In this episode of the Flash Masters podcast, we are joined by the King of the Composites and one of the industry's true innovative photographers, Dru Dodd.
Amongst many different topics, Dru reveals the magic behind his innovative 'wedding wall' and how it helped grow his wedding photography business. Plus, ever wondered what happens when the meticulous precision of science collides with the boundless creativity of photography? His tales from behind the camera serve not only to inspire but also bring a chuckle as we navigate the unpredictable world of wedding guests, from playful newborn poses to the challenges of international colloquialisms.
Strap in for an emotional ride through the lens of personal photography projects that keep a photographer's passion ablaze. Dru shares the intimate side of his work, from his personal project of taking portraits of his partner, through to documenting a friend's home renovation, reminding us of the profound impact these projects have on a photographer's growth. This episode isn't just about the technical aspects of photography; it's a testament to the stories we cherish and the memories we capture, holding a mirror to the beauty we often overlook in our daily lives.
As we journey with Dru through his family's photographic history, we uncover a love for the craft deeply rooted in his genes—from a WWII signalman-turned-photographer to Dru's very own brand, symbolized by Sycamore Gap's iconic tree. Endearing tales of recreating cherished family photos and the unexpected surprises found in digitizing old slides weave a rich tapestry that honours the past while framing the future. Dru's perspective is a reminder of the enduring power of photography to bridge generations and capture the essence of our shared human experience.
Dru's website: https://www.drudodd.co.uk/
Follow Dru's wedding photography on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drudodd/
Follow Dru's landscape on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drudoddlandscapes/
Join us in the Flash Masters community:
Website: https://flashmasters.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flashmasters/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@flash-masters
Flash Masters is hosted by:
Helen Williams: https://www.instagram.com/helenwilliamsphotography/
Neil Redfern: https://www.instagram.com/neilredfern/
In this episode of the Flash Masters podcast, we are joined by the King of the Composites and one of the industry's true innovative photographers, Dru Dodd.
Amongst many different topics, Dru reveals the magic behind his innovative 'wedding wall' and how it helped grow his wedding photography business. Plus, ever wondered what happens when the meticulous precision of science collides with the boundless creativity of photography? His tales from behind the camera serve not only to inspire but also bring a chuckle as we navigate the unpredictable world of wedding guests, from playful newborn poses to the challenges of international colloquialisms.
Strap in for an emotional ride through the lens of personal photography projects that keep a photographer's passion ablaze. Dru shares the intimate side of his work, from his personal project of taking portraits of his partner, through to documenting a friend's home renovation, reminding us of the profound impact these projects have on a photographer's growth. This episode isn't just about the technical aspects of photography; it's a testament to the stories we cherish and the memories we capture, holding a mirror to the beauty we often overlook in our daily lives.
As we journey with Dru through his family's photographic history, we uncover a love for the craft deeply rooted in his genes—from a WWII signalman-turned-photographer to Dru's very own brand, symbolized by Sycamore Gap's iconic tree. Endearing tales of recreating cherished family photos and the unexpected surprises found in digitizing old slides weave a rich tapestry that honours the past while framing the future. Dru's perspective is a reminder of the enduring power of photography to bridge generations and capture the essence of our shared human experience.
Dru's website: https://www.drudodd.co.uk/
Follow Dru's wedding photography on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drudodd/
Follow Dru's landscape on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drudoddlandscapes/
Join us in the Flash Masters community:
Website: https://flashmasters.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flashmasters/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@flash-masters
Flash Masters is hosted by:
Helen Williams: https://www.instagram.com/helenwilliamsphotography/
Neil Redfern: https://www.instagram.com/neilredfern/
Welcome to the Flash masters podcast. Flash masters recognises and celebrates the best flash photography in the world through education, awards and community. To find out more and to join the Flash masters community, visit flashmastersco. Here are your hosts, Helen Williams and Neil Redfern.
Neil Redfern:And Neil Redfern. Hi everybody, welcome to episode 65 of the Flash masters podcast with me, neil Redfern, and me, helen Williams. I'm tremendously excited by today's podcast because we are joined by the king of the composite, king of the wedding wall. The original trolley dolly all the way from the northeast is Mr Dru Dodd. Thank you for joining us, thank you. So yeah, we've been looking forward to this episode for a long time. Regular listeners of the podcast will know that Dru's actually been on our podcast before. On episode 55, which was the podcast that we recorded live at my Shine workshop and you were brilliant on that drew. You put the case forward for natural light being better than flash photography controversial. Hopefully we change your opinion on that now, but yeah, that was a brilliant episode. So thank you. I think for the first time we can say welcome back to the podcast for someone yeah, I think so.
Neil Redfern:We've never had a guest on twice.
Helen Williams:No, and we had so many requests after the last podcast about having Dru on again, so here he is. We're very excited to have you.
Dru Dodd:Thanks very much. I couldn't believe it when I saw on the Facebook groups people saying can you get Dru Dodd on again?
Neil Redfern:There you go.
Dru Dodd:Exactly, people are obviously taking with the gondoliers' annual salary.
Neil Redfern:We learned a lot on that podcast from from yeah, chimney sweeps, chimney sweeps gondoliers. It was all over the show in the best way possible. So, yeah, please do listen back to that. It's one of my personal favourites, episode 55. So, Drew, how is 2024 treating you? Yeah, not too bad.
Dru Dodd:I don't have as many bookings as I would like for 24, but it seems like we're in this COVID lag of people not meeting, not getting engaged, things like that. So it's just a bit of an opportunity, I suppose, to do other things and not just do wedding photography.
Neil Redfern:Definitely, yeah. Yeah, For those that don't know, Helen's laughing at me.
Helen Williams:You do this every single podcast, podcast, so we need to go back through there is to help the listener.
Neil Redfern:Basically, helen and I recently were talking about things that we often say. I said to Helen she always says 100% 100%.
Helen Williams:I just like to agree.
Neil Redfern:And then, since then you've actually realized that you do.
Helen Williams:Yes, I do 100%, I do yeah. And Helen said that I always say it's usually for those who aren't aware, or for those of you who are not aware, so you're always. I usually finish a sentence on the podcast and you just interrupt with like for those of you who aren't aware, and then you tend to fill in and provide more information, which is a very useful thing to do.
Neil Redfern:See, I was going to say I was going to give Dru a bit of an introduction, talk about what he does, where he's from, Go for it, but according to you, people already are aware.
Helen Williams:So, helen, no, I didn't say they were aware.
Neil Redfern:For those that aren't aware, drew is an incredible wedding photographer, based in Northumberland in the UK. He's also a brilliant landscape photographer as well. But, yeah, he's also a brilliant landscape photographer as well. But yeah, he's supported flash masters since the very beginning and won numerous flash masters awards. Yeah, and he's sat in front of us now rocking a flash masters hoodie, looking very sophisticated. I must say thanks very much. So, yeah, please do go and check out drew's work. What we're going to do is because we're going to be referencing a number of drew's images in this podcast. So on the day this podcast comes out, I'll be posting 10 of Dru's images on the Instagram Flash masters Instagram account. So please go and check that out and give Dru a follow. His work is phenomenal. We love his work and, in particular, as I said in the intro, there's two or three things that Drew does which is pretty original and unique to him.
Helen Williams:So we'll get into that in this podcast. But shall we ask some stranger questions to get things going? Helen, yes, I don't know how strange mine are, but they're not photography related and I just getting to know Dru over the last couple of years. There's just so many layers to him, he's like an unpeelable onion. So I thought, um, rather than go completely out there, bonkers, because there's a lot that Dru's just bonkers on his own. So my first question, if you don't mind me asking, is what's the best compliment you've ever received?
Dru Dodd:Ooh deep.
Neil Redfern:I thought it was going to be. Do you say I'll stand?
Dru Dodd:I'm one of those people that don't believe compliments and just kind of dismiss them straight away because I don't think about them, I don't think they're applicable to me, so I don't actually know oh, I can't really think of. I mean, I've had loads of compliments, I get loads of compliments about my work and and stuff like that, but I can't think of anything to hand that that just shows true modesty, I think it does, isn't it babe?
