Samuel Bingham

New Zealand

I do photography as a hobby and as a passion. I have aimed more towards the video aspect as I find it a lot more creative and enticing.

I went to university to study marketing and tourism. I didn't really know what I wanted to study, but I got ushered into it by my parents. It was an interesting topic because I did enjoy it and the reason they thought I’d be good at it is that a lot of tv marketing worked so well on me, so I understood the viewer’s process. 

In my first year at University, I met Ron,  who I take a lot of inspiration from in regards to film and photography. We started just going around with a GoPro and shooting sunsets and the great outdoors. The love for photography snowballed from there. You save for a better camera, you learn some new techniques and for me, this just continued and continued From there me and Ron met a dude called Josh, and that’s been our crew since, we chat a lot about video work, prospects, ideas, gear and film ambitions. It’s been awesome having these boys to support and bounce ideas off and so on. 

Otago (where I studied) has lots going on, gigs and events, but when I started there was not a lot of filming and coverage of them, they have more traditional media, for example, the Otago Daily Times. We hit it at the right time really; there was an opportunity to gain this experience without the pressure of “filming the event”. It turned into filming street parties which were terrific; it was a great time with no pressure to deliver. I was focusing on filming so I did miss out on the party side of it. I wasn’t getting paid to do the street parties, but the videos I created ended up getting lots of views organically. 

Since returning to Christchurch from Dunedin, I’ve been working at Photo & Video in Merivale Mall where we sell new and used gear. I do this part-time, so it still gives me the time to create and do my own thing. This job allows me to help people and offer advice from my personal experience and share my knowledge of cameras and techniques with whatever purpose someone might have. 

COVID has made it hard, especially being involved in events, and I have only recently moved back to Christchurch from being down south. Everything I was involved in was word of mouth, and because I had been there for so long and established a reputation, being back in Christchurch, I have to build the name up again in a new environment. 

I have been using my degree in everyday life and in combination with working at the shop, I have noticed some people who are amazing photographers and videographers with great talent and skill yet struggle with marketing themselves. It is sometimes disheartening to see the ones that have huge potential, and that could be the best in the field and studied photography for years, but if you can’t sell yourself, you can’t gain the jobs and credibility you deserve. 

What challenges have you faced so far?

The industry is so saturated now; it feels like every second person is picking up a camera and doing video or photography client work. So that makes it very hard to stand out. You see these posts on channels saying buy these presets, and anyone could buy the presets, and all of a sudden you are out there creating beautiful content that does look good. You see it come up on your feed and think, wow, that's sick. 

But I think the challenge for me has been kind of staying away from all of it, taking a step back from getting trapped on Instagram and the posting everyday culture. Focusing on quality content instead of being like, ‘Oh I need to post today. I'm going to post this photo even though you may not be happy with it.’

Probably attention to detail as well. Obviously a lot of people do have attention to detail with their craft, but the amount of time you spend on a video, I know there will be heaps of people out there who are the same mindset as me. For a one minute Instagram video, you'll spend like a week or two, watching it over. It'd be like, oh, I could change this, could change that. So I think standing out is hard. And the algorithm makes it even harder.

I'm connecting with people on Instagram, just chatting with them, but so many people aren’t genuine on Instagram, they'll go through and like all your content, and they won't follow you or something. Trying to get you to notice them, but they won't put that effort out.

Instagram is probably like the easiest, medium. Whenever I have something to share, it's always Instagram because it's so accessible but insane at the same time, your content gets lost so easily because there's so much stuff there. 

I've found that people on Instagram have a short attention span. Purely because it's scrolling. It’s just scrolling, they'll look at your video, or they'll look at your photo, but they will get 2 seconds into a caption, and they will just keep scrolling. It's just endless. There’s no endpoint to show, I've found with Facebook, it's more of a page rather than a feed.

Facebook also targets the older generation as well, people over 30, your mom's and your dad's, people who are in the workplace, and they kind of navigate to your page. They’ll spend, 5, 10, 15 minutes, looking at your content, which is a lot better than going to Instagram, looking at someone's profile for a few seconds and finding reasons to lose interest. 

