Show Notes
In this show, Marcus interviews Sam.
Marcus asks Sam to start at the beginning, and Sam splits this in two and starts sharing his photography story. Sam’s Dad was a professional photographer who shared his interest in photography with Sam. He had cameras from a young age and an SLR from a young age. Sam says that after university, he was travelling. One thing he did was photograph white water rafting trips in Nepal. He sold images to the rafting clients of their trip. Sam also talks about his kayaking trips to the UK, the Alps, and Nepal. Sam says that from then forward, his photography became just for personal use. When he setup his Web Design Business in 2017 he did some photography for clients as he got started. And then finally Sam started doing wildlife photography while living in Mozambique where he stilllives. So he got a 600ml wildlife lens to help capture the wildlife particularly the birds.
Sam then talks more about web design. Sam’s had a computer in the house from the age of about ten. Sam’s first website was written in notepad by hand for the university canoe club. From there he made websites for various people over the years. For example he joined a local choir and setup the website for them. He set up blogs, for example when he had a Small Holding he setup a blog for that.
In 2017 Sam decided it was time to move on from teaching and decided to setup his own Web Design Business.
Marcus then shares how the podcast started.
You can reach out to Sam on LinkedIn here.
Or find his website here https://website4photographers.co.uk/
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“Show Transcription”
Marcus: Well, hello there, Sam. How you doing?
Sam: Very good, Marcus. And you?
Marcus: Yeah, I am very well, thank you. Maybe I’m very well, and we’ve got a little bit of a difference. We offer this, certainly. We’ve got a guest, but it’s you—you’re the guest for this show. We’re gonna be talking about Sam.
Sam: Yes, so I am the guest, Marcus. So I’ve something… I’m going to be grilled.
Marcus: I’m gonna be really tough on you, Sam—get my own back. Our listeners know a little about—about both. And, you know, obviously we can talk about me on one show as well, but there’s lots of things that they don’t know about you, Sam.
Sam: All sorts. That’s—that’s deliberate, Marcus. Did you not realize that?
Marcus: Where did it all start, Sam?
Sam: So, well, I mean, where do you want to start? Are we talking photography? Are we talking web design? What—where would you like me to begin? Or a bit of both?
Marcus: Yeah, I think a bit of both. A bit of both. You start where you want.
Sam: Okay. So I’d maybe take you through two journeys—a photography journey and a kind of commercial web design journey. So, I mean, the photography one—typical. But the story I always complain about when people have their ‘About Me’: ‘I got a camera when I was… dot dot dot.’ Yeah. My dad was a very keen photographer. He worked in a photographer’s shop when he was young. He had a camera from a young age. He was a professional photographer, as well as a teacher. And, yeah, you know, as soon as I was old enough to hold the camera, I was given a camera. That was an instant, like little automatic thing. But as soon as I was seven, I was, you know—already was given one with simple f-stops. And by the time, you know, I was 10, I had an AE-1 and I was off. Yeah, he kind of gradually—you know, I probably got a series of four cameras that got more and more complex. Actually, I started with a Zenith—you know, they’re like Russian ones. But I think that fell apart at some stage. They weren’t the most robustly made.
Marcus: Yes, they’re a very popular camera. Popular in school.
Sam: Yeah. Yes. So, I mean—so, yeah. So I’ve always taken—camp—taking pictures, had my camera with me a lot. And then, back then, it was mainly slides. Took pictures when I was little, and then, as I got older, it was all slides and stuff. And, yeah, I did a lot of traveling with my camera. So when I finished university, I did a fair bit of traveling and a lot of kayaking. So I used to do whitewater kayaking. And so I had a Pelican case—you know, Pelican cases, which is like a big waterproof hard plastic case that used to sit between my legs in the kayak. So I’d sit in, and then, as soon as they’d get to the bottom of a rapid, I’d hop out, get out the camera, put it all together, and then be taking pictures of everybody else coming down.In fact, for a while—
Marcus: Sorry, did you ever consider at that stage to take it up professionally? Was that ever—
Sam: Not really. I did send some pictures off to some magazines. For a while, we were—I was working in a pub in Scotland a year. You just sit there. I did try sending a few things off to magazines and—never—I didn’t do a lot, and I didn’t really get any. I think I needed about twice. And, in those days, it was quite hard because, you know, you had to get your slides and then get images off them, and then physically send them off with a letter. You know, it’s not like nowadays—you just attach. So it was quite a convoluted process.