Dru Dodd:I can't think of who has said it, but I'm hopeful that it's been said that I'm a good friend. I think that'd probably be the best compliment. God, you're such a big head yeah. I've been, well, I've been a best man twice so um, did you do the banger joke?
Neil Redfern:no, you're not a best man if you've not done that.
Helen Williams:I am sick of that joke for those of you who aren't aware, are those listening in America, which we have many friends do you want to do the banger jokes? Yeah, well, you remember it oh, it usually goes somewhere along the lines of and I know that insert groom's name here is so looking forward to the honeymoon. He said he's going to take his wife to bat.
Dru Dodd:No, he was, oh no man, they're going to. Wales, they're going to Wales for a fortnight at least. I think it's that because he said he's going to Bangor for two weeks For those that aren't aware.
Neil Redfern:Bangor is a small town in North Wales.
Helen Williams:Oh well, yeah, that fell flat on his face Anyway, but you've been a best man twice and you're a good friend.
Neil Redfern:I hope so, and that's a great compliment. And it doesn't surprise me my question, because I get sick sometimes of the silly questions. I'd like to bring some education to the podcast, so I'm actually going to read from the BBC website for my question. I'm not sure if you're aware this is an article from 2022. There was actually plans to ban traffic from one of the busiest streets in Newcastle city centre and those plans remain on the table to this day. Council bosses say so. I'm just curious to know, Drew, these plans to pedestrianise blackett street were shelved, but a change in leadership has put those back on the table. So what is your thoughts on the pedestrianization of newcastle city center?
Dru Dodd:if I'm being honest um, it's not a very happy moment could people still need access to dixon's? Is d Dixon's still good?
Neil Redfern:I don't know. I don't know.
Helen Williams:That was completely bizarre. So you're opposing it's a Partridge reference. I put a lot of effort into that.
Neil Redfern:So myself Dru and Paul Flanagan, who's also from the North East, are big Alan Partridge fans and we started Paul's podcast with the obvious knowing me, neil Redfern, knowing you, paul Flanagan. But I didn't want to do that again. So I thought is there any plans for the pedestrianisation of Newcastle City Centre? Because, alan Partridge, you always talk about the pedestrianisation of Norwich City Centre. And there actually were plans in 2022.
Dru Dodd:I think buses can go through, but I don't think cars can.
Neil Redfern:Again, for those that aren't aware, although Dru lives in Northumberland, he lives 40 minutes from Newcastle city centre.
Helen Williams:Yeah, yeah and he is as we would call a country bumpkin.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, well, that's a good thing about Newcastle, to be honest. I mean it's quite a compact, small city centre and it's not a massive city. It's not like Leeds or anything. It's not like sprawling, yeah, but you can be in a car and you can travel, maybe not south, but you can travel west or north for half an hour and you're in countryside, so half an hour west and you're going along.
Dru Dodd:You're right back into northumberland and you're going along hadrian's wall, which was built spanning the width of england to keep the scots out when the romans controlled england, and which is the basis, apparently, of the wall in game of thrones oh, I've never seen Game of Thrones, so I'm the bad person.
Neil Redfern:We're rubbish.
Helen Williams:Neither of us have watched Game of Thrones.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, and then I'm like 40 minutes north of Newcastle. I live near a town called Annick and no one can ever pronounce that Annick properly because it's A-L-N-W-I-C-K. So everyone pronounces it Alnwick. Aln with yeah, but it's Annick. The castle in Annick is the seat of the Percy family. So that's the Duke, northumberland, him and the oh, I don't know. This is a bit of a history lesson yeah, and I can't remember exactly.
Helen Williams:We're going completely random here him and the.
Dru Dodd:I think it's like the Earl of Sussex or someone. They ran the country, god no or fifth, and I think it's a compliment drew was looking at me there like I would know whether it's ever the fourth or the third well, anyway, henry the eighth had a son and at the time it was boys became succeeded to the throne four girls.
Dru Dodd:So even though the son was the youngest, he was only like eight years old and he became king um so the duke just thinking of king and car, yeah, the duke and the duke and orthumbel, and and it's, and another another London gentry person ran the country on the bar. So the purses are quite high up in the ridiculous class system.
Neil Redfern:I think Maura LaPlante will be enjoying this history lesson, won't she? Because she loves, I think, English history and going back in time.
Helen Williams:Yeah, she does, she really enjoys that.
Dru Dodd:Does she?
Helen Williams:Yeah, I'm already tuning out, not going to lie.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, yeah, I'm boring myself. I'm already tuning out not going to lie. Yeah, yeah, I'm boring myself.
Dru Dodd:Sorry, I'm boring myself. I didn't enjoy history at school. I was like a lot more science-orientated. Obviously, that's where I took my education. I did go. I've got a friend who I met through photography. She was a fashion blogger and she was living in new york at the time and she came over to london for work and I met her, up with her and we went to the tower of london and basically I was put on the spot to give her like a history lesson of the uk oh, wow history and that and like some of it was coming back.
Dru Dodd:But then it makes you think like, why do we have to learn about all these kings and queens?
Neil Redfern:yeah, I agree you mentioned there about your background education, because this is, this is crazy. You're actually a doctor.
Intro:Yes, dr true dr dodd dr doodad.
Dru Dodd:So I got 85 pound off my car insurance for uh, really for doing that yeah, so when I, uh, I renewed my car insurance after I got my phd and, um, they just said, oh, have any of your details changed? I was like, no, no, nothing's changed. And I was like, oh, no, actually, uh, my title's changed. I'm not, I'm doctor, not mister now. And they were like all right. And then they updated the thing. They were like, oh, your premium's gone down by 85 pounds.
Dru Dodd:I was like oh well that three years of 60 hour weeks in a lab was was all worth it we should do a poll.
Neil Redfern:Best, doctor dray, who dodd? Who would you choose, helen?
Dru Dodd:well, a lot of my friends call me dr drew, which is a bit of a bit. Yeah, it's close yeah and another nickname that I had, uh, snoop dodd. That's nice, that's very cool right.
Helen Williams:I'm wondering should we uh crack on with another random question? Yes okay, I think this will be interesting. On white bee what did you want to be as a kid and why I?
Dru Dodd:suppose as a like a little kid it would be an astronaut. Good answer I'm like strong space nuts. That's how I got into doing astrophotography. My dad is like really into like space and stuff like that. So when he was growing up, that was the time of like the apollo missions, like to the moon and stuff. So he grew up watching those live on the telly, um, so he was collecting, you know, like every thought.
Dru Dodd:He was watching him live on the telly I hate, having that the best, the best way to argue about the moon landings is to, because some people say like, oh, how come the flag was moving? Yeah, when they put it in. But like, if you move anything it wobbles.
Neil Redfern:So if you hold the person by the shoulders, and then I want to talk about these now, more then be like why are you moving?
Dru Dodd:why are you moving like there's no air in here. So it's ridiculous. But um, no, one of the best things for the moon landing is they left a mirror on the moon.
Neil Redfern:Oh we're doing mirror shots reflecting.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, so 35 mil, so they can fire a laser from earth to the moon. Oh and time it so obviously people know the speed of light, wow you can work out how far the moon is moving away from the earth? Good knowledge every year but that is, I'm learning like that is the beauty of science if you don't believe something, you can test it. You can get the answer. So it might cost you a lot of money to build the laser or get the laser or whatever to the moon to do it but you can't do it and you can get the answer from it.
Dru Dodd:Wow, I think like when I was doing my phd, my professor always told me that he's like you have to be your harshest critic, you have to try and destroy your own science, and if you can't, then nobody else should be able to, and it therefore it should be the truth. I think I kind of took that into my photography yeah, there's definitely correlation.
Neil Redfern:So I feel like critique.
Dru Dodd:I should be like I try and break my photography down when I'm editing or whatever and I feel like if I think it's as good as I can get it, it shouldn't be I like that and I think like that's why I do a lot of technical stuff in photography.
