Start Ugly, Stay Weird

You don’t need to be polished to be good. The weird work, the awkward starts—that’s where your voice lives

Taste isn’t enough—you’ve got to be willing to start ugly, and stay weird long enough to find your voice.

I used to think all I needed was one wedding.

Just shoot something tasteful, get it featured on a blog, and the bookings would roll in.

I had the eye. The instinct. The references.

But I didn’t have the skill—not yet.

I remember a couple standing in a pub garden, the three of us unsure what to do next.

We had them walk around pointing at things. That was the shoot.

And I genuinely thought that might be enough.

My first “wedding” website had a landscape of Big Sur, a portrait of my brother in a trapper hat, and the back of a kid leaning over a fence. That was my pitch. Somehow, I thought: this’ll do. And weirdly… it kind of did. Eventually.

Because even when I lacked polish, I had vision. The light made sense. The colours were honest. Something in it held together.

I started out trying every trick—prisms, lens flares, wild crops, off-centre frames. A lot of early 2010s stuff. It was awkward, but it was mine. And I got better—not by doing more weddings, but by chasing the ideas that weren’t tied to bookings.

I shot musicians. I played with portraits. I said yes to weird little projects.

They didn’t pay. They didn’t follow trends.

But they flexed a muscle.

And over time, those experiments built trust.

Clients started noticing that I saw things differently.

Not just technically—but emotionally.

They trusted my taste, because I had started trusting myself.

That’s the bit I wish more people talked about.

You don’t have to hide the weird parts of yourself.

You don’t have to pretend you were always polished.

That early taste—even if it came with clumsy execution—is still part of the story.

So if you’re starting out, or starting over:

Start ugly.

Stay weird.

Don’t sand the edges off too soon.

Because what makes you different is what makes people believe in you.

Wear it on your sleeve.