if we can't, there's a reason for it, but otherwise, it's a  so,  Good answer.  Treading lightly though,  I guess to expand that, we apply that to our work. We work in a high key way, where our work has this elevated idea of  elevating anything we see to something that's above  what would be for any ordinary person to walk past.  Not to be.  Put down ordinary people, but in terms of visually, I like the idea of elevating things and to give things a lightness. 

That's got this ephemeral feel to it.  Ephemeral meaning that, you know, everything in life nothing is ever constant. The only constant is change, and so,  if we can capture imagery that has that idea in it, so there is this ephemeral moment we're capturing,  that almost is, is gone,  I reckon that's the junction between  being a real thing, as an image, and not real  do you, how do you know when you've got that?  Sometimes it just feels right.  And I think that's what we're aiming It's that  X factor. It's that thing, X factor. You can't,  I don't know, I don't know if words really do it justice  sometimes there's images  hit for some reason.

Can you teach someone that? I think you can start to feel it, yeah. I think that's the challenge is trying to teach people to feel it.  So at the time, even, you may not see it.  But in post production, it's just got that, oh  feel  and for me, it's that,  it's awe.  and I like to think we can inspire awe in our image  But when I really get down to the guts and unpack it, I think it's the fact that we're capturing something that no longer exists and  that's  a really beautiful thing, but it can also be almost a little bit daunting.  we are capturing something  The The moment we capture it, it's gone  if we can capture that feeling of that, as well as what it actually looked like,  that's that lightness that's in our imagery  That reminds 

 me of metro tunnel shoots back when they were excavating underground for the underground stations.  And it was just all bare rock. Like they hadn't done any, like, concreting or anything like that.

And it's just like, wow, this  This rock has not been seen for  billions of years and we're seeing it and it's, and this rock is experiencing light, well, artificial light. That's right. For the first time, that, that blew my mind. And so when you say it'll never be seen again, well it's true because it's all covered in concrete  now and it's a brand new station.

Yeah, and that's that, that's that idea of ephemera, I mean that rock was probably,  don't know, it could have been there for a billion years. Yeah. And, know, there is those moments where  I think as a team we all feel, we feel those  And I don't think, if you're an engineer or you're a site supervisor, I'm not sure you have those thoughts.

I don't know, I've never asked, but.  That's what we feel. And so when we feel those things, as artists, we can't help but incorporate that feeling into our imagery.  Now, if we asked any of our clients to articulate that that was what they're seeing when they see our images, no way. Right? But that is what I think they see and feel when they say to us, this is something about what you guys do.

I don't know what it is.  I think it's that. I think it's that we feel. And,  that's what makes us who we are as image makers. And again, I think it's about the people we have on board, but not just technicians. We do feel those things, and therefore,  our images  speak loudly.  we say, you know, we tread lightly but we let our images  loudly.

What they say to our clients, it's really hard to say sometimes. And because they're not necessarily  image literate like we are,  articulating an image is a really  difficult thing to  But I think we can do it.  Because we can say, oh, we, we saw that rock that we stepped on, and I, I remember one time you walked on, it was a similar shoot, and we got to the surface, and I was thinking, oh my, I have reverence for this rock, you know, and I remember saying to you, oh my god, that rock  and you said, when I stepped on that rock, I said, oh, thank you,  showing me yourself, this is, what an experience. 

That all leads to  We've got a real emotional connection to what we're doing and  I think as a photographer, if you don't have that,  it doesn't work.  just a technician. Noticing  the colours and the patterns. All those things.  on a basic  level like that.

Yeah.  Yeah. If we can talk to our locations,  like  we  either our internal dialogue or

We make mention of it to each other. It can't help but be in  we make  yeah, as soon as I noticed it, I took a shot of it, or I could  I mean, yeah, we did photo and video shoots on different days,  would capture it  somehow, because it is amazing. That is,   Over the last 20 years you built some lasting professional relationships. Can you tell us how you build and maintain these and why do these  

 Well, I think it gets back to that idea of just being a good human. You know, you really want to do well by a client, they're paying  If they're paying you,  and I get really annoyed sometimes when you buy a dodgy product and you  paid for that product,  poorly made or whatever it might be.  I want to give them quality. I want to give them a  in every way. And that might be through how we work with them on the phone.