Dru Dodd:I think especially like the wedding wall that I do. There's so so much room for error. You could easily like if you take one little shortcut when you're starting out taking the photos of the guests, all that does is perpetuate throughout the whole thing and then you've got. You've got these errors. I'm definitely like I wouldn't consider myself as an artist. I don't really think that I feel odd when people say like, oh you're, you work in an art field or something like that, where I feel like I'm using light and doing it in a technical aspect to create like technically good photographs that look good. So to be honest, I think I got into flash. I got into flash partly because I love like just playing with flash. When I started off doing photography. I started off doing landscape photography because I live in a beautiful place of England, so the landscapes on my doorsteps it was kind of like natural just to do it.
Neil Redfern:Yeah, yeah.
Dru Dodd:But even then, when I was doing those landscape, I loved using filters and stuff like graduated filters and stuff like that, whereas some people like to sit in the house and play on an Xbox, like I used to like being in a field with my camera on a tripod.
Dru Dodd:I like that Putting different filters on and stuff. So then when I went into wedding photography, it was like the flash became the thing that I could, because I can control exactly what light output is coming out of the flash. So it feels like you know you're in full control of it and you can create what you've got in your mind.
Neil Redfern:Yeah, totally of it, and you can create what you're, what you've got in your mind. Yeah, totally, which is which? Yeah, that's, that's, that's cool. Um, you mentioned that the wedding wall. I'm not going to use my phrase, but could you introduce the wedding wall for people that aren't aware, because I have never seen this this done before before.
Neil Redfern:Drew actually tells us what it is, but I remember like I don't know if it was in my patreon. I've seen it for the first time. I'm sure it was on a live stream of some sort and was like whoa, I've never, ever seen it, and it's rare these days to see something done within wedding photography that you have never seen. And yet this was.
Dru Dodd:I can't remember how I came up with the idea. I mean, it kind of came to me as it would be something that I would quite like at my wedding. It's very challenging, I guess, isn't it? Yeah, and I just had this idea where I could take a photograph of every person at the wedding and then blend it together. And initially it was going to be in like one big long row, and the venue that I did it at I used to work at when I was a student and I was just a car park supervisor, but I worked there and I knew that this I had like a tile floor and then a brick wall at the background, and I thought I could get the people on the brick wall take photos of them if I had the camera on a tripod, so it was the same all the time and then I could just blend it together and just blend yeah, because you're talking about individual portraits here so lots and lots of different exposures yeah, so I did it, and I think there was 120 guests I
Dru Dodd:mean I contacted. I contacted the bride and I said would you mind me doing it at your wedding? I said it might not work, it's just an idea, but I've never seen it done before. You know, there's a high chance that it won't work. But can we give it a go? And she was like, yeah, yeah, that'd be fine. And then, um, so I started doing the photographs of it and then when I got home to put it together, I realised that obviously the floor's level I had the camera level, but the brick of the wall's not parallel with the floor, because it's a really old brick wall and then a new building.
Neil Redfern:So you've got your camera on a tripod, I'm assuming then.
Intro:Yeah, I did on that time.
Dru Dodd:I was just like oh, I can't tile it now because either the floor goes jagged or the brickwork goes jagged. So I ended up having in photoshop manually having to cut everybody out oh my goodness at first I thought I'm just I'm just gonna tell her oh sorry, it's not worked. But then I was like there was 120 people at this wedding who all got up during the meal how long does the process take, as well, from the first to?
Dru Dodd:the last. I can do it before. From the first start I coming out till the desserts are cleared. Yeah, um, and obviously because food service is done table by table. So as long as you're getting a table up that aren't eating or aren't about to be served food, yeah so. Yeah, so I had to cut everyone out manually and I did think about, um, I might just tell her sorry, it's not worth much but then I thought there's 120 people have seen this happen you can't really get away with the fact you didn't take it yeah, so so I
Dru Dodd:thought do you know what? I'll just I'll grin and bear it, I'll put it together, I'll deliver it and then I'll never do it again. Also, there was another point in that the bridesmaids like best friend who did wasn't a reading, it was like a speech, an additional speech at the at the wedding. I was talking to him later on and I said, oh, I'm looking forward to putting this, this thing, together. And he's like oh, what's that? And he disappeared to go and practice his speech when I did it. But then the dj had set up and I couldn't do it against the wall anymore, so I had to do it downstairs in this like white environment and then it took me a full day shading him in oh my god so the lighting was the same as everybody else so you're saying no one will want to do this, so you can remain your thing.
Dru Dodd:So I think in total it took me about 90 hours of work to put together is this the one that, like got went crazy, viral it?
Neil Redfern:was the very first one, and then I finally got to the end of it I didn't do it as a rule.
Dru Dodd:I ended up doing it as layers, obviously, because the rule like one single long string of 120 people like you couldn't display it anywhere, uh, so I chopped it up into like seven layers and then, um, I posted it on my facebook page and then went out, uh, with some friends in newcastle, and then I got home four hours later and went on my facebook and in that four hours it had been viewed by 85 000 people.
Dru Dodd:Wow, and it was like crazy like and I was getting messages like how have you done this? People like from literally like the reach that went around the world was crazy. People saying like I've literally never seen this at a wedding before. Like there was a lot of people didn't believe that it had been done on a wedding day.
Intro:Yeah, just not possible.
Dru Dodd:But you can pretty much do anything if you, if you work with a couple and you build it into into a timeline and you have an idea of how you're going to work and you're mad enough to edit for 90 hours afterwards.
Neil Redfern:Yeah, yeah, but you'll learn from that well obviously then, you'll, you'll be looking out for these things on the day then yeah, so it's just like now.
Dru Dodd:I do them, I don't. It's obviously an additional extra if people want it and I have like a very distinct light and set up so that everyone's exposed the same. Yeah yeah stuff like that, but I've been meaning to do a tutorial on it and yeah, I always always.
Neil Redfern:I'm always trying to get a drew saying please make a video tutorial, because people will love to know how you do this. Not just for this, but for group composites as well maybe for the halo pack, which ones I talked to you about as well. All these little things that you do that I think people would love to know how to recreate them, do it, do it, do it, do it true.
Dru Dodd:So they became like really popular and I mean like I don't know, I mean that was 2015, so nearly 10 years ago I did that first one wow but maybe not so much now, because obviously I've done quite a few and people are seeing them, but for the first, like certainly three or four years, I was getting bookings for weddings where they didn't want a wedding wall, which is the like, the term that I, yes, decided to call it. But they'd found me by seeing it, because if you think, like, if there's a hundred guests in it, if, even if only half of them are tagged, if they've got like that's great for that like 800 friends like I mean.
Dru Dodd:The algorithm and facebook's changed a bit now, but it used to spread like I can imagine I didn't even think of that. But yeah, and it's quite cool, I mean, there's brides told me that they've subsequently had children and their kids have learned who their family members are oh that's so nice so I provide. So I sell it as a print and it's 40 by 30 inches, so it's huge yeah, um on like really heavyweight, like museum paper.
Dru Dodd:So everybody is. I can't really use my hands on a podcast to show you how big it is, but everyone's kind of what three inches. Three, three to four inches tall, yeah, so that's like what? Seven and a half to ten centimeters, because normally when you see a group photo it's like look at how many people like my wedding, not who's at my wedding yes, where's this?
Dru Dodd:one, and then I get like little cards made so that I can and I put them out on all the tables. An example of a wedding wall on one side, and then some instructions on the other.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, because it used to be. Obviously, unless they've been to a wedding with me, the likelihood have never done this before. Yeah, unless someone's copied it. Yeah. So every table I would go to people were like whoa, what's this? And then I'd have to explain it to them and then they'd be like no, no, I'm not doing it and stuff whereas like once I got the cards done, people were like oh, is it our turn yet it meant that people had a bit of time to think about what pose they were going to do, so they were like up in the ante and stuff um.
Dru Dodd:So you could get like couples doing poses where they're like almost interacting with each other, even though I do everyone individually.
Neil Redfern:That's what makes it look so dynamic as well. If everyone just stood there smiling, it would be nice, but it's not gonna have the same effects. Yeah, that yours do you get?
Dru Dodd:you have like newborn babies and everyone wants to hold a newborn baby up like simba from the lion king also it's pretty good way of you get like a little bit of face time with every single guest. Yeah good, so you get you get to make an impression with, with people. Paula, my girlfriend. I met her and she was like the second person in the very first wedding wall.
Intro:That I did. Yeah, I mean I'm not going to wedding brand new information.