Another thing, I've really put in the effort into consistency... having everything in the same layout, or the same kind of graphic design, just so when you look at the specific content, you think ‘Oh, this is cool. This is unique.’ And when you look at the whole thing as a feed, or as a page is super clean and super tidy. 

What have been some highlights of your journey so far?

So it's been good going around New Zealand and seeing all these places that I've been to as a kid and now seeing them in a different kind of perspective, after developing a photographic eye. Which has been really cool! All of a sudden you have a lot more appreciation for like where we live instead of “I just want to get to Europe, go on the big OE (overseas experience)” 

My mate went to Rarotonga last year, and we filmed some content for the Cook Islands tourism team. That was pretty sick!

That was seven days of straight filming. We were up for sunrise every morning, shooting the sunset, and shooting Astro. We were so knackered. People often ask about these trips, hinting that they must be so relaxing, you must have such a great time. I usually say ‘oh, I have a great time, but it's definitely not relaxing in any way, shape or form, I often come back more tired after the trip than before!’

It's also very rewarding when you get people who you don't know at all, come into the shop or they see you out and about, or they see you at an event, and they're like,” yo man, I've seen your stuff, it’s so sick, keep doing what you're doing”. That’s always a good feeling as well. 

What are other resources? 

Word of mouth is a big one for me because the New Zealand community is so small.

Everyone knows everyone somehow! It’s like the 2degrees catchphrase, “everybody knows someone who knows someone.” (You can watch this 1 min 2degrees ad with Rhys Darby, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xanuq8Hz00 

So it's also doing good work, and people are going to notice you if you make good stuff, it’s natural for people to see it. People have a sort of respect for you almost, as long as you're chill and you communicate with people, don't screw over anyone and take other people’s clients or anything like that. It's usually pretty good. That's the thing with New Zealanders, most people do have their portfolio of clients, and we’re such a laid back bunch.

If you get people who come up to you and say “I need a wedding photographer”, and I don’t do wedding photography, but I've got people I know that do... I’ll refer to them, that’s always good, especially collaborations, and just knowing other people in the community.

What advice do you have for people who want to pursue their passion?

In terms of overall passion, just put the hours in, if you're passionate about something, just put the work because there's no other way to get from A to B.

It’s not one sentence, ‘Oh, this is my passion’, and then expect it overnight. 

Also obviously, with social media, it is a highlight reel, you know, social media is your best moment’s or your best looking moment’s. People don't often see that.

For example, for the past 10 days, I've spent every day hunched over my computer, building a new website and that's what people don't see. You’ve just gotta put in the work to get there you know! 

I usually say that if you have a day off,  just go out and shoot, just play around. 

In terms of passion for photography... just go out and shoot, again put in the hours.

You can't get anywhere in photography or videography without shooting and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations.

It kind of back-fires on me because for example, I’m not a big fan of shooting weddings and I should shoot weddings more. It's just not my thing. But, I should be shooting them more to gain more experience in such stressful situations(for myself).

There are other videography paths that I want to go down that aren't related to weddings.

One thing that I'm trying to focus on now is the direction of my subject because it's quite hard to get. If I'm filming someone that isn’t so confident in front of the camera, it can be quite hard to get the model to achieve the look I want, without any guidance. I'm trying to get better at my wording, vocabulary, and the terminology I use to make them understand the sort of shot I want to achieve. So if someone's doing a slow walking shot out on the end of a cliff or something really cinematic, and they’ve never done that before they could just start walking normally, and it doesn't fit the nature of the shot. Whereas I used to be able to, I need to be able to get them to chill and vibing into what they are doing. To get them to understand what I am trying to achieve, try to get them to see what I'm seeing, Through words, it can be quite a challenge.

You should playback your videos to the subject out on set. I like that because I can show them where they’re hitting the spot and where they can improve. They can understand what you want and we both leave knowing that we are both happy with the product. 

What are your next steps & future projects? 

So at the moment, I've got the new website launching where I'm going to be selling prints, which I'm pretty excited about. There's a lot of images on Instagram