How we engage with them,  how we,  look at them as human beings first, not as a  I think just, at  the outset, doing that really helps.  With the Santa photography,  it wasn't about the kid, it was about the parent.  You know, I had to make the parent  And dealing with the parent, back in the days when it was a film camera, I would take a bunch of photographs of that Santa image.

The parent didn't know whether it was a  And, but I had to talk with them and give them confidence that what I was, I knew what I was doing. That you had to trust me. 

 So what sort about the kids that just like weren't having a bar of Santa and screaming their head off? 

 Look, there's, there was some very unreasonable parents who still wanted that magical, you know, image where somebody smiles.

Yeah. Even though the kid is obviously not going to. And we're not magicians, you know, we, we can only do what we can do. So then you've actually got to. Be honest with the people and it's just the same with clients. If we,  if something goes wrong, we'd be honest with them. We'd be upfront and say, look, our mistake or  by the same token, we want them to be honest with us.

And you build that relationship  And once you've got that trust you know, whatever happens during the course of that relationship and with some of our contracts, it's six and seven years, you know If there's a trust there, there's always going to be ups and downs if it's a long term contract it's  never going to be absolutely perfect.  but if they know that we're always aiming for that  that's all they can ask of us ever  And it's the same with, you know, the staff here. We can only ever ask of you to give your  all. But it doesn't mean there's going to be mistakes.  mistakes are how you learn.

Mistakes are,  they're part of life.  part of it all.  know, we've all done it. You know, I could tell a great story about you. I could tell some stories about me.  Yeah, go on. But, you know, like, well. Tell a story, go on. I'll tell your story. Tell my story. So your story, well, I'll tell my story.

I'll tell my story. Well, I  don't want this story to be told, but I mean, it's going to be great for the episode, so you may as well tell it. 

 So, I mean, Raymond had been with us, I think he'd been with us maybe six months or something, maybe even a shorter period than that, and we were doing a shoot in regional Victoria.

 Yeah. And we both had our own kids. And, you know, each of the staff members are responsible for their own kit. So they take it home, they look after it. It's like it's their own. And we rocked up to location. We always rock up 15 minutes early to have a bit of a debrief. I'm sorry, a pre brief have a bit of a chat about what, what's up for the day, get our gear out, get it ready.

So when the client walks up, we're pretty much ready to press go. And I pulled up five minutes later, Raymond pulls up. And we, you know, sometimes we just sit in the car and we do it ourselves, we sort of go through a bit of a  checklist, I suppose, in our head about what's to come.  And anyway, there's a knock on my window, the window comes down CPR left my gear at home. 

I went, oh, good one,  good one. Because Raymond does a bit of that sometimes.  And he goes, nah, I've really left it at home. And I'm like, alright.  You really left it at home?  

  But it was it's like in that moment you're like, what do you what do you say? You're like, what do you do?  Maybe I could just use my iphone.

That's right.  That's right. No one will notice It's like nah yeah cp got to be the news for you 

 You go through a million repercussions, but there's only one answer is go all the way home   But you know what happens when you make a mistake like that you never ever ever  So, you've never ever done it again?

 No. And that's the thing, alright? You do it once, and sometimes they're big things. But you know what? At the end of the day it was, what, 45 minutes back home, 45 minutes, it was an hour and a half.  An hour and a half of footage we lost that  but we had a great relationship with our client and it was all fine in the  know, and we still produce great work. My one, my one is with you on a similar shoot, where  we were after, after a long day, and we were driving to many locations, and we got to the location, and  we had to walk a fair distance to get to the actual meeting spot of the next spot. And we got to the location, we're talking to the person, they go, alright, let's go, you guys go over there and do your thing.

And we walked over there, and you had your tripod, and you had your camera ready. And I realized I hadn't even put my camera over my shoulder. I was back in the car. You had your lens belt on though. That's right, I had my lens belt.  No camera.  So, you know, I only did that one more time. So you don't learn perfectly every time.

