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Welcome to Insert Buzzword, the podcast that breaks through business buzzwords to explore the genuine stories behind peoples journeys. In the heart of Scotland, we venture into the lives of entrepreneurs and business professionals, uncovering the unique challenges and triumphs that define their paths.
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Insert Buzzword dives deep into the experiences of business leaders. We share authentic conversations that provide insights into the real-life journeys of those who dared to venture into the business world.
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JJ Greig: From The Glenturret Distillery to Freelance Freedom – A Photographer's Tale of Passion and Balance
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Ever wondered about the raw courage it takes to leave the security of a nine-to-five for the wilds of the creative industry? JJ Greig, an extraordinary photographer and videographer, spins the tale of his own bold transition from the storied halls of The Glenturret Distillery to the captivating uncertainty of freelance life. His story is not a simple one of career change but a tapestry woven with threads of inherited passion, embracing late-night calls to creativity, and the financial tightrope walk that comes with self-employment.
In our heartfelt chat, we navigate through the tempestuous seas of business development, where AI tools and automation become lifelines in a maelstrom of client demands and overcommitment. JJ recounts the highs and lows, from the joy of capturing a couple's special day to the gritty reality of setting non-negotiable boundaries with those he serves. His journey is a beacon for anyone wrestling with the tension between professional growth and staying true to their deepest values.
As we strum the final chords of our conversation, JJ offers a melody of reflection and advice that resonates with anyone holding a creative instrument in their hands. His passion for photography, kindled by his father's legacy and an emotionally charged camera purchase, harmonizes with his love for music, a reminder to keep some joys sacred from work's encroaching demands. Connect with the artist's symphony of life through his captivating Instagram @gdgregphoto or wander through the galleries of his website to witness a blend of timeless photography and innovative AI-generated artistry.
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Subscribe now and embark on this journey through the highs, lows, and everything in between. Let's navigate our life journey together, one buzzword at a time.
Welcome to the Insert Buzzword podcast. I'm Tristan and we have Jeremy and JJ Greg today from JJ Greg photography. Thank you for joining us. Do you want to tell us a bit about yourself, to kick things off, because we know a fair bit about you, but I'm guessing many other people don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So currently I am a photographer and videographer working in the reef area of Perthshire. I'm an islander from the west coast of Scotland and that's where the accent's from. Then after school I went to college for a couple of years in Greenock that's where the other bit of the accent is from and then spent six or seven years in Glasgow before moving up here with my now wife, kirsty, who's a teacher in the reef area as well.
Speaker 2:So the photography side of things probably kicked off maybe three years ago professionally when I started doing odd jobs here and there for people, and then two years ago when self-employed into the world trying to make my mark. Oh, I'm already in the middle of Covid. Just at the start of Covid, really, yeah, I was working on a project with Tristan and some of his colleagues just as Covid really started to hit, and what was quite lucky for me at that time was I was actually still full-time employed and was on furlough at the time. So it gave me a chance to put in a lot of work, put in a lot of errors with the camera, mainly on the computer and the editing side, and sort of get up to scratch for that Some late nights had Some two o'clock in the morning, I started naming Tristan and his colleagues Dale Livingfiber, and that's become quite a common theme.
Speaker 2:Actually, I've noticed that quite a lot with a lot of clients is you do get very late requests. So it became a bit of a skillset almost, which was quite funny and I'm the only one working on the pressure, working in the spare bed in the house, and then two of them went. But yeah, that then led to a proposition from a client that I worked with to go on a sort of annual retailer with him where I'd read a financial amount and that allowed me to leave him at full-time work and develop his profession. What were you doing before? So I was actually working in the warehouse at Glen Tert Stilery, pushing casks around and retrieving saplings for the whiskey maker and things like that. So it was quite, a very different job. I was very manual, very insensitive, and then all of a sudden the money was gotten to the camera. So, yeah, it's quite, quite different. The photography and videography sites that came from a young eater and my old man would go up the hills after every day's shift at work he would go up and just take pictures.
Speaker 1:So yeah, what was the sort of main drive or what? Was there a particular moment where you thought I need to do my own thing? Was there anything that triggered that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, two o'clock in the morning shifts. I got asked to do it at work At the distillery. Whilst I was at the distillery I was working on a project for my retainer customer and she messaged asking project we're working on was a song. It was a retake on the Feed the World because it was at the COP26. So we wanted to do like an environmental project and one of her friends had rewritten that song all around the environmental stability of the planet and what we needed to do to save it.
Speaker 2:And at one point I was working on a shift, I was covered in all the crap of the day the warehouse is a really messy place to work and I got a message through saying can you go to Ewan McGregor's mum's house to collect some footage he's recorded? And I was like I was going to do this at the lunch break after going to let the dog out. I was like I can't keep doing this because I would then go and get that footage, go back to the office at the time that I shared with Tristan and then edit and then send a proof out and then get all the changes back, edit, send that out and then yeah. So it got to a point where I just had to say it's either a job or it's a self-employed career, and I think anybody who's ever been in that position before will know how difficult that decision actually is. So yeah, we kind of took a leap at that moment. So far it's been pretty.
Speaker 2:Can you actually rewind Ewan McGregor's house? What was that like his mum's house? I didn't know. Oh, you didn't. So there was no signal of distilleries in the warehouse, sorry. So when I got out I got the message and I thought, shit, what am I going to do? And by the time I drove to the end of the road after deciding just go. She pointed to say oh, it's okay, you sent it by drop box or whatever. So I thought I thought that first thing. So I didn't quite get there. I'm sure it'd be lovely. What was your biggest fear when making the?
Speaker 1:job, from full-time employment to self-employment.
Speaker 2:Without doubt, financial. Without a doubt. I've since seen people that have been in a similar position say make sure you've got five years worth of savings. I didn't do any of that, it was purely. I think I can earn the same as I'm earning now, so it can't be bad.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine there's many people who got five years of savings in this economic environment. Hello.