Marcus: Well, I think, you know, without going into a big debate about it—I mean, that’s probably why it’s become a lot more democratic for people to enter photography, because it used to be quite different.
Sam: Well, that’s it. And then also, I hadn’t—you know, like now, you’d Photoshop them. Well, they were just slides. I’d sent them off and got them back. So there was no kind of, you know, enhancing of the colors and processing. They were just as they were. So, yeah, beyond that, not really. Although when—so I did a little bit. So while we were traveling, we joined some commercial rafting trips. So it’s quite nice when you join a commercial rafting trip, because the clients go down on a raft. I’d float along on a kayak too. And I was supposed to fish them out if they fell off the raft or something. Although—they did—I did get a complaint once because every time the water got challenging and they might have fallen out, I was sat on a rock taking their picture. Yeah, but you got a nice picture of it though. So, yeah. The moment we then got back, I had to leg it to the developers, get all my films and get them all developed, and then sell all the clients the pictures of their rafting trip. So I did that.
Marcus:Yeah, so you mentioned that—so I was gonna ask where this was, but you mentioned just now you were in Kathmandu?
Sam: Yeah, so that was Nepal. Yeah, so that was rough.
Marcus: Yeah. Wow, that is brilliant. I mean, I know this. I’ve been to Kathmandu, and I know this. Obviously the rafting scene is very big. What put you over there, Sam?
Sam: So we’ve been kayaking—something I’ve done from a very young age. Not quite as young as photography, but not far off. And then I really took off at university. Did lots and lots of whitewater at university. Got a lot better at it. And, yes—so then we used to go to the Alps quite a bit, kayaking there. And then, kind of—it was kind of the next thing on. A bit like mountaineering—you’re kind of—from the UK stuff, you then go to the Alps, and then the next stage is the Himalayas. So, yeah. The big water there.
Marcus: Okay, and what age were you, Sam?
Sam: Post-university, when I was out there? Yeah, so kind of 21, 22 sort of thing.
Marcus: Thank you. Okay. Now, that already—it’s been—I’ve learnt so much more about it. So carry on, please.
Sam: So, yeah. So, I mean, photography-wise—yeah. And then it just kind of went more just personal from then on, really. Photography—just, you know, doing it quite a lot, but just personal use. Turned digital at some stage. Again, just personal use. When I started my website business, which was 2007—so I was teaching, and I quit that and set up my photography business. Then I did photography business, website business.
Marcus: You were teaching websites?
Sam: No, sorry. I was teaching physics. So I spent 13 years teaching physics in normal schools—secondary schools, A-level and stuff. I then quit, set up my web design business. But to start with, the web design business—I kind of was offering a bit of photography with that. So, initially—yeah, I remember going to a therapist who did like Reiki and stuff, and photographing her studio. So I did initially do a little bit of photography as part of that. I didn’t do many. It was kind of—when you first start in business, you kind of often end up doing just everything and anything, don’t you, to kind of get started and get going.
Marcus: That’s great. You had experience of that, though.
Sam: Yeah. No one said that was really enjoyable. It’s kind of nice to offer the full package of that. And then I knew there was definitely a lot better photos than just going in with a phone and things. So, yeah, that worked well. And then kind of—I guess the final stage in my photography journey is really getting more into the wildlife photography when we moved to Mozambique. So I moved out here in 2000—With COVID, which was quite an interesting time to come.
Marcus: Two thousand twenty—sorry—2020.
Sam: Yep, yep. And then, once you got out here—we’ve got all the safari stuff here. So we’d be going and looking at the stuff on safari, and I’ve got my little, like, 80–200 zoom, where there’s these amazing—when the elephants are close, you can still get them. But, you know, when there’s stuff a bit more in the distance, or there’s the birds, you’re just like—where’s the bird? It’s like this dot. We need a better lens than this. So, yeah, then we got, like, a proper 600mm wildlife lens. And then, so you can just—yeah. You’ve got a 600mm?
Marcus: You’ve got a 600mm wildlife lens?” No way. What? A 2.8? Not a 2.8. They’re, like, thousands! That’s not—You poor—Yeah, don’t. I can’t see—it’s only a box on your box. That’s not the 2.8, is it? Oh, it’s a fair size.