But to be  fair, like, we, we'd have some pretty in depth philosophical conversations when we carpooled to certain locations. That's true. And I, like, I, I mean, I probably distracted you enough to forget your 
 camera, so. Losing train of thought along the way. That's right. But, you know, it's, it's just, but the other thing, again, going back to that idea of building clients trust and things like that is,  it's not like we do that every time and we're   haphazard.

Mm. Yeah. We've done these shoots 25 times with this client and it's, this is the first time it's ever happened. And they're like, Oh, of course, no worries. Just  big deal. but it's not. Yeah. It's that time. You know? 

 Yeah. I can happily say I've only forgotten my kit once. in the entirety of my career. So it was 
 just that one time. 

So,  you know, I don't,  I don't know what that question was, but I think  building trust with clients and  it's, it's takes its time,  but it's also, you know,  authentic.  We're not trying to be anything else other than ourselves and we're human. So there's, there's errors, but there's also way more extraordinary peaks of incredible  and relationships that we build and, you know, we have fun. We have some clients who, you know, myself and staff have been actually friends with and spend time with on weekends and see in, see out and things like that, you know, I mean, that's, that's pretty special.

So yeah, that's, that's a big driver is that idea of everyone having a good time. You know, we're not like goofballs, right? We're not a bunch of comedians, but we, we, we enjoy what we do and  show it as  

 so we've already talked a bit about how how the industry's changed over the years since you started.

But I wanted to ask like what about advancements in technology and how that's impacted our work? And and with that in mind,  what do  What do you see for Misheye in the next, say, five 

 Of technology? Yeah,  look, it's, it's, it's funny to say now, but yeah, I've been around for a while, so when I was, when I started, it was film, and the closest thing we ever got to a preview is if we had to do a Polaroid,  and sometimes you get these Polaroid backs, you'd stick onto the back of a medium format camera, and you'd kick out a Polaroid, and that would test the lights  And that was great because it gave the client confidence that at least the lights were working. But there was way more chances of error after that. There was how you loaded the film, there was, cameras back then were super mechanical. The light meter, if you had your light meter facing slightly the wrong way, it was going to be different to if it was facing perfectly at  back of the camera.

So there was a whole lot of technical issues that could go wrong. But also then you gave  precious images to a lab and we, I had many times where the lab would,  maybe if it was one in every 200 rolls of film I might have dropped off, there might have been a slight error and one in every 500 was a massive error and completely out of your control.

So every time I went to pick up film, I was nervous, nervous that I hoped what I wanted to achieve.  B, I  locusts  They changed the chemicals that they were using. And I used professional labs, but even professional  So so when film went to digital, I mean, I learnt everything I learnt through film.

I, I sort of didn't really want to go digital, because I loved  I had a darkroom I loved the art and  slow motion version of photography that was  You had to be really precise. I mean, Ansel Adams  he was my inspiration, but Ansel Adams would, you know, wait for that, that, that, that one moment,  not even 36 moments times three, but that one moment and that piece of sheet that  this big by this big and would cost a fortune to buy and cost a fortune to process and everything had to be spot on to produce an incredible negative to  prints he  So, you know, there was a lot more riding on it. back then than what I had in the 90s, but then when digital came along, you know, there was the beauty of being able to get a preview of what you were doing. That was amazing.  But the leap for me, I mean, I was always, was a really hands on person with photography.

I loved being in the darkroom and producing prints. And  so that was taken away from me a little bit when digital came along. So there was a little bit of hesitation with, you know,  jumping on the digital bandwagon. And that was also because I didn't want to sit in front of the  that's because computers weren't that great back then either. 

So it took a while for me to come around. One client told me one time, look, if you don't bring a digital camera next time, I'm not  And so I hired one and thought, what year was this?  I was still in high school. Yeah, there you go. It was like, I was in year 11 at high school. Oh right,  there you go. And I was learning, I learnt wet photography. 

 Oh, you still learnt the wet, that's good. Yeah, yeah, that was, 

 well just a quick tangent, but yeah, when I was in high school I was lucky enough to go to a school that had resources to be able to offer  a photography and digital imaging class. I was bummed that it wasn't part of the HSC scores  I nailed that class. 

 I bet you did.

It  was awesome, yeah. But that was the only time I ever processed my own  photos.  yeah, after high  
and studied.  Yeah. And sat in front of the computer.  