Speaker 2:No, so it was mainly financial. Time was another one, but I knew that jumping into this. I've already been working late nights on it. You know customers and clients will always ask for things and ask for things to be done quicker than is realistically doable anyway. So it was really financial. You never know what's coming next month unless you've got. I have put a lot of weddings and things like that that I work on, which they're typically two years, in the vaccine. That's a nice, consistent stream of work. But there's other jobs that you don't know you've got them until you've got them, kind of things. So that still is a fear as well.
Speaker 1:It makes logical sense that the financial impact or worry was your main concern, but a lot of people it's fear of failure. Where does that come into it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in a way I've never really thought about it because, unfortunately, I've always worked quite collaboratively with people, so usually I get somebody in front of the screen when I'm editing or when they're on the shoot or whatever. Self is a bad photo. It's careful it doesn't even see the light of day. Yeah, it gets deleted before anybody sees it. Weddings are definitely. They're very much a high risk to fall under the imposter syndrome. Am I really trusted with £2,000 worth of somebody's money to capture a big moment once in a moment? So they're definitely where the fear of failure comes in. But I don't have. I've never actually really thought about that until you mention it, Tubes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you have any?
Speaker 2:Back to my old job.
Speaker 1:So, for those listening, what were some of the struggles or the main challenges you faced both in those early days and, kind of now, up to now?
Speaker 2:So I suppose, initially finding work, I was very lucky to have that one customer that was willing to commit a certain amount of financial input, knowing that they would get a certain amount of well. We based it on a number of days per month, but they knew that they would get any work out of me that they needed done. So I wasn't just doing photography, I wasn't just doing videography, I was doing their social media planning. I was doing all that kind of stuff as well. So, in terms of what after your failure, what was your? The original question?
Speaker 1:What were some of the struggles you faced in the early days and up to now really?
Speaker 2:The struggles are finding work I take part in. You know your wedding fears to promote the business there and have people come to you and see your product, but I think that's definitely the biggest one is finding work. Your reputation precedes you and a lot of my customers are repeat customers, which is I'm very grateful for For weddings as well. Yeah, I don't know what they do divorce party but yeah, so that's still, to this day, a big fear.
Speaker 2:Another massive fear of mine is technology. It's led me down a couple of times and I've just lost a 10 terabyte hard drive that had eight terabytes worth of footage on it and that footage has been non-recoverable by the manufacturer. So for me that's a big fear. For us, I back things up to the cloud and I've got three other hard drives plus my computer hard drive all with footage on them, so nothing's lost. Nothing's lost. But imagine I hadn't backed up the backup. So that was a real eye opener when that happened. And yeah, fear of failure is a big thing. I've never really I've always seemed to have done an okay job for customers that I've never worked for and like aside from the wedding fears, what else do you do for a business development?
Speaker 1:So it was the incest bed plan.
Speaker 2:So we're quite lucky in the area that we live there's lots of small local businesses. So a lot of my work has been, you know, with the Delabino's Cafe, just three doors up from the office, some harvest oils going turret distillery my ex-employer, you know. They've got me back to do work for them. So at this moment in time I'm working amongst, you know, the people that I've already done work for on a pretty regular basis, although in the past couple of days I've started getting into AI and scheduling and trying to automate a lot of the workflow. So using programs like Buffer, for instance, for my social media hosting and scheduling, and interliking that with different programs to make the operations slicker so that I can try and maybe start advertising the business in a bigger scale. I mean, the overall goal is to start some sort of production company or something where you have employers working under you that operate the camera and try and bring your ideas to life, sort of thing. But that's years away, you know.
Speaker 2:So it's trying to get. You say years, sorry, line years. Well, actually, no, you've got a good point because it might not be anymore, because we've already put a couple of years into it. So again it comes back to the financial cash flow ins and outs and all that sort of thing. So once the the current work can settle down and that becomes a sort of relatively normal, then it's a case of trying to build up additional work and find new customers.
Speaker 2:But nearly everywhere I go I talk to if you think about from my point of view the solution that I'm providing to people is images of videos real. So the main bulk of work will inevitably be people that are trying to sell something or people that are trying to promote something, whether it's maybe not selling a product but selling a business to people that might invest in it that kind of thing, properties and things like that. I've been very traditional, in the word of mouth way of things, and I'm only now sort of starting to realise that we're moving into a different age. So I'm trying to keep up with that as best I can.
Speaker 1:I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes, like probably most of us at the table here. What would you say is your probably biggest mistake? What have you learned from it?
Speaker 2:I would say, over committing and taking on too much, and this is why I've sort of realised I'm one guy at the moment and I can't do a job that would take two or three guys to do. So, going back to weddings, there was one wedding I did where I also said, yeah, no worries, I can record the speeches on video and all that. By the time I spend the whole day with the bride and the groom and I come back and the speeches start. You need to have all that set up and to do a good job, there's certain pieces of equipment that you need and you need to have things in place for that, and that's why I now say make sure you get a videographer. If you want a video, I'm happy to do your video, but I can't do your photo, that kind of thing. I've invested a relatively decent amount of money in hybrid equipment that can do photo and video and do it very well, but that doesn't mean to say they can do it at the same time, and what you would use to shoot a piece of video at that exact moment you may not use to shoot from a photographer point of view. So, over committing on a few jobs and for a few clients has definitely been the biggest mistake that I've made, more than months as well, and definitely my biggest learning is to go no, I can't do that. Do you think you'll make it again? Well, the friends will have to come back to you every wedding day. Yeah, hopefully not.