Neil Redfern:I'm not going.
Dru Dodd:I'm not going to weddings, to like hook up with people, that's amazing but yeah, her and her friend that she was sat with were the first two people on the what do you say to her?
Neil Redfern:you old smoothie? I don't, yeah, that'd be interesting.
Helen Williams:How do you pull the girls?
Dru Dodd:well, I I got a drinks token and I don't drink, so I'll give her my drinks but I had a meeting, I had a meeting with the bride in the run-up to the wedding and and she was like oh, can I ask you, um, are you single? And I was like uh, yeah. I said but, um, you're getting married and I'm your wedding photographer, like Like this is super awkward and she was like not for me.
Dru Dodd:She was like I've got a friend and I was like, oh, I don't know. I was like I feel like I could find someone myself. But I mean, I was like 30 years old at the time and single, so I clearly couldn't find someone myself.
Neil Redfern:But going to a wedding is not the easiest environment, I think, to make a really good impression on someone you think you might be getting set up with.
Helen Williams:Yeah, well, was it her. It was actual, like, so her friend had gone. Oh, I think you two would get on and just be. Oh, it's like a blind date whilst at work.
Dru Dodd:Well, I mean like she'd mentioned it and I was a bit dismissive of it. And I knew who Paula was because I went to school with Paula's sister, so I kind of knew her. But I was like I'm not just going to date someone that I've just met for the very first time at a wedding Did you do anything different at that wedding, when you're getting ready, when you're arriving, when you look.
Neil Redfern:Because I'm just thinking, if that was me at a wedding day sometimes very rarely, it's been known I and I can look stressed, sweaty resting bitch face angry inside. It's not the best impression.
Dru Dodd:So I'm just wondering whether you were thinking like no no, I mean I didn't go to the wedding thinking like yeah, you did no. And then we just became friends on Facebook after the wedding and she messaged me saying like Did you poke her the photos. Oh, thank you pardon, did you poke her on?
Neil Redfern:Facebook. What's wrong with that? Uh, yeah, back in the day, you could like well I don't understand what's wrong with that. You're rude no, you could. It's a genuine thing you did on facebook. Oh, you're thinking of the rude connotation? I didn't get that or an ice cream in ireland northern irish people.
Dru Dodd:This they say like classic drew do you fancy a poke? And they mean like a 99 ice cream. There you go. I met a last from northern ireland at um, at a wedding. Paula was a bridesmaid and it was like a three-day wedding. So you go the night before and I was like paula's a bridesmaid. She's gonna be busy most of the day. I'm gonna be on my own. I need to like turn it on on the friday night and get to know as many people and become friends with as many people as possible.
Helen Williams:And I met this last from northern ireland called tanya who was absolutely hilarious and um, she was going on about like the poke van and the poke van yeah, yeah she was like oh yeah, that's that's definitely a euphemism in northern ireland, like the ice cream van's, the poke van yeah I want to go so far down this route and I can't.
Dru Dodd:Two pokes and a nice lolly, please. Honestly, it was mental I made as many like innuendo jokes about it like we all as a friendship group do two.
Helen Williams:Two pokes and a lolly.
Dru Dodd:A nice lolly.
Neil Redfern:Oh, there you go. It's lovely, though, the fall story.
Helen Williams:Yeah, so you met your missus at a wedding, whilst being set up by a bride.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, aww, so yeah, so always refer to hers, like that bride, as Cilla Black.
Helen Williams:Aww, that's really sweet. It is. Oh, that's really sweet.
Neil Redfern:It is, yeah, oh, I don't know how we where we were going with this. Now we'll have to see. This is why you need notes in front of you that helen said we don't need. See, I know where I'm going halo pack.
Dru Dodd:So we were talking about the wedding wall because paula was like one of the first people she's an og yeah, in the wedding wall yeah that's brilliant that was in the august, and then we started going out in the october, october, november time slow burn we're talking 90 hours to edit it yeah yeah, for a good while yeah issue. And then paula's. Paula's helped me loads of weddings since, like as a lighting assistant and actually she's keeping an eye on you.
Neil Redfern:That's what she's doing. You're not doing another buggy wedding. And then I did it.
Dru Dodd:I did a project, which never finished yet, but I was taking a portrait of Paula every week and it was like as a personal project. It really really elevated my wedding work because it meant that I had a bit of time with her like with a model, but not a professional model.
Dru Dodd:So, I had to kind of work with her and tell her what I wanted, which I was never really great at posing or anything like that, not like paul flanagan is absolutely amazing, yeah, posing, but he spent a quite a bit of money and a lot of time like learning that, like that's one of paul's like massive attributes is. He's like a sponge, like he's obsessed with learning stuff yeah yeah, um, and it shows in his work like the like the trajectory of his work has been like oh yeah stunning, um, so yeah, so doing that project with paula was was really good.
Dru Dodd:I could test out like different light and also like tapped me into like another market of getting wedding clients because obviously she's a girl, she's got loads of friends people were like her friends or people that like knew I went to school with her and stuff will contact me saying like can you shoot my wedding? Will you make me look as good as paula? Oh and that's why I did like there's a compliment, like the photograph of her um in the sea that I took with the drone, oh yeah um, this again.
Neil Redfern:Please put include that in the 10 that we'll share on instagram. But this shot again, I've seen done since, but not as well as yours but that when I first saw it I was like, oh my God. So this is a photograph where Paula I didn't know I can remember it was Paula is in a white wedding dress on a beach and as the waves come in and they become quite foamy and all the white merges with the dress and it just looks phenomenal. It's beautiful. So when you were saying you did the project with paula taking a portrait a week, it wasn't a standard portrait. It's always trying to be very creative yeah, yeah, it was like just doing like loads and loads of different.
Dru Dodd:That is brilliant techniques.
Neil Redfern:I think that's a great lesson for everyone, because I bang on like this a lot, but you're taking photographs with no pressure, but trying to be different, trying to push yourself into trying things that you haven't tried before, knowing it doesn't matter if it doesn't work, but in doing so you'll be learning so much and becoming more creative. I think that's a great, great lesson.
Helen Williams:Yeah, it's a great way of harnessing and reaching people as well, as you said, in terms of friends and family.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, because reaching people as well, as he said, in terms of friends and family yeah, because it's. Basically, if you want to market to people, the best way to market to people is to market to them without them realizing that they're being marketing yeah like the portrait of paula that I was doing. There were nothing like wedding orientated or anything like that. But it would get a sunday and then you'd get like mess. People would be like writing on your wall on facebook or something like where's, where's the portrait?
Dru Dodd:like we've been waiting oh, consistently posted at the same time as well not not necessarily, but by the Sunday that was the week was up, so and they hadn't seen one yet, so they were like where's it?
Neil Redfern:we've been waiting.
Dru Dodd:That's cool, it's awesome giving you a bit of pressure as well to produce yeah, I know I mean well, not great though, because I never, never finished. I mean, this was in 2017, I think I was doing it. I think we're on 38 or 40 or something.
Intro:So I've still got like something to finish, aww.
Dru Dodd:But just like life kind of got in the way, we just never got it finished.
Helen Williams:We challenge you to do the next one, Drew.
Dru Dodd:I know Paula's not very keen. She's like I've changed loads since, like she was. Like I've changed loads since, like she was.
Helen Williams:Like I'm I don't know however many years older since, uh, since we're doing it, but but just as beautiful.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, love that the other thing, I think yeah yeah, yeah, I mean I'm just thinking about it was really cool thing to do and I end up like part of the reason I wanted to do it, to show her, like, how beautiful she is, oh that's really nice like I think you know, paula, you've got a good one he's cut you off.
Helen Williams:Do you need to finish off your romantic uh notion towards paula?
Dru Dodd:I just think like like it's quite cool as a photographer, it's quite cool being able to show people how beautiful the person is, like you're showing them what everybody else sees not necessarily what like everyone's like super critical of themselves and it was. It was really fun like we did some with, like I did a shoot with. Uh, I wanted to do a bit like elna bernard chico ellie baguio chico that's it, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dru Dodd:Floating dress oh yes, so I tried to do one of them, so I used I can't remember I think you used like samyang like like super wide angle and I mean it's nothing like her work, but I was like lying on the floor, we had a castle in the background and then there was paula, and then there was paula's cousin. He was like flapping the dress, and then paula's cousin's fiancee, she was like doing the lighting. So it was quite a cool thing. Like we did.
Neil Redfern:Paula was a bit like oh my god, I'm like center of attention, but like people were dead keen on getting involved in like I can't tell you how much I love all this because I just think so many of us, certainly within wedding photography, can get so bogged down with the not the routine, that's the wrong word but like it's like another wedding, another wedding, every week a wedding, a wedding, a wedding and not taking time out to do what you're describing shooting for fun, shooting family members, creating images that you couldn't create on a wedding day. You wouldn't have the time, but I love it when people do, and it will only ever improve you as a photographer as well yeah, I mean you should, you literally should.
Dru Dodd:You should be a photographer who makes money doing weddings you shouldn't be like a wedding photographer yeah, because it just pens you in.
Neil Redfern:You don't want to get it to a point where you don't enjoy photography because exactly all the stuff that you're doing, yeah, and it's very easy to fall into that trap as well that's when you become busy, you can become a victim of your own success so, yeah, it's cool doing just personal projects that you you're just doing because you can.
Dru Dodd:Might you might get something creative out of it, might be just something that you can give back to someone. Like I was telling you yesterday um, my friend's building a house, or he's bought a house and he's renovated like gutted it completely, and then he's building like this big extension on the house and he's doing it with his dad and it's in the same town that I live. So I just pop along every few days while he's working with his dad and just documenting it. But I kind of think it's quite cool for him to have these photos, but I think, like you know, in years to come, looking back with that.
Dru Dodd:Like you know, building a house for your dad, like a house for his family that he's going to live in with his wife and kids, but to look back and have all those photos of, like me, my dad built this yeah, you know like no one's dad's going to be around forever.
Neil Redfern:No um, it's a beautiful thing for you to do that it also all this shows your passion for photography and I think you also very much obviously understand the importance of photography, which sadly, people don't often until it's too late. You know when, when horrible things happen in life. People's first reactions I know this from my own experience is what photos we got, what videos we've got, and people in the moment don't always think about trying to record those moments and then they'll kick themselves further down the line. So for you to be able to do that for somebody else who doesn't probably understand at the minute.
Neil Redfern:The value that those photographs will hold is such a nice thing to do, because in the future they will become priceless yeah I mean, we went to america in 2015, so it was my 30th.
Dru Dodd:My sister and her husband had been married for 10 years, and then it was my mom and dad's 60th, so it was like all yeah all together.
Dru Dodd:Paula and I had only been going out for like a month or so, so she didn't come because it was all booked before we started going out and then paula's a teacher, so she wouldn't have been able to come anyway, because we went in term time. My sister I was, she was two years older than me and she was like peter pan, like just complete child. Um. So she was like, because we'd been to disney when we were kids, she was like, oh, we should go to disney, we should go back to disney, it'd be really cool. So we went back to disney and my dad got this it's like a disney photo pass that they do.
Dru Dodd:So you get this wristband and then you can go around the park and there's photographers all over and you can get your photo taken. Sometimes it's with a character, but a lot of the time it's just placing the park with something of the park that looks nice in the background, yeah, yeah. And then in the evening they've got a tripod and a flash and they're like dragging the shutter so you get the lights of the park and and then, and then, when you've taken the photograph, they've got a scanner and you just hold your wristband out with them. They scan it and then you have an account so you can download all the ride photos that you've been on. It's expensive, but it's cheaper if you get it before you go, and then obviously it's expensive if you're like, oh, I want to do it now yeah, yeah because they know the value of the photo, like, oh, it's going to get deleted, I'm going to do it.
Dru Dodd:But my dad had done I mean, he does like so much research for holidays and stuff um, so he'd got that. The argument was if we don't do it, I'm not going to be in any of the photos, because I'll be taking the photograph yeah, very true, it would just be kate, adam and my mom and dad.
Dru Dodd:So we did that and so that was 2015. And then in in 2019, sadly she died and like those photos are absolutely amazing, like we've got so many of them printed in the house and stuff like that, and it really like puts your focus in. And then so a member of your patreon messaged me and said like, oh, I've seen you've been to disney, blah, blah, blah. He's like have you got any recommendations? Blah, blah, and I was like get the photo pass.
Dru Dodd:And he's like I've seen how much it is he's like. I'm not paying that for photography and I was like how many people of your clients pay you for photography? And he's like yeah, I know, but and then I told him and he's like oh, blimey, so you're just guilt tripping me and uh and I was like no, but that is just a fact of life, like, yeah, you don't know what's going to happen.
Dru Dodd:The photos might be all that you have, and I always say to couples at wedding fairs that when you see someone else's wedding photos, you're just judging them on the merits of a photograph, correct?
Intro:you're just looking at them being like oh wow, doesn't that photo look great.
Dru Dodd:But when it's your photos, they're not just photos and memory triggers. They remind you of how you feel and stuff like that. So that's part of the reason why I do flash and stuff at weddings because I'm not limited to the timing of the sun so I can fit the photography around a couple so that you're not being that pushy photographer who's dragging them away. Because I always say, like you could be on the dance floor with a tie on your head, I drag you outside, you don't want to come, but I'm like it's now or never. You do the photograph. When you get the photograph, all your friends might be like that's an amazing photograph, but to you you're like. All that does is remind me of the fun that I'm missing out on that my friends were having.
Dru Dodd:I think it's really important to make people think yeah, that the photos are memory triggers and stuff.
Neil Redfern:You know, if I, if you think about how much would you pay for photographs from, say, family parties that you know when you were growing up? That probably don't exist I'd love I paid a fortune for those photographs now.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, like I say to couples, this is my price, but I guarantee if I came to you in 10 years time after your wedding and said I'll give you what I, what you paid, for your photos. You've got to give me them back delete them all, all the prints from your house. You've got to return them and you delete them. You can't access them ever again. I was like there's no way you would do that deal.
Neil Redfern:So yeah, wow, yeah, you mentioned that last night when we were at the photography show, and it's such a compelling argument that it's really clever, yeah, and then I was talking to her.
Dru Dodd:I did a wedding fair on sunday and I was talking to her.
Dru Dodd:You've not got that in your contract, though I'm assuming no, no, oh yeah, I was talking to the coordinator and she was saying about how she's seen more and more people that are like, oh, we'll just get like guests to do it on iphones and stuff like that.
Dru Dodd:But she was like, if you're spending eight or nine grand on a wedding I'm not really sure how much weddings cost, to be honest but she was saying, if you've spent like eight thousand pound on a wedding and then you're just gonna be like, right, well, we've spent that, that's all we want to spend. We're not going to get a photographer, get everyone to do things. She was like the photography is not just about photographing the wedding, it's also documenting what you've spent the money on. So the photographers, the table design, stuff like that you've spent money on that for people to enjoy, but if you don't have a photographer that actually takes photos of that, that's it gone. Yeah. So she was like you don't want to spend a load of stuff on other vendors and then cheap on the photographer, when the photographer is the one that is basically documenting everything they're. They're the one that's like crystallizing all of your, your investment.
Helen Williams:Yeah, yeah, interesting. I think I'm gonna steal that too. Yeah, I'm gonna. I've now got a 10 year money back guarantee. 10 years, yeah, I'll give you your money back if you hand them all back over it's.
Neil Redfern:It's really compelling, though it makes you think it's very, it's a very deep way of uh expressing the value.
Dru Dodd:Another like um, because I mean, I got in, I was exposed to photography from like a really early age. Like my granddad was photo mad, he was always taking photos, but obviously film photography. So he was a tax man, he worked for the inland revenue, um, and then, uh, he met my grandma and my grandma's family were farmers and my grandma was like I'm not gonna marry a farmer, like I want out of the farm life.
Dru Dodd:So she married my granddad who worked for the inland revenue, and then, but, he still works in land, so it's so my great-grandfather, like my grandma's father, didn't have any sons, so asked my granddad would you be interested in like becoming a farmer and taking the farm on? So my grandma ended up being a farmer's wife, like by avoiding it, but oh, she was, yeah, he took loads of photos.
Dru Dodd:I mean, he that's rare, quite rare on film, because that wouldn't have been cheap, yeah, well, well, he actually fought in the second world war. He landed in normandy, not on dda, he was like I don't know, my dad would know, but yeah, he was like dda, like plus five or whatever, um. So he was a signalman, so he used to listen to the german morse code, so he was trained in doing that. So he used to listen to the German Morse code, so he was trained in doing that. So he'd listen to the Morse code and then that would get sent back to Bletchley Park for the Enigma machine oh cool.
Dru Dodd:To like decipher. Yeah, he said it was really interesting. Actually he said you put the headphones on and all you're doing is listening to a German doing dot dot dash. Oh, this is the same guy from Thursday. Oh, wow. Because, everyone's dots and dashes are like slightly different, so it's like a mannerism. But he took a camera away with him, like he ended up in Hamburg at the end of the thing and I thought like, oh my God, like could be millionaires on photos, if those exist that'd be a great photo.
Dru Dodd:But I think all he did was took photos of army football matches, but he was 18 years old. I mean, you photograph what you're interested in. And because he had a war diary and I found that and um all the diary was just like this battalion versus this battalion.
Helen Williams:This was the score and stuff like that. It was mad, just the football, yeah, yeah and then he was in our local paper.
Dru Dodd:So I can't even remember how many brothers he had, but he was one of loads. I mean, that generation had big families and his brother, bill, was. He was in the ref and my granddad was in the army. And then, uh, he was in holland somewhere and he was in a. He was just in a truck with some guy driving and this he saw like a ref sign for this squadron and he was like, oh, my brother bill's in there, do you think we could swing in and see if he's there? So this, they swung in and he says, oh, is bill dodd around, which is my dad's name as well? They were like, oh, yeah, yeah. So the pair of them met, like these two t like teenagers, in like a theater of war on a like on a whole continent, bumped into each other, so they got a photograph taken and it was like it came back to england.
Dru Dodd:It was in like our local paper, but I remember like my granddad always had a camera with him and I remember like I think about it now. I wish he was still alive so I could talk to him about photography, because I remember him telling he was putting film in his camera and he was like he's like, oh, lads, this is like this is fast film, this is like asa 400. Yeah, and now you're shooting, and I'm shooting like I have my eyes open Wedding cap at 12,800. Like it would absolutely blow his mind.
Dru Dodd:It's a different world yeah, but he took photos. I used to think like he was like wasting so much money. He took photos of the complete mundane and stuff. Like you would carry it around the farm with it and stuff, and like the farm workers he'd be like, oh, pose for this photo. Or he'd just be candidly taking photos of them. Do these exist, yeah, yeah so he got loads of them put on slides. So when we were like the four of us grandkids, he used to always do slideshows.
Neil Redfern:So he'd get the projector out.
Intro:And then he'd go through these.
Dru Dodd:So I got all them a few years ago. So I got a projector and I took the lens out of the projector and then I got a like a margarine tub, like anything that's white and plastic, and I cut it into a square the same size as the slide and I put it inside the projector so that the projector light would light the white card up, yeah, and then the slide would be there. And then I got a macro lens on my camera and got it inside the projector.
Neil Redfern:Does that work?
Dru Dodd:Yeah, so I could move through the carousel of slides with one hand click, click, click, click, click and then have my shutter release on the other and click click, click.
Neil Redfern:This is so clever.
Dru Dodd:You can tell that you're an engineer. I digitized this whole slide collection in like hardly any time at all. I'd love to see these some of them were my dad's and I actually won. It's like one of the proudest things. To be honest. I won like looks like film photographer the end 2021. Not like one like me only, but I was named in and it was for a photograph that I'd shared in looks like film, but it was a photo that I had taken and my dad had taken, so some of the slides were my dad's, because he was a keen photographer as well.
Dru Dodd:So he went in new york when he was 21 I think I know where he's going. Yeah, so I got all his new york photos and then I went back in 2015 and I went round and stood in the same place that my dad had stood and like took the same photos. So there's one photo he took from the top of the rockefeller center, of the empire state building, with the world trade center in the background.
Helen Williams:So the two the two towers, the world trade center.
Dru Dodd:So then I went back, stood in the same place and got the same photograph with like one world trade center there, and I wrote like a big spiel of it when I shared it and said, like you know, my whole life sits on that line between, like, my dad's photo and mine. And then I said, like my dad was a 21 year old, like he couldn't envisage of how the world would evolve like not only personally but politically, everything and stuff, and I shared it.
Dru Dodd:I mean, my watermark got cropped out of it and it went all over reddit and stuff on the internet like it was crazy. But yeah, I got like a choo-choo on looks like film and then I just got this random thing in december 2020, I think. It was just saying looks like film started following you and I was like oh wow, this is weird. And then, like, looks like films tagged you and then I was named in the thing.
Dru Dodd:I was like the fact that I could share that award with my dad was like yeah exactly it was like really special I'm proper welling up here, but I mean like, if you see the photo, I mean I can send you again. We'll share this if that's all right with you on our instagram it looks like my dad's photo.
Dru Dodd:The quality is quite bad yeah, to make it look similar, not actually, that film is like really good quality as long as you're shooting in good excuse me iso film, so 100 or whatever film is like really really good. You've got to go like over 16 megapixels really to be like starting to equal film. But it was the fact that the air quality in new york in the 70s was so bad right so it was like smog, whereas my photo was like super clean.
Dru Dodd:But obviously the air quality of the city is so much better now yeah, that's amazing.
Neil Redfern:Every time I speak to you, there's always something new. I said he's like an onion.
Helen Williams:You just keep peeling bits off, bring you to tears.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, you're making me cry like an onion, yeah, so I've done all my grander slides, but then now I'm doing the negatives and the negatives are like so slow. So I bought this little kodak scanner and it's not my, I can't remember how mega, how many megapix in, but you've got to basically scan one photo from the negative and then move to the next one, stuff like that. So the idea is I'm going to digitize everything, but we're talking like thousands of photos here, wow. So I'm doing them and then I'm putting them in a pick time gallery and like all my family have got the access so they can all get them. And then if there's anything that's like really, really good, I can put it on like a proper scanner and scan it like high resolution.
Dru Dodd:But like there's some photos of my granddad and well, the ones that he took, that like they're not really of any interest to anybody who, unless you've got an interest in that time, really like there's photos where they seem to have a day off from the farm. All the farm workers that were there all went to this open cast mine and it was the largest dragline crane in western europe. So dragline cranes like this humongous big crane, and then the bucket is like probably the width of your house and that just gets pulled along a coal seam and just like gets filled with coal. So that's like before or after drift, mining and what, where they used to go down and then in opencast, basically they just dig a huge big hole, yeah, and take it out and then replace the land back.
Neil Redfern:But he's got photos of like the farm workers, like inside this bucket and stuff like that. He's taking photographs almost on a daily basis.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, yeah yeah, and like it's made me think like I should be taking photographs of just everyday life.
Neil Redfern:That might not mean anything now that's exactly like what am I like you can walk, let you.
Dru Dodd:You can literally go to where you live, walk down the street, take photographs of the shops. Yeah, if you're willing to do it and wait long enough. 15 years time, you can share them and people are like.
Neil Redfern:I remember when homes and gardens was in there I got my first goldfish from there like shops, like long gone, when we you know when you go out or you watch them on tv, it's always in the now. I think that top of the pops, which is a program that a very famous long-running music program, was on UK television and it was filmed in a studio audience and you see what they're wearing. I always think if you look back on like what they're wearing, like the 70s, it looks ridiculous at the time it would have been completely normal.
Neil Redfern:Likewise, if we top of the box on now and we we'd think, oh, they're dressed normal, but it will look strange in the future. And one of my biggest regrets of being a photographer is that during covid and the lockdowns I didn't go out with my camera.
Neil Redfern:Yeah, I didn't document it and I really wish I had, and I think that would be fascinating to look back on now. But, like you say, it doesn't need to be anything flashy, just the mundane is incredible when it's 20 years later, 30 years later. So so much respect for your granddad that he was doing that. There's got to be something you can do with those that would become some. I don't know what it would be a book where it's like a video slideshow or something, but it would be so powerful it would be cool yeah, I think you're so lucky to have that yeah, that's true in your family just thinking about that pig time gallery is just gonna grow and grow and grow and to have everything put together.
Helen Williams:Oh, it makes you think I want to go. I want to go down to my parents house.
Neil Redfern:I want to get all their photos out I don't think mine have any of this stuff like family history he's a true historian.
Intro:Yeah, and then obviously, my dad my dad's like pretty similar.
Dru Dodd:I mean, I don't think he took as many photos as what my granddad did, but we did. We did do one photograph and went back to disney in 2015, so there was a photograph of us at um. One of the parks is called epcot yeah and there's a place there called the land.
Dru Dodd:I loved epcot because it's loads of it's about education, but it's like done in a fun way. There's a photograph of us as a family of four sat in front of the sign that says the land and my dad's giving my camera to some random who's taking the photo. So then when we went back in 2015, like the four of us sat in front of the sign. I mean, it's a different sign now, but still called the land yeah so we like replicated that photograph.
Dru Dodd:So that was cool. And then there's another famous one that my what's not famous famous in my family, that my granddad took of the four of us so me, my sister and then my two cousins, matt and buster and we used to all wear these little like boiler suits, like overalls. My sister had a massey ferguson one which was red, and then we all had blue ones which were ford, and the photograph is like the four of us were just toddlers. My grand has obviously got us in a line to take a photograph of the four of us and because we're toddlers, were like all moving about my sisters, I got a hand on one of my cousins to stop them from like running away because he's the youngest.
Dru Dodd:And then, um, I had a red pair of overalls for something. And then my cousin, uh, matt, he used to work for ford as a mechanic, so he brought three ford overalls back one night when we're gonna have like a family barbecue. So the three of us got in the ford overalls. My sister was in the red one and, like we redid it 30 odd years apart. So that was pretty cool, of like then and now.
Neil Redfern:Yeah.
Dru Dodd:So I quite like doing the like then and now photos, if you can find something that you can replicate which just kind of shows the passage of time and kind of just makes you really reminisce about like your life.
Helen Williams:Who'd have thought I've just had so many different conversations at different events that you do, and generally you have me like just wetting myself laughing. And here I am for most of this, most of this podcast. I've been like just feeling super emotional and I've just hit my microphone with it I don't know I'm like oh, I know I've said before that I should, for christmas, start doing at the end of each year just taking like the photos off our phones and putting them into like a book and getting it printed and yeah, just having that conversation again.
Helen Williams:It's like what am I waiting for?
Intro:I don't want to get along.
Helen Williams:Neil, but I do think like I'm going to go back now through our phone things for the last two years and order some photo books and then just create a little library of books, um, and have one done every year yeah, I mean sorry, that's just.
Dru Dodd:I made a photo book for our trip. So when we went to florida in 2015, my dad was like I'll pay for your yeah, he would pay for the flights. We paid for the accommodation. And then I said my sister was like the organizer, so she was sorting everything out like she did it as a job. And then I said, oh, can you buy me a flight from Edinburgh to Florida and then New York to Edinburgh, and I'm gonna buy an internal flight and I was gonna go and see Dana in New York afterwards. And then my sister was like I want to go to New York. So we ended up all going to New York, first for like one I think was one or two nights, and then we flew to Florida and then back to New York for another few nights and then back to edinburgh. It actually didn't cost any more because it was just classed as a like one like flight.
Dru Dodd:But like with a stopover instead of the layover being like a few hours it was a few days yeah, so, yeah, so we did that.
Dru Dodd:So I made this photo, so I put photos that I'd taken. Obviously we got I got all the photos that people had taken on their phones and I got the disney photo, pass ones and then put them all together. So I had like some landscapes and stuff that I'd taken in new york that I mean there's one landscape that I'd been trying to take in new york for like six years and I managed to get it on that trip, um, so that was quite cool. So we've got that printed as a huge canvas in our dining room because paula's been to new york. Obviously she's not been with me, but she was like I don't mind having a photograph up off somewhere where I've been.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, it's a little bit different with, like landscapes and stuff, if she's got no affiliation like yes, why have? It open in the house, kind of thing. But yeah, I've been trying to take this photograph, uh, from brooklyn, of like downtown, downtown manhattan, but it was like a really long shutter speed so middle of the day for like a four minute exposure, so using like a 10 stop filter. So it's almost like welding glass, so there's hardly any light getting through, but it's like a massive technical challenge. Obviously, you can't.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, I know you thrive in those situations as well. Can't get the camera to be moving or anything like that. But then as the winds blow, the clouds across, the clouds become like these wide streaks across across manhattan, and then I spent like probably over 12 hours not all in one go just editing it, just this one image. And I did it where I added a gradient in so that the the road was dark and then it got like brighter is it so?
Dru Dodd:it looked like the like. The buildings were like kind of coming out of like the black river. Oh, please share this one with the world um, all the posts of the old pier sticking up out of the water and stuff like that, yeah, it's really cool wow, we're not gonna have any wedding images at this rate.
Helen Williams:On your 10 like.
Neil Redfern:No, we can't hear the stories of these images and then not see them they sound amazing, I don't. I don't remember seeing that one, but it's just inevitable. You're going to be a photographer with the family history you've shared with your granddad and your dad. It's definitely in the blood, yeah.
Helen Williams:And then just to sort of not bring it full circle though, but obviously you're a photographer now. Oh, that's amazing. Sorry, I'm just now having a look on Drew's Instagram. I, oh, that's amazing.
Dru Dodd:Sorry, I'm just now having a look on.
Helen Williams:Drew's Instagram.
Dru Dodd:I love it. That is stunning. I started a new Instagram up. Actually, I really want to get back to doing more landscapes this year, so I've set up an Instagram just called Drew Dodd Landscapes.
Neil Redfern:There you go at.
Dru Dodd:Drew Dodd Landscapes. When did I buy? I bought my first SLR in 2007, 2008. It was when I finished my degree and then I had a year off before I started my PhD. I'd been asked to stay on and do a PhD, but it wasn't anything I'd thought of and the guy who had done my undergrad dissertation for had asked me to stay on, but he said I haven't got any funding for it, so it's, if you go off, have a year off, go traveling, whatever, and then you can come back the next year. Excuse me, so I just worked at this tourist attraction where I used to work as a student just for full time for the year, and it was like mind-numbingly boring. Like, obviously it was good fun in the summer when all the students were there, but when you were working there on, no students there, rubbish weather, low visitor numbers, stuff like that yeah it was like really boring and it made me think like I definitely want to do the phd now because it was the first time in my life I wasn't learning something.
Dru Dodd:But my cousin had bought a camera and I lived with him during my degree, so he bought an olympus camera. So I thought I'll just buy the same one, we can swap lenses and stuff. And then he went traveling in that year to australia and got the camera nicked and then replaced it with a canon. So I was left stuck with an olympus camera.
Dru Dodd:It was the. It was the smallest slr in the world at the time and it was the very first camera with live view oh it's called an olympus e410. It was tiny, I mean probably about the same size as an a73, now um that's really like it had a mirror in it as well, but it was two times cropped, so it was actually rubbish to do like landscape it wasn't rubbish, but it wasn't ideal for doing landscapes because you had to go like really, really wide just to get like.
Dru Dodd:I remember bumping into some guy with a nick on when I was out doing landscapes and he he had a 16 to 35 and he full frame and I held it and I was like I cannot believe how much stuff you're getting in this yeah, this scene yeah um so I got into doing landscapes. So I've got like a massive back catalog of landscapes and that was basically what I was doing. And then someone was like, oh, you've got a nice camera, will you do my auntie's wedding? And I said no, I'm a landscape photographer.
Neil Redfern:And then I just got bullied into doing a wedding so I was like I was saying, yeah, I don't even know where it was. Very few people start out thinking they're going to be wedding photography. In the end. It's like you say you've got a big camera, can you do? Yeah, well, yeah, just look at your instagram now. Drew dad landscapes?
Dru Dodd:there are some insanely good, I've only just started it. Um, obviously I've got like loads, but everyone is a banger.