 Well, digital kind of  in professional circles to get into it extremely cost  

So there was lots of little,  there was point and shoot digitals coming out and they were okay. They were pretty average still in terms of megapixel count and things like that, which back then actually did mean something. Now it doesn't, but well, not to the extent that it used to. So to get into the professional market was a big leap of faith, you know, buying a professional Nikon  D  100 I think it was called back then and I just purchased my dream camera, which was a Nikon f5  And that was my dream and I loved it it was had this built in motor drive  it just sounded so beautiful to take a photograph with and Just as I got that clients were saying to say nah, we need digital now and I was  Do you still have that camera?

No, I sold the Nikon F5 to get a digital camera. And I really wish I had kept it. I keep everything almost now, because we run them into the ground. There's no point in selling them. But yeah, I wish I had kept that. That was my favourite camera of all  Anyway so then digital came along and I just had to  bloody learn it.

And one of the biggest things I did was I went to, I don't know if this guy is still in operation, but Peter Krogh. Shout out to Peter Krogh from, from DAM, DAM Management. He was a US guy and he got brought out by the AIPP at the time and he ran a seminar on DAM and I was like, what's DAM? Digital Asset Management.

And basically our workflow that we have today. Is thanks to Peter Krogh, because way back in 2003 or something like that, maybe 20 years ago,  he saw where this was all going and he just said, jump on this now and set yourself up properly, so that in 20 years time, and here we are, 20 years later you'll be able to go back through your digital archive and you'll be able to find  And so, I took him at his word, and we still do exactly the same  It's,  it's pretty crazy. And back then there was no such thing as Lightroom, so you had to manage all of your archive yourself. Just through some kind of Windows  programming, using Excel, and keeping your tabs on everything was 

 But how did you process digital photos back in the  

 Well, through Photoshop. Right. All of it. Individually. Yep. Individually. So we worked in a way that we'd work with film. So, today we  might, may typically for a half day shoot, capture 250  Back then, we still ran it a little bit like we did with film. Okay, so it wasn't as many. No, so it was quite  And because we were still feeling digital out, we'd still do our bracketing of exposures and things like that.

And back then it wasn't RAW either, so it was straight out of camera JP or TIFF.  I shot a lot of, there was, you actually shot TIFF files back 

 But TIFF files are pretty  Like a lot of information in a TIFF file. 

 Absolutely. But Photoshop wasn't very powerful back then, and that's right.

So you could still only play with them to a certain extent. So clients just wanted the TIFF files, so you'd give them the TIFFs.  But you'd only give them the best TIFFs.  So, you know, you were really still shooting straight out of camera like you were in the old days with film. So that was one parallel. And because I used to be able to nail, which was a really difficult thing to do, a transparency exposure, I was pretty good at nailing  exposures straight out of digital cameras.

To a TIF file and I just give the clients the TIF file straight up. 

 What's the transparency?  

 A transparency is like a . Yeah. I'm showing my age, aren't I? So you know the old slide projector night and you put slides in? Yeah, yeah. It's a transparency. Same thing you can see right through  it's a positive Oh, so like versus a negative?

 Yeah. 

Okay. 

So a negative, you used to, whenever you used to get like a, an Insta camm, a roll of Insta film processed, you normally get them back, but you get all of the negatives. 

  That's right, you get negatives and you get prints. So you would, and that's how photography used to be. You would print off the negative.

 So the negatives is the same as, same as the transparency? No, transparency is the image. So it's a positive. Oh. It's the actual photograph. So you would get Is that so they could scan those into They would scan it. Yep. Drum scratch, drum scan it. Which is really high, well back there, super high resolution scan.

But it also meant that you could just put it on a light box, and you could see the photograph. It was right there. Or you put it in a slide projector, and you project the image straight onto  Because it was just shining light through it. And so the colour, the fidelity would come through, so But it was much  trickier to get the exposure correct. 

But the colour and the fidelity  was like high res versus low res. Low res was a,  a negative. High res was a slide film, so everything we shot was on slide. So we would shoot medium format on transparency or positive. So three, it's got three names. don't, don't you have a box of them in the I do in the story.

That's kind of a bit of the archive of what I used to shoot. 

 So.  