Speaker 2:Did it become awkward with the customer client that you over committed to? Firstly, not, because, a they were actually friends and, b when I agreed to it, I agreed and said this is I'm here to take your photos, so, if I can, I will. But it was more the confrontation I got at the end of the night. Did you get those speeches? No, because I was with you the whole day, yeah, so yeah, I didn't. I didn't create any animal, I'll say. It was just that one moment where I thought and my fault as well as yours, mainly mine for not being clear and just saying no, I can't. And it's hard to say no when you're a business owner.
Speaker 2:When you're a business owner and also like if you're just a nice guy, it's difficult to say no. Another, I suppose, mistake that I've been making recently is do a po-blow-no-work. You know, because it is a business, it does need to operate. There needs to be money coming in so that you can spend money out. And you know there was one particular project where I've been driving up in down Scotland, you know, maybe at least once a month to do a full day's filming and there's no cash coming in At the moment. Will it look good in your portfolio? Will it look good in the portfolio and the company that we're working with? Will we go somewhere? Definitely, but it's just this initial moment where I've literally spent and I've not earned and that comes back to my, you know, the on-gay fear of financial.
Speaker 1:I think there is a trap sometimes where you know we tell ourselves you know this will go somewhere and we kind of commit to things and then and then you know some cases it might go somewhere and others were were not, and it's getting that balance. Yeah, we've all done that. There's always a gamble, but you know 100% you can't develop what they say, you can't speculate to accumulate. You got to, you got to put yourself out there and try these things. But you've got to also learn quite quickly. My experience and I just went to say no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, my wife's also very realistic about it. Anytime I get an inquiry and or a job coming in, the first thing she'll undoubtedly say to her is where you get big, like, do you lie? No, you can't lie, so you just have to broach it in a very, you know, positive way. But but it is getting tough. Right now we're nearly every, nearly every piece of work that I do, you know, is there's money coming in. So, yeah, it's kind of learned from that, the hard way as well.
Speaker 1:On the flip side, then, what are, what are some of the sort of things you're proudest of, or or both business and personal?
Speaker 2:one of the things you're sort of biggest success is, I guess, I mean, I suppose the biggest thing is that I was actually willing to take jump. You know, a lot of people would have bowed out and gone. No, I'm just going to stick with my, my regular, the paid job, which was, you know, I was physically fit, I was strong, it was an okay salary as well, and I was working with a great bunch of folk who turned out to be probably the best employers I've ever had. But yeah, I think, you know, looking back, you know, my daughter turned one last week.
Speaker 2:In that first year having been self employed, I've spent a lot of time with her, you know, and not a lot of dads don't get that Right. You know, I spoke to another guy that I used to work with at the distillery who's just had a baby and he'd like to work on Monday and his daughter's two weeks old, you know. So there's a massive difference in. You know, I spent a lot of time with her. There was a duty to enforce the hospital, so it wasn't all fun times and I wasn't working, I wasn't earning, but what have I got out of that as well?
Speaker 2:So, yes, that's nothing to do with a business point of view, but, personally speaking, that was, you know that's something that not many dads have had, and and and also there's there's a certain feeling you get when you deliver, you know, to a client and they're happy with the work, and that's. That's something that you don't get when you're taking phone calls in a call center or knocking on doors to self Sky TV, you know, I mean it's literally you reach a mean average and then that's it, you've done your job, whereas now you're providing, a suppose, a specialist service for somebody and when they come back and say I can't believe that, that's, that's a really cool feeling. Earlier on, when we set the cameras up, you know, listening to you being excited about it, I was like that's cool and that's why we do it. I hadn't even hit the record button. So so, yeah, there's, there's definitely the, you know the. The success is definitely outweigh the failures.
Speaker 1:Already, I reckon you know how do you, I guess, balance, balance that personal, business time commitment we've spoken about, you know, over committing? How do you manage that relationship at home? Horrifically badly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is difficult, you know, and I find myself finding it really difficult to switch off, like right now.
Speaker 2:I know that back home, my Mac hard drive is backing up to my NAS drive and I know that because I said that just before we left the house and this was supposed to be, my day off with my daughter, and so you know there's always, and in fact I've brought my computer rolling from the office because there's no internet, the office, just so that I can back it up, and so I think it's impossible to balance it well, until you get to the point where you don't have to worry about the business anymore. You know, if you look at YouTubers like, do you think that point's going to come changing where you don't worry about?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:Definitely. And that's I wouldn't be doing this and that's, that's the, I suppose, the ultimate goal. You know, if you look at the successful guys like you're Casey Neistat or whatever you know he unequivocally says every evening after eight o'clock is family time, phone off, everything off, family time. I can't do that, yet you know I need to. I need to know that I can reply to an email whenever I need to reply to an email, sort of thing. So the moment is a juggling act.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you know when the limit is? Is it? Is it like when Kirsty's absolutely human? Is it? Is it a visual trigger? An audio trigger? What? What are you're kind of in terms of self awareness? What are your things that you're thinking of? Where you don't push it too far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, ultimately I do, I take a good lead from, from my wife, because the, the we're both each other's sort of driving force. I guess she's got a really successful career as well. So it's kind of like I say as well, as if I do. But I think the good thing is there's a there's a balance between two very different working lives. So, you know, my wife goes to work, she's employed, she's a teacher, so she's good very much set days, set hours kind of, and set holidays. I'm the opposite. I don't have anything set. It's literally I could be working on Sunday at Glen Eagles, if they call me, on Saturday. So balancing is is difficult. We have implemented the dreaded diary and calendar system, you know, which is actually working really well. You know, kirsty, she puts her stuff in the calendar, I put my stuff in the calendar. We have a little argument about me forgetting to put stuff in the calendar and then carry on and that's it.
Speaker 2:It challenges similar with JJ. My wife's a teacher as well, two young kids, and, yeah, I think. What I take away from it, though, when it comes to balancing with the wife, is she used to be reminded that I'm in a fortunate position where I can do pick up and drop off and I can go to every sports event yeah, Everything that's on during the week and the one that decides where I can go I am. You know, it's a challenge with one's full time employment one year, one year, you know a couple of years and I would struggle to find you know any married couple who don't have that issue.
Speaker 2:If there is a self-employed and an employed, you know side to it. But the good thing is you know we've blocked two weeks off in October and I couldn't do that with my old job. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean. So in my experience with that dynamic and I've got it wrong many times, but it's really difficult to, or I've found it difficult to the view is often being like it's like you're away from the house, so you're like, you know, not here, and that's the focus. But sometimes there's obviously a balance. But it's like, yeah, I'm trying to work, to earn money, to develop careers, I'm not just sitting sitting about doing nothing, yeah. And then that balance of actually it's important to be present. You know, even if you're there, if you're thinking about work all the time, how present are you?
Speaker 1:That balance, that's the bit I found difficult because, you know, I've certainly had arguments in the past or frustrations where it's like, well, you're not here, you're not there, yeah, but I'm trying to do my best here. I'm not, I'm not, like you know, desperate not to be here. I'm actually just trying to. You know, one foot food in the table or some money whenever you start a business, unless you've got you're lucky to have a massive cash balance behind you. Yeah, you know, it's always a friction or a challenge. And that balance of, yeah, sort of not being ungrateful or disrespectful but just saying it's not because I don't care, I don't love you, I don't love the kids, I love the world. It was actually. I am the, the motivation's pure. It just maybe not appear that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah totally yeah, and word travel as well.
Speaker 1:People the way you know, wait till whatever. How wonderful for you. I mean, I sit in a hotel room by myself for five days, darling. It's still like.
Speaker 2:I did a job up the nail of sky for two of my best mates actually one from rasgo and they've they've got an amazing air BNB rent pod, was it called, just so they can sky red fox retreat. Look at that guys Link below and a and Alex and Nicola. They've set up an amazing wee thing and their, their pod is used mainly by elobemnt wedding couples that go off to the sky to get married and they wanted some promotional work done for it. And what was really good was Kirsty Kay was made and she was like eight and a half, maybe nine months pregnant at the time, but it meant that I could commercially work. But we could also tie in a wee bit of a benefit as well. You know, you know, often you get to drive to sky for a weekend and stay somewhere and get paid for it. And then another we did. I did some video work for Gleng, turret and Distility, which has just received their second Michelin star, I think, and and as a reward for the video, they gifted Kirsten and Amil in their restaurant and it was phenomenal.
Speaker 2:And you know, there's the other perks, as well as getting paid, there's the other perks of going to places that I think I wear a hoodie every day. I don't belong in a Michelin star restaurant, yeah. So it's kind of like there's these things that you start to see. You know the other side of things you wouldn't normally see if you were just kind of, I guess, working. So the balance in that, when, when there's perks that come alongside it, I think that helps soften the blow as well Of the, you know, I think, my January and February. In January this year I sent one invoice out and that was an invoice that I could cut to send in December. You know there was no work in January, so there's that sort of right you should be. Do you need to get my egg together and get some work? Because I have said, you know I'm trying and if I'm not doing any work, then how am I trying?
Speaker 1:Kind of like yeah, you mentioned earlier that. You know, I guess the dream is to have a production company or content content company and to be able to employ people. And you know, my motivation is that. You know, I don't think I'll ever want to do nothing, but I want to be able to choose to do nothing if I need to or want to. What is your? You know you mentioned there going away with customers really good to do, basically it's a pleasure, but not legally because HMRC is listening. But what is the driver and motivation for you? What does that you know success look like for you? What kind of perceived success?
Speaker 2:It's a tricky one because, again, I've never grown up, I've never been in a position of having money. You know, we had a very humble upbringing and I guess working towards some form of financial freedom is always going to be number one, that's. You know there's. We live in a, we live in the Western world, where you have to earn money to live and to have a house and to have a car and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm not particularly, you know, I may have some nice cameras and things like that, but I'm not particularly. What's the word Flush with cash? Materialist, oh, thank you. So I'm not particularly materialistic, but I do want to enjoy a quieter life when I grow up and when I grow older and I want to know that when I hit, you know, a certain point in life I can step back and there'll be some, there'll be some sort of foundation there to support the rest of my life after that point. Well, without you know, I did.
Speaker 2:I did a shoot at Glen Eagles for a couple that were coming over to celebrate their 25th anniversary and the guy retired two years ago and he's 82. Wow, he's in California but he's a self-made multimillionaire. But he's just kept working because that's what he does, and I seem to always work, you know. Yeah, so I don't mind if my retirement age is 80, if I've got the financial means to then have a phenomenal life after that. So that's us on your terms. Yeah, yeah, I think that's. The ultimate goal is to get to get somewhere in life that I'm comfortable with and have done it myself. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And you know, most of my, my experience or learnings are through spectacularly messing things up myself. You know, and I'm sure you'll hear about it on our podcast episode, there'll be a very strong theme, I imagine. But for you, how do you, I guess? Do you sit down with Kirsten and agree your goals? You know, because I think it's important to have your own identity, your own, not separate, necessarily, but your own purpose, but equally, in relationships I've got a completely wrong before. It's also important to be very aligned, because when hard times do come or there's frictions, it's important you might be doing different things, but you're working the same direction.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's all towards the greater good, and right now that's our daughter. Really. I mean, that's the good thing about where we're at at the moment is, there's no question about it. You know we're trying to buy a new house at the moment, purely so that we've got more space, you know, to bring her up with them and to give her an environment that we can spend time at home with her and enjoy it. And you'll understand you. Well, yeah, that's the plan, but yeah, that's, I mean, all of me. That's the end goal is bring Roshe up and break her up to be a good person. So, again, that's.
Speaker 2:You know, I guess that comes back to not being too materialistic, not putting importance on the wrong things. You know I'm quite, I'm quite bad at well, not bad but I'm quite strict about putting my phone in another room when I'm kind of hanging out with her. You know she's only one year old, but I know for a fact that there's an impressionable site and I don't want her to think that it's normal to walk around with your phone in front of your face all the time. And it might be that might be the way that they won't, but maybe I'm being quite traditional about it. But there's just a lot of things that I do that you know I'd quite like to implement or for her to realize. You know, this is maybe it's better to talk to Somebody that messaged them that kind of thing. Yeah, so it's just all these things, but ultimately the goal is now set by that little one year old.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we mentioned, I guess, or talked indirectly, indirectly, about some values not materialistic. What would you say are some of your own qualities that have helped you get to where you are? We know both the incursions are determined.
Speaker 2:This is a point to edit out. But how are we for bad language on this? One conversation I've had with a client before, I took him a bottle of wine to say thanks for introducing me to a customer and his words this is his back door at eight o'clock at night. You know his pajamas. He goes, I go, mate, thank you for that.
Speaker 2:And we kind of ended up having a chat and he said the only reason that he introduced them to me is because he had every confidence that I'd be able to do a good job for them. That'd be because he was an alright guy. And the chat that we had was something like If you're an arsehole and do arsehole things, arsehole things will happen to you. If you're a good guy, good things will happen to you. So don't be a dick. And that's basically the Anitubians were. Just he had a cup of coffee and he said I mean, you're just kind of looking at the stars like, yeah, don't be a dick, it's not hard to go through life, just not being a dick. And that's kind of that's basically what I base everything on is just don't be a dick. And so far, you know, the majority of my feedback in previous jobs I've had has always been.
Speaker 1:You know, you're actually a nice guy, so you were talking about not over-committing or promising more than you can deliver, being well cut through? Yeah, no, it's. At what point do you think that's limiting the risk of like a jump out and build the parachute on the way down, for example?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I'm always going to be limited because I am just one guy Until I can start, you know, building a team or working with a team, which I have started doing. You know the projects that we're taking on with those guys a fierce storm productions. You know we are being quite ambitious with them as well. But you know, in that team we've got myself who's like the DOP, we've got two directors, we've got a behind-the-scenes photographer, we've got a sound guy, not like Audio guy.
Speaker 1:Who's also sound.
Speaker 2:Who's also sound. We've got a makeup artist. We've got a couple of script writers, you know. But as a business we've not brought any money in. So we're working off of my you know, 35, 40 grand worth of kit that I've built up over 50 years as a hobbyist. You know we're working off of that. We're working off of our own money for diesel, for petrol and things like that. But we are aiming at, you know, football clubs. Can we do a documentary for you? It won't be like, you know, welcome to rexham. But you know we're aiming to do big projects like that. We've started. We've already recorded two.
Speaker 2:You know short movies touching on, you know, pretty topical things like Suicide, and you know quite behavioral aspects of human life and things like that. So these are ambitious projects, but we have a team of people to do that. But I need to be quite careful where I'm at, because I'm also the director of JJ Veg photography, which is my own self-employed business as well, and right now I need to make sure I'm focusing enough on that to earn money so that I can do these things as well. And that's where the potential problem for taking on too much can come into play, because I need to put food in the table without the house and all that. So right now I'm quite lucky in that the expectations that I've had, or that I have, from my customers that I'm working for at the moment, we've all set quite clear deadlines and I've told them. You know, this is possible to do but it will take this long.
Speaker 2:You know, like last night I got a text message from the last wedding that I did just saying you know, did you say it was six or eight weeks to get a delivery of the gallery? And I actually said to her normally six weeks, but I'm actually going to try and get it done before you know, because I've actually done might be presented already because I've found a free day. So I am getting much better, not at turning work down but set an expectation of how long it will take to get the work done. And I think that's the really important thing. You know, learn that working with Tristan and a couple of projects before you know, I've never said no, I can't do that tonight. I always said, you know, and then went out to the spare room and sat by my laptop. So now I'm getting much better personally. They're going, you have no problem, I'll get to that on Monday.
Speaker 1:And I promise I'll be delivered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:So obviously reference the some of the other projects you're involved in and future plans. What do you have? A plan yourself to bring people into the business or just to scale your business to allow that?
Speaker 2:I mean, I ideally yes and no, and I know that's a silly thing to say, but you know I made the mistake right at the start of naming my business JJ Greg photography, and the problem with that is it's very difficult for you to get a job with me under the name JJ Greg photography, because if you go out and shoot somewhere you're not JJ Greg. So there's there's, like you know, imagine turning up at somebody's house and going right, JJ, I actually am Jeremy, but so I think it would be quite nice to keep this entity itself, you know, and basically focus this on, you know, the weddings, the elopements and the small commercial jobs and things like that, because it's quite nice to have my name attached to good, positive work. People at weddings are always in good moods. That's a great job to have, you know you're.
Speaker 2:It's a very busy day, but you know you're always dealing with, most of the time actually, most of the time you're dealing with happy people around, a good mood, and the commercial work like food photography and important photography. I tend to not need, you know, a big team of people to do that, but I'm also a director of a few stone productions and that's a team effort, you know we can't make. It's very difficult to make a short movie or a feature length movie with just one guy, yeah. So ideally I would like to keep it separate, but keep it going as well. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:How are you going to do that?
Speaker 2:Tell me. Speak to the business consultants. They're like oh, I've done an ME, hr, team management, being in charge of people. How do you find that? Hey, to be fair, from my call center days I worked into sort of lower and management levels and so I've had a fair share of dealing with that. But the team project that I've got at the moment was with the fear storm and the other business that I'm on the heart 200. It's all individual freelancers so we don't actually employ anybody as such. They get paid their day rate, you know, and we'll invoice them out at the end and when we get the money in from the showcase kind of thing. So my ambition is to have a team of people that I can work with but are not necessarily employed by me. That makes sense. So not have to deal with any of that, that's right.
Speaker 1:So the par I enjoy the least, yeah, hey, they charge stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, one job I worked in was a financial service and one of the girls on the phone I'll not say who and I'll not say what company, but basically they gave their own personal bank details out to somebody who is looking to make a big transaction, to pay something off to then take out another agreement. And they got a dig on their phone and it said you just received 24,750 pounds or whatever. And she went for what came to me straight away, knowing full well that in the next hour we're going to go to the bank reverse that. And then she was going to lose her job. And that was brutal because, I mean, did she do it on purpose? We'll never know that. She went up to it straight away, yeah, and we all knew what was going to happen straight after that.
Speaker 2:And I didn't enjoy that Like and I like I said you know, I don't like being the dick. It's not my role in society. Maybe it makes me, you know, soft to some people, I'm not sure, but it's not what I enjoy doing. I enjoy getting good things out of good people, sort of thing. So, yeah, I'm kind of glad that, hopefully, the way that we're going, the only HR I'll need to deal with is my own. Yeah, I'll approve my own holidays, approve my own sick days, that kind of thing. So, yeah, I'm definitely going to try to stay away from that as best we can.
Speaker 1:Good. So if you could have a conversation with your younger self, I guess 12 year old JJ what's some advice that you might tell yourself?
Speaker 2:So I would say that, personally, if we do personal business, I guess personally don't fuck up with money. That's the first piece of advice I would give anybody is make sure that from an early age, if you start working, make sure you keep some money aside, not because it's what makes the world go round or in that's just because it makes things easier. If you've got a bank of money there, it doesn't have to be hundreds of thousands, but if you do something that you can rely on when you need to rely on it, make sure you have that in place. And I've made mistakes with money in the court, and so that's definitely the first thing that I would say is don't be greedy, but just make sure you're sensible about certain things.
Speaker 2:From an ambition and from a working point of view, I would say don't be afraid to move away from normal. You know, I think there's too much of an impression put on people to go and get a job. You know, go to university, get a degree. I didn't even finish my second year at college, but I know people that spent six years at university studying politics and then taking it further than that, and then they work in a short shop. So it's not necessarily the be all and end all, particularly at the day's age.
Speaker 2:You know, you see all these young entrepreneurs that have got like Airbnb businesses and think, ok, I'm not in Scotland anymore, but you know around the world where they've got all these massive, you know portfolios of properties that they've built up and they're just kids with a tick tock account. You know it's all these side hustles, all these sort of things. You know, if you can keep in touch with modern technology and follow how it's going, sort of stay ahead of the curve, then I definitely tell myself to do that if I could, because I haven't and I kind of wish I had. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Have a good yeah.
Speaker 2:I could have done with that advice when I was younger too.
Speaker 1:Probably yeah.
Speaker 2:We think, like, like a, a geek out at guitar equipment, a geek out at camera equipment. You know I've got, you know, pretty my finger in the pulse with certain things, but I only last week used AI for the first time, you know, and it's been around for months. They've they've implemented it into, like they've built it into the Photoshop. It's not the beta now, it's the actual Photoshop edition. It's out, you know, it's been around for a while and I've only just caught up with it and it's. It's things like that that I really wish that I hadn't been ahead of the curve earlier. Um, I was in for the. Yeah, I still, I'm still ahead of it now. If you're, if you're starting to play with it now, I reckon you're ahead of the mirror.
Speaker 1:But I'm just getting changing to totally.
Speaker 2:I, and the thing is there's. I'm not worried about it from a professional point of view because I know that. Um, you know people will always like take um Colazoku, which is a food company that Ludo Moio has started up. You know she'll need photographs, or her dishes. You know that's not that AI can produce that. That needs to be photographed and videoed by a camera, physically looking at the thing that she's done. Um, whereas you know, fantasy are that kind of thing Elements of graphic design. Um, I've used AI to create a mid board. Um, to say to the distillery listen, if you want me to go and get pictures of it but combine harvester and things like that, then it could look like this Um, but that's not the final, the final image. I still need to go out with my camera and get the right conditions and get that show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, A tool to help you do what you do better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and to set up the job, yeah, um, whereas if you work in a you know, mainly work processing environment, you know where creating scripts or maybe storytelling or something like that, yeah, I can do 95% of your job already. So there's, I think there's going to be some elements of the trades where it will be game changing and already is, but there'll be some elements, you know, of some trades where it won't touch the sides. Like, uh, one of the things that I did, one of the shoots that I had, was at Glen Eagles and it was a group of, like investment bankers and they were there for maybe four days or something and it was like a four day conference on how AI can be implemented into trading and all that is way over my head. But they brought me in in the last day just to photograph them in the conference room and then photograph them, and they went for a whiskey, tasting Um, and one of the whiskies was apparently made by AI. I don't know how. I didn't get a chance to quiz the guy on it, but to melt the respirers on, yeah, or, like you know, select the cast that we're going to do and then design the artwork.
Speaker 2:I don't actually know, but you know, I don't think that it could. You know, grow a crop of mushrooms? You know I may be wrong, but they may be able to. But there's a lot of manual processes involved. But at the same time, I think we're starting to see there's a lot of AI involved as well. Yeah, yeah, batch tracking, automation, the production schedule, but like actually mixing by AI and putting stuff on shelves, yeah, and in the mushroom itself. But I need to grow naturally. But you can't do that anywhere other than you know, robots can make pizzas, so yeah, so I think there's there's a technological shift coming.
Speaker 2:But if we go back to when, you know, when you asked my younger self, you know if you take that to like maybe 14 or 15, you know what phones did we have around back then? I think I had a Samsung flip phone. I had a camera that you could turn in it or something. So what's on the phone? Yeah, I mean, this is the first one in the past 15 years. How is technology come on?
Speaker 2:And for the role that I'm in, you know technology is a big part of it. Physical pieces of equipment are a big part of it. So, kind of staying on top of that, yeah, I've been relatively good at, but it's all that we're stuck. The back end stuff I've been useless at it. You know, like my social media, for instance, I hate Facebook. I can't figure it out. You know I'm the admin on a page and I can't get it off my Facebook account and I now have nothing to do with it. So there's certain things that I'm a total dinosaur with that I wish I'd stayed on top of and kind of got in early and now, definitely for this, for this occupation and this job, that would probably be a piece of advice that I'd give myself.
Speaker 1:So if money was no object, would you be doing what you're doing now? Is there something else you would wish you'd pursued? What would you want to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no Good answer. Yeah, you got to move on.
Speaker 1:Next question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, when I did a coaching course in one of my last jobs, as in a load of us coaches were getting trickled down sort of training from another higher up coach and yeah I asked, what do you want to do If you could do anything? What do you want to do as a dream go would be run a shop that has sales coffee, whiskey, mountain bikes and cameras. Don't know why, but just there are the things that give a shit about life other than family and all that sort of stuff. You know the geek out stuff totally. So, in a nutshell, yeah I would be, but I would be hanging out of a helicopter taking pictures of the Alps. You know that kind of thing, extreme for Belgravine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but ultimately, you know, I don't know why, but I just love working with cameras. My old man used to, you know, whenever he, you know, if it was his birthday or Christmas or whatever, there would always be like a piece of camera equipment or something like that, and we always had his pictures around the house. You know, we grew up in Ireland, so it was pictures of, you know, the hills and things like that on Ireland, because he loved walking in the hills as well. So I think there's always going to be an element of photography in my life, and if I could make it my career, which is what I'm trying to do, then that's ultimately the goal. You know, and you look at guys like Peter McKinnon and all these dudes who are on YouTube burning millions off of their YouTube videos that are based on, you know, sometimes with some people loosely based on a photography career. You know they've made their money that way, but ultimately it's because they've had an inherent love for taking pictures and making cool images of things.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think I would. And you'd mentioned your dad and his influence. How big of a role that emotional connection does that play in your love or passion for photography and camera equipment?
Speaker 2:Ironically not, it wasn't at the time. So he died when I was 18. It was my guardian, not my dad dad. He died when I was 18. And at the exact same time pretty much, I got made redundant from the wee jobs that we had in Suckey O Street in Glasgow. But then a week later a big company came in and bought that company back. So we all got our jobs back, so we got a little redundancy payment.
Speaker 2:So with that 5, 600 quid I bought my first digital SLR, because that's probably what you would have done if you got that money. And I know that in the run up to that Christmas my mom was planning on buying him a digital SLR, you know, pull him away from the film side of things. So that was kind of that was an emotionally driven purchase and it's led to where you're talking about it now. But at the time when he was, you know, taking pictures, I wasn't really interested in it. I wasn't more interested in playing my guitar. So it's funny how it's, it was only in sort of retrospect that I realized that was a really cool thing that he did and I really wanted to get into it and sort of figure it out.
Speaker 1:Do you still have that first camera you bought? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I still bought his camera and actually his camera stopped working which is why mom was going to buy him a digital SLR by whether an EBA send a working model of that camera. So I've actually got his one and the one that's the one that functions, and I've always seen one photograph on it and it's a photograph of my two newest cameras. Yeah, but I've literally I've kept every camera I've ever bought but I've got an USB need through all of them so far. You'll be able to do a case in ice, that wall of cameras, at some point. Well, either, yeah, that could be a small wall Sin.
Speaker 1:Sin, sin. What you mentioned, guitars. Where does that fit? And you didn't mention that in a guitar shop, or that was just always another. So something you enjoyed doing back in the morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was at school, when we picked our subjects and standard grades, music and P were in the same column and I was a die hard AC DC fan. When I was at school and I started getting lessons every Thursday off of the postman, who was also just like a crazy closet guitar player, and and and yeah, I ended up studying music at college, studied the guitar college for one and a half years when I dropped out, and mobile and die.
Speaker 1:What you better at playing guitar or taking for us, and I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's definitely taken photos, surely, because I don't blame my guitar as much as I should. I remember somebody because we had a band in Glasgow and they did pretty well. We played a couple of big gigs and could we make a career at this? And I would actually rather always have that as just purely a sit-down and play the guitar with them, apple and having their glass of whiskey, that kind of thing. It's purely an enjoyment thing. Or can I do this and kill some time? I would never try to make a career out of it.
Speaker 1:Any questions Trevor.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think we were on to, unless you got anything else.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I enjoy your chat about turning the guitar into a chore, and part of my local community choir and musical is that I'm native to Altrumpet and Nozowitz.
Speaker 1:Not just part of that. I've been nominated as the publicity officer.
Speaker 2:So all of a sudden, I need to rebrand a web bill. Do you need any photos? Yes, for me. It's now turned into a short.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my choir was the thing I went to to release some of my door friends, one that you did and all of a sudden I'm there getting chased every single time I go for work. So the stuff that frustrates me in my day job, because now frustrating me in my Just no escape.
Speaker 2:Your past time side of life. It should be Time I shouldn't be. I drove a JJ. I should have taken a leaf out of your book and said, no, I shouldn't have. Yeah, I should have been more vocalist. Or I said yes, but not until Friday.
Speaker 1:It's tough when there's multiple nominations for Eurovolo.
Speaker 2:Before I knew it I was nominated. Second did right Jeremy, you're an Arab publicity officer for the Choir and the ability wasn't really to put them in. But you know one of my college mates. You know what I said earlier on about people who got on to study and then never found a job in that field. Right, music is one of these.
Speaker 2:Music in the outdoor industry two jobs I find really difficult to get a good job at after having studied for so many years. A lot of people will study working in the outdoors and then they'll get a job as an outlaw instructor, which is great. You're not making a massive salary, you're not working your way up in the business, you're literally teaching guys at Mountain Bike, which is cool. But there's only a few people that I know that are going on to be pretty successful in the field and one of them is my mate, alay, and Alay is a. She's the leader of the Rock Choir and she's got one in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, in Dumbarton I can't remember all of our venues, but each of the members pays a subscription to our, she pays a fee to the overall art and business and it's like the amount of money that she can make just by finding people who want to come and sink. And I'm like, and again, money isn't everything, but from a medium point of view it's a phenomenal job. And I only know a few people that have gone on and not like selling Wembley out of the sixth ice in the row, but like actually made a really good, solid career. And as I was talking, so, yeah, totally it's hard to do living. It could turn into a chore very quickly. Nice, so, ben, I'm like.
Speaker 2:So insert buzzwords name of the podcast. Come through the BS in the corporate world of the world of the startup. Audrey Primair. Jj, yeah, what buzzword do you reckon encapsulates your life story to this point? Don't be a dick. Yeah, I think that's probably it, because it's a good mantra and it you know it came from a conversation that was having with somebody who was in the agreement. It's just good to not be a dickhead and I think it was, as our rate, as it might be, it's a pretty good if you're to make it a bit more publicly correct.
Speaker 2:Just make sure you're approachable. Make sure you're approachable and that you're not always thinking purely about your own best interests. You know, at the end of the day, when somebody approaches you to provide a service for them. It's not about you, it's about them. They need that done and they think you're the one to do it. So if you put yourself forward for that, then you better be able to work with that person and you're less likely to be able to work with them if you're a dick. And I've worked with some people before who were dicks and I'm not seeing them again, so I think so.
Speaker 2:I think is I'm not saying I'm a great guy. I'm not saying I'm a wonderful guy, I'm just saying I try and go through life offending the least amount of people if possible, and particularly from a business point of view, because you never know who's going to end up needing me to come and do work for them at the end of the day. Don't be a dick. I'm curious for this, so would not be a dick. But like, perception of the business and what, what? How often are you thinking about like? So, for instance, like with para life, for example, are certain things that we can and we can't. Say we're empowering kids, so, yeah, associated with alcohol, for instance, we can do some language and whatnot. So how does that?
Speaker 1:impact what you do with the headshot of photography.
Speaker 2:So the good thing is, the point in a camera at something can be applied to anything. So you know whether it's working on a movie set or dealing with the topic of suicide, or whether it's working in a photography studio taking pictures of cabbages, you know every single case study is different. So you can really the way that you're going to work that job with the person that we're working with. And you know, and if I was drafted into film backstage after a UFC fight, I'm pretty sure my, my approach with the camera would be different to filming. You know the seven or 80 kids at Morrison School singing on that song that we're working on that video to edit, right, you know. So even the way that I operate in that business mode, you know the the language that I'm using with the customers will be very different in those.
Speaker 2:And you know I do a lot of power photography and people that you know they enjoy their cars. Every single one of them talks differently. And one guy is selling his Rolls Royce he's had for 25 years and checked as a family ear. Then the other guy's selling a Focus RX which is just a new exhaust. You know it's two very different people and I'll, I'll, I'll just I'll communicate with them and read it. Hopefully makes them feel comfortable, and so my business isn't quite at the stage where I need to concern myself with and offending not offending any business partners and because such a people will come to do, to get the talk with them, because it was DJ.
Speaker 1:Greg, your reputation precedes you positively for me because I'm not as nice a guy as you. My version of that is what sticks with me and again, you know, don't always get it right, but people generally won't remember what you say or what you know what happened. It's how you made them feel, kind of thing. Yeah, sure, that aligns with that. You know, not being a dick in the different, different environments that you might work in as a photographer. Yeah, you know it's like how do you make them feel?
Speaker 2:and just I think I think weddings are probably the best case study for that Because, imagine, you turned up to shit a little bit because the only people really after the fact, once they're married, it was the only real stories that you hear about that. And I would hate to think that I turned up to shoot a husband and wife getting married and for me to come across in any way is like arrogant, conceited or anything like that. You know there's jokes and there's banter and there's always a comment you know that they make about getting their boobs out of the way when they're getting their wedding vets on and stuff like that. But there's never really.
Speaker 2:You know, I'd hate to be somebody that gets told that I've said something that I shouldn't have said. I don't censor myself to be like, but it just doesn't sit right with me to be in that position. And yeah, again, it might have cost me some contracts because I'm not ruthless enough, I'm not sure. But at the end of the day, you know it's just how kind of do I am and how I work.
Speaker 1:So before we wrap up, did you any final thoughts or messages for our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can obviously speak for the big business owners who got millions in the bank, but definitely that when the imposter syndrome can kick in quite easily, particularly if you're turning up to do a job that you've never done before, but just for me, I just need to keep reminding myself that I'm there because somebody's asked me to be there, and that would only happen because they've made an inquiry based on works that we've seen or somebody that they've spoken to who's had. We worked for them before, and that'll apply to anybody you know. So, if you are trying this out, you know I don't have millions in the bank, but at the moment it's going OK and, yes, I just have a bit of faith and just know that when you're turning up to a job, it's because you're meant to be there and because somebody's asked you to be there.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Thank you very much. That's brilliant. And how can listeners follow you? Keep up to date with what you're working, what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my Instagram is at gdgregphoto and my website is gdgregcom.
Speaker 1:Is there a set for social media channel for your AI work?
Speaker 2:The AI generated work will feature every now and again. I'm doing a push on weddings at the moment by trying to film my Instagram with different sites and stuff that I try and cover. So, yeah, get in touch.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Thank you for watching. It's been brilliant speaking to you today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