Sam: Oh. But don’t get my advice on that. Well, I’m not a professional, but my advice is—don’t get the Canon lenses. Yeah, this is a Sigma, and I think—yeah, it was about a grand, and the Canon was about six grand.
Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Maybe you pros look and go—’Oh my God, it’s just, you know, not quite got the door there,’ but I’m like—yeah. It’s—you know, for an amateur,
Marcus: Sam, those lenses—those 2.8 sports lenses like 400, 600mm—they’re in the tens of thousands of pounds.
Sam: Yeah, it’s crazy. No, it doesn’t go to that. No, it doesn’t let that much light in for you. It is good.
Marcus: And so that’s my love, mate. Look, it’s good enough. And I—listeners out there—don’t spend the money on camera equipment. Spend that money going on safari to get the photos. There’s no point having a great expensive lens when it’s stuck at home because you can’t afford to go anywhere.
Sam: No.
Marcus: Okay, so that’s really—said we took a bit of photography. Let’s—yeah—I sort of switch over now to—let’s talk about your marketing side and, you know—
Sam: Marketing and websites. So, yeah. I mean, I’m kind of a generation where I had a computer from very young. So, you know, I think our first computer was a Commodore 128, which was like a Commodore 64, I think. The family got it when I was, like, 10 or 12. And so—yeah, I was kind of—yeah, my dad got that. He got it as part of the business, and I think he realized, as kids, it would be good for us. So, yeah. Early on, we—I was, like, you know, setting up spreadsheets and databases and doing bits of programming as well. I was obviously playing Attack of the Mutant Camels and The Hobbit and that sort of thing. But then, you know, the web came in and stuff, and at university—again, back to canoeing—I was in kayaking, I was in the canoe club at university, and I ended up being the one that takes over the website. And I’d never done anything with websites before then. But, I mean, back then it was literally—the website was written in code in Notepad. So, you know, Notepad on your—yes, it was literally written in code. You literally write in little bits of code and lines and then you just, like, save it and run it and see what it looks like and—‘Oh, I’ve done that wrong!’ And so I was literally writing it by hand.
Marcus: Was that before Dreamweaver? I remember—that’s what—
Sam: Yeah, well before Dreamweaver. Yeah, they would start—it came in not long after. But yes, before those kind of Dreamweaver-type things. So, yeah, it was literally just—make it yourself. Just write it—write down the code and job done. So, yeah, kind of started there. And then, kind of—yeah, then I did my traveling, and then I worked in project design of IT in London and then was teaching and stuff. And then just—the website was kind of in the background. So, you know, I’d join a club and help with it. Or I’d join the local choir and I’d help them set up the website. So I’d kind of always kept my hand in, but just as a kind of—you know, I think—oh, when we got married, our wedding list was on a website. Well before that was a normal thing to do.
Marcus: I guess you’ve got an analytical mind. You’re obviously a physics teacher. You’re inspired by these new technologies that have come out. Is that something you got from your dad?
Sam: Yeah, I think so. He—yeah, he clearly really enjoyed that. He didn’t study the science/engineering side, but I think that was largely because he was back in the ’60s. You know, when he was at school, when you had to choose the arts or the sciences, and never the twain should meet. And I think he had a rubbish maths teacher and didn’t do that well, and so he had to go down the art route. But yeah, I think he’d have quite liked the kind of science/engineering route. It just wasn’t really open to him. So, yeah, I think so. My brother’s ended up being kind of similar things he does.
Marcus: So you said—I think you mentioned—you were in London at this stage, and you’re still teaching, but you’re starting to help people out with their websites, and you really get involved in the coding things?
Sam: Yeah, that’s it. I’m then moving on as it moved from coding, as you say, into things like Dreamweaver, and then evolving into kind of Wix and WordPress and all of the kind of things we’ve got now. And kind of—yeah, I was doing things along the way, set up blogs. We had a small one who moved away from the London area. We had a smallholding, so I moved into the smallholding up in North— in East Yorkshire in 2014. So then I set up a blog for that and a kind of bit of a website linked to that. So yeah, it was kind of just along the way in the background while, you know, doing the teaching. It was just kind of always in the background there.