Given the resolution you can scan things in today, if we scanned in one of those, like the, the, I guess, would there be any limitation on how much resolution you can get out of it? 

 There is, just because it is still got, it's still built of grains.

It's still grains. So i'm not sure what the translation to megapixel would be.  We should try that. It still has a grain. But you know, you could  shoot, there was,  one of the most famous films back in the day was Kodachrome  ISO. So  But 60, just like ISO today the lower the ISO number back then, the smaller the grains, and therefore the Kodachrome 64 was really for outdoor  without artificial  so you'd probably, we'd used to sit on a happy medium with,  with transparency or tranny as it used to be called. You'd either shoot shoot 100  you wouldn't wanna You wouldn't go any higher than 400. 800 film was super grainy.

Kodachrome 64 You wouldn't even touch it. Unless you wanted a grainy look, which people wanted,  you wouldn't touch it. Most clients just wanted a high fidelity, clean image, couldn't see the grain,  well, most lifelike, I suppose and so that was your 64s, your 100s, and 400  You could also push and pull the film, so you could tell the,  you could fool your film into thinking itself as a 400, but it was actually a 100, and then what you'd do is you'd take it to the lab and you said, Well, I, I pushed the film to 400, so I need you to pull the post production, the processing,  and so that would compensate, but you'd lose a bit of contrast, so sometimes that was a look you were after though as well.

All those little tricks of the trade back then, that  little bit of the art

 So,  fast forwarding today.  And the technology we have now, especially some of the smartphones and being able to shoot raw images on your smartphone. Yeah. So, 

I mean, why,  why don't we, why don't we use our iPhones to take these raw images now?

Yeah.  I guess from a client's point of view, it's like,  what does it matter? Like what's, why, why should we  get mirrorless camera or something like that? It's 

 true. It's true. I mean, it can be done,  but  you still need the eye.  you can do it on an iPhone. But  you know, like those iPhone commercials, they're beautiful when they say I shot on iPhone.

I can guarantee you the person who's shooting it is also a professional image maker  So it doesn't really matter. What weapon you choose.  It's how you choose, it's how you sling it  produce the result you  And  I 
 think And what about like the  post production process? 

  Awesome.  Good.   process I mean, that's On top of that.

That's enormous now. I mean, it's a really big part of what we do.

 And it's super time consuming. It can be hard on the creative mind to sit and go through with stills.  

Still by still, there's only a There's a point in time where you can't go any faster. But AI is starting to have a role too  As our image  disruptor you know, we've recently started to go down the path of using AI to do some of our post production  takes away, 

it's, it's like having a super assistant to get it to this great point and then we do the icing that only a professional can still do so making use of technology when it's ready to go is important.

I think that's,  there's lots of things out there. It's finding the right thing that actually is going to  

You don't want to do things that just take away from  art of the photography. 

By, there is parts that are just almost, it's just labour intensive to get it to a point where we can then make the images seeing and if we can get AI to help us with that, which is what we're starting to implement at the moment.

I  Think it's important to note that the AI software that we're using  trained using our back catalogue of processed  So it's mimicking our style.  It's not always perfect, but yeah, like you said, we, that's where we come in at the  put the icing on the cake. 

 Yeah, and I think that's, that's important as well.

 We didn't want to lose that. We didn't want the AI to just produce what it thought was right. Yeah. You have to learn and every time we do any kind of post production, so the icing we put on the cake, we feed it back into the AI engine and so it learns more. So it's learning more and more to get it closer and closer without the sliding, moving,  changing. 

You know, like a raw file these days is incredibly manipulative. We can do anything we  to it.  So what do we want to do? The more options we have and my, I've always said this to you, you know,  pull our options down to this and we can make  we can, make anything incredible,  give us millions of options and it becomes harder.

Because the millions of options mean we can go down that path, or that path, or  So what AI hopefully is starting to do is close in on what our path is, and what our style is, and what our look is.  to only speed up our return to clients.  And free us up for, you know, doing looking into exciting future projects. 

Spending more time researching technology, you know, because it's like it or loathe it, it's here, It's here

to stay. And,  yeah, so I mean the whole iPhone thing, I still see those ads and I'm like, ooh, okay. 