Neil Redfern:who'd say to go back to the banger joke, yeah, go and go and check out Drew's Instagram for his Well, obviously his wedding work as well, which is at Drew Dodd D-R-U-D-O-D-D. But yeah, then go and look at his landscape work. It's phenomenal.
Helen Williams:And I will say I'm fairly confident as someone who does the awards. I think Drew's the only person to win a Flashmasters award with a landscape image as well.
Neil Redfern:Oh yeah, image as well. Oh yeah, I entered that one. Yes, the tree sycamore gap. Yeah, that got cut down. Yeah, that was really sad. I feel really self-contracting. I was saying for those that aren't aware, but I think people won't be aware. Come on, no, drew can tell the story.
Dru Dodd:I think some people I mean it did, it went all the way around the world for a tree.
Neil Redfern:It was a huge story.
Dru Dodd:So it was. It was an iconic northumbrian image. So I mentioned hadrian's wall before that. That was built in the dip or in one of the dips. It was like the undulating land. The wall goes down and then back up again and then this sycamore tree had just started growing in. I mean, sycamore is not indigenous to the uk, it is like an invasive tree. So people that a lot of people argued at the times. You know well, it's not even like oh no, I don't want to interrupt.
Neil Redfern:Well, but I've had a horrible, horrible thought, a horrible terrible thought to let listeners in behind the curtain. Drew is one of the nicest people in photography and he's he's not just a photographer now to us. He's a very, very good friend of ours, and drew has come around today and given us a very, very beautiful and well-crafted self-made gift made out of, dare I say it, sycamore, and I don't know where you've got this sycamore from.
Dru Dodd:You said you'd never worked with it before yeah, I know I did own that piece of sycamore. Are we going to get the police knocking on our door? I did own that piece of sycamore before the tree got cut down.
Helen Williams:It's a good caveat that We've literally just tried to oust Drew, as some kind of criminal tree fella.
Neil Redfern:Sorry. I didn't want to interrupt but I couldn't let that go.
Helen Williams:I was thinking the exact same thing and Drew's like you, right, pear? Just to confirm, drew did not take down or fell the sickle ball team.
Dru Dodd:I was at a Newcastle match when it happened, actually, but yeah, so this tree grew and it was like the iconic photograph of Northumberland, yeah, it was in Robin Hood of Northumberland.
Neil Redfern:Yeah, been in films, robin.
Dru Dodd:Hood? Yeah, it was in Robin Hood, prince of Thieves, with Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman, I think so it's one of the opening scenes. They're walking along the wall and they walk past the tree and then the camera cuts to a like wide shot and you see the tree and this and I've. I went there, my cousin, my cousin, who's like my best friend, obviously.
Dru Dodd:We lived together at uni and stuff and then he moved down to london and then, like just before he moved to london, we went out with our cameras, like one last time, like, oh, let's go out, and we went to sycamore gap and spent a day photographing it. Actually, one of the funny things is I'd got this really nice photograph of the tree in the gap with um, it was like a pile of rocks in the foreground and stuff and it looked really cool. And then, um, I had it as a home page on my website before I had like my wedding orientated website. And then, um, I went into the apple store and me and my dad put my website on every single computer nice thing, good marketing.
Dru Dodd:And then I looked and I didn't realize. So when I was taking a photograph he was further up ahead and I was like oh, can you just lie down, I'm just gonna get. And he was like yeah, yeah, I didn't realize, in the photograph he stuck his finger, stuck his hand up and flicked the v's and I'd never noticed it when I was editing it, but I noticed it on like a massive apple screen and I was like oh my god, this, like all these photos, he's like swearing in it.
Dru Dodd:So I had to go back to the original and like Cherish your fill, yeah, take him out, but yeah. And then Paula and I went there on like one of our Not the first date, but one of our first dates. We went for a walk there and stuff.
Neil Redfern:Oh, it's also the logo of your business as well, isn't it?
Dru Dodd:yeah, yeah. So my, uh, my grander, other grander, um, he was a woodsman for the duke of northumberland, so most of the woods around northumberland, like he planted, he lost his sight through macular degeneration. I mean he was like partially sighted, he was registered blind but he could, he could walk around, but everything was like super fuzzy and stuff. But you could take him to a wood and he could feel the trees and he could tell you like what the tree was where and he could tell you, like pretty idea, where about it was wow, what a skill
Dru Dodd:so he was like the nicest guy I remember like growing up. He's really short but yeah, like he's planted these trees all over northumberland which I see every day. It's like a massive, like legacy for him. So I love photographing trees. I've always loved it, like from a landscape perspective. I love getting couples under trees because I think what the tree symbolizes, like its strength and stuff like that. So then I always try and get couples underneath a tree or whatever.
Dru Dodd:I wanted to have it my logo as being the tree, so like the landscape part, it's also the tree sycamore gap, so it's from northumberland and then I got a graphic designer to put like a couple underneath it. Um, so it was kind of like a good one to cover landscapes and weddings, very, very cool. And then I found this one. I won a flashmasters award for a tree which is a venue local to me that I'm a recommended supplier at and if I shoot a wedding at a venue that I've never shot at, I'll always go before the wedding for a few hours and just walk around and find stuff. So I've got an idea and I just found this tree in a field, like near the venue, and it's really cool because right on the edge of a hill so you can be down the hill. You get the couple underneath the tree, but then there's no other land. It's like your sky.
Dru Dodd:So it makes quite a cool image normally you have. You can't get that separation of the couple in the sky yes a bit of of ground. Obviously, being a landscape photographer originally, I like taking landscape photos with the people in. I feel like if you got married and then you got like a four foot photograph of your face put above your chimney breast, it would people would come in we're like they love themselves, whereas you could get this massive photograph of like you're not been upstairs yet. It's gonna be awkward now a tree.
Dru Dodd:You can get this photo of a tree in a landscape.
Intro:Yeah, it's like oh that's a lovely photograph.
Dru Dodd:Oh, is that you? Yeah, oh, is that you from your wedding day? Oh, that's cool, yeah. So I've been to a lot of weddings where guests have been like, oh, you're the tree guy.
Neil Redfern:But then I've I feel like I've created like quite a few different niches I've got to say you're the tree guy, the wedding wall guy, the halo pack guy, the trolley guy.
Dru Dodd:I think well, the trolley guy is probably confined to just wedding industry rather than guests. But I started doing obviously I did astrophotography so I thought I could do some photos of the stars at a wedding Star guy, so yeah. So I had like the star guy and the tree guy were kind of like the two like competing against each other Nature guy nature guy, not naturist guy.
Neil Redfern:Yeah, and on that bombshell, I'm actually going to put you in a very awkward position. Now, drew, would you like to come back for a part two of the podcast, because there's lots of things with you that we've not covered in this podcast.
Dru Dodd:Yeah, there we go.
Neil Redfern:There we go.
Dru Dodd:Will I get my travel expenses covered?
Helen Williams:We'll discuss it off there, we'll just go set off there but people can't see us.
Neil Redfern:We've literally tied him to the chair so he can't leave. I know I have honestly loved this podcast. I know that you have helen, because you've been in tears for a lot of it honestly, I wasn't expecting that.
Helen Williams:Today drew's the guy who makes me laugh with fun, weird facts and then we've not even talked.
Neil Redfern:We've not even talked about do you stand up, do you sit down, turnips?
Helen Williams:honestly, there's so many times I've almost been in tears from laughing with Drew, and now he's. He's just bringing all the feels.
Neil Redfern:I think you nailed it at the beginning when you said Drew is like an onion he is, let's just.
Helen Williams:Should we get a few more layers in the next?
Neil Redfern:episode. So thank you so much, Drew, for joining us for this podcast. Go and check out Drew on Instagram at Drew Dodd. Look at his landscape work. His work is phenomenal. He's won multiple Flashmasters awards and when you look at his work you will know exactly why. So, yeah, massive thank you to Drew for joining us and, as always, if you'd like to join us in the Flashmasters community, you can do so at flashmastersco.
Helen Williams:Thank you very much for listening and don't forget to keep flashing.
Neil Redfern:They go through live live. I just shook my boobs at drew so we'll see you in the next one. See you soon, everyone.