Marcus: Yeah. Start talking about when you made—how you actually turned it into a business.
Sam: Yeah, that’s it. So, yeah, I mean, I’d been teaching—so in 2017, yeah, I’d been teaching 13 years. I was kind of feeling it was time to do something else. And in state schools at the time—I’ve worked in various types of school—at times, in a state school there were kind of two types of people working: either those who were part-time, who had kids and a life, or those who were full-time, who were managers, and you didn’t get to have a life. And so I didn’t go down the management route. But the managers were getting younger and younger and younger, and so kind of—less and less empathy with kind of family life, with that sort of thing. I think the final straw was—there was an open event. I’m like, you know, I can come early, help you set up. I just need to leave a little bit early because, you know, my daughter’s at Guides. I need to pick her up. You know, but I can come early, help do the set-up. And—“No, that won’t count towards your 16 hours of extracurricular time that you must commit to.” We asked anymore. Just, you know—that final straw of just, like, bog off, basically. So yeah, I quit. And then—yeah, I was like, “What should I do?” So I decided to set up the web design business, and kind of it went on from there.
Marcus: Yeah, and of course, you know, with your knowledge of photography, it was a marriage made in heaven really to start focusing on doing websites for photographers.
Sam: That’s it. Yeah. No, definitely—that came a little bit later. As I said, to start with you’re just like, “Who shall I work with? Everybody, of course!” Because that’s what you do when you first start—“This is what I do. Yeah. I need a client. Where can I find a client?” Then slightly confused what to do when you get one. You know, I’d never done anything linked to that before, so it’s kind of a massive learning curve in terms of running the business and stuff. Which I think is most of us, isn’t it?
Marcus: Oh mate, oh tell me—every day, isn’t it? It’s something new to learn, which is great. Look, we’re not knocking that, but it is a bit—it’s a bit ongoing. And then you approached me—was it a couple—about two years ago, Sam, wasn’t it, I think?
Sam: Yeah, could well be. We’ve been doing the show nearly two years. It must have been a little bit more. I’d have to go onto LinkedIn to find out when we first started, but we just kind of did, didn’t we?
Marcus: And it was—it’s Christmas time, I think, as well.
Sam: Was it more than—yeah, I don’t remember.
Marcus: There was a period when it was normally—I remember it because I was very mature and said, “Okay, let me have a think about it, and I’ll take a couple weeks to think about it.
Whereas normally I say yes or no straight away without even thinking about it. I remember that well. But sure, this isn’t there. Yeah. So, yeah, we got the podcast going from there.
Sam: That’s it.
Marcus: Okay. What about the future, Sam? What does that hold for you? What would you like to get going?
Sam: Oh, well, I mean, I’m about to move back to the UK, so that’s all going to be big changes for me. I think we mentioned this on the hundredth show. Yeah. I’ve got lots of changes, personally, because I’m about to move back to the UK. Kids going off to university—so suddenly all sorts of changes going on with that. Yeah, I’ve recently kind of made quite a few big changes in my business too. So, yeah, I think—to be honest, with the kids going, you know, really focusing on the business even more is going to be nice. Really making that work while finding those other things outside—you know, outside of that—to really enjoy: the biking, the going out to the mountains and stuff. Which being in the UK, it can be easier to do.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, certainly the websites aren’t going away anytime soon, so you’ve got a little long time.
Yeah, you mean there—that’s for sure.
Yeah.
Sam, do you know what? That has been actually fascinating. Why we’ve not done this before, I do not know. But there we go—we haven’t.
Marcus had the celebrity status for people to be interested, you know. I think that’s probably it.
Before, when you said—“Who gives a monkeys?”
Anyhow, Sam—absolutely brilliant.
Anything more you want to add to that?
No, no, I don’t think so.
I hope you got the job or not. Might be a bit late for that.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks.
All right. Thanks.
We’re not best—
That’s right.
And guests—as usual, what we really want, actually, is five-star reviews.
So if you have listened to the show and enjoyed it, please leave us a review. That really helps us, and it helps other photographers, because the more five-star reviews you get, the more we appear when people look for photography podcasts—and the more photographers can enjoy the podcast.
So please leave us five-star reviews. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside and helps other photographers.
So please do that—and I’ll see you next week.
See you next week, Sam.