That'll bethe competition there, but I, I still come back to that idea  what we see and feel. 

It's not just about the camera. It never has been.  I use sport as analogies a lot and I used to do cycling and  I used to ride on a very, very basic bike.  And I was alright.  Some people would rock up. And they would have  incredible bikes,  and wouldn't know how to ride them.  It's the same with Kia, you know, I used to teach photography and I had a,  a student who was a very high up in a very well known company.

He was the CEO and he had He had  a good deal of money and so his equipment,  I could only dream of owning at the time and he would rock up to my classes and  me how to teach him how to use them and I  why are you starting here, you know? To the point where he had this digital camera that I,  I longed for,  the highest end Nikon at the time  he asked me how to open a folder on his computer, he didn't know how to create a new  So,  you know, I, I also think that it's. It's slow steps. The, tortoise and the hare.   the tortoise's journey is long, but the tortoise sees all this stuff and gains all this wisdom so that by the time they're at the same point as the hare finishes at,  a whole lot of learning that's taken to the hare just got there. 

And couldn't tell you about anything from the past. And so,  you know, I guess a little bit of a tangent is, you know, I'm really interested in history of photography and image making.  about  our process  Lots of  

  Well, I reckon that's probably a good place to wrap things  we can talk about film crew ahead. That was what we, I suppose, one thing that  when you said about the future of sort of talking about film crew ahead, where we're sort of running at this idea of,  you know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago now, when I was a  A friend of mine said, what are you going to do with all this photography stuff?

And I said, oh, one day I'm going to run a production  I didn't even really probably know what that was at the time but I think we're at a point now where we have so much capability in what we do. We have so much knowledge we have so much talent,  and we have the capabilities with our drone team, with our FPV drones, with 360, with VR, with video, and with stills that we are kind of like,  we now know we are a one stop shop  And we have David, who is our production coordinator, who is a producer. And so,  you know, we can pull together projects now. And so our aim and the future of Misheye is to be this.  production to produce outstanding content for whoever it is  Whoever wants to work with a great bunch of people to,  you know, be creatively wowed with our ideas  concepts. 

And again, it's that idea of we can bring all the art, you know, we also have this incredible technical capability with whatever it is that we're asked  And so,  That's kind of the future five years of Misha, I guess, looking forward is where,  I guess, you know, where we could be thought of as a little bit of a secret. 

And not that many people know about us  the select few who do use us over and over again, because they but we're kind of letting the cat out of the bag, I suppose. And we're sort of allowing,  other people to see what it is  I think is going to lead us.

down a path of a really super exciting  future where we combine our, our know how on a big industrial site and large, the biggest projects in Australia's history,  being able to document those with confidence,  but also the next day going out and doing a commercial  or creating a YouTube.  An Instagram post you know,  really talented team.

We've got a photographer who, who used to run an art gallery.  we've got an FPV drone pilot  flown all over the world, who  has an incredible insight into the world of  We've got a, an incredible videographer who's worked on film sets. and is incredibly passionate about film. We've got a producer  and  our newest recruit, who's not that new, he's been with us for 18 months, is an incredible designer. 

so we've got all these assets, all these assets that we can apply to almost anything. any kind of field. And,  we want to start putting our, our mark, I suppose. We want to start producing really great content for  really amazing people who are doing amazing things  because we think we can help them make their products shine.

And if their products are shining, then  of view, the world's a  amazing.  

 Well, Thank you so much for  sitting down and having the chat. It's been great. It's the longest chat we've had in a while. It is, isn't it?  

 I've been pretty busy, um, Okay, so if if you enjoyed the episode then please consider subscribing to the Film Crew Ahead podcast, wherever, whatever platform you might be listening to it on, and this is our first episode, so if you really want to help we'd really 
appreciate a review, if you could just just give a couple of minutes of your time to tell us what you thought or how we could improve,  And all going well, we'll make it a monthly thing, so we'll probably release an episode at the start of each month.

If it goes really well, we'll, we might we'll probably speed up that release.   We'll probably,  all going well, we'll probably release episodes more often. So, thanks for listening to Film Crew Ahead, presented by Misheye Image. I'm Raymond Evans, and we'll catch you in the next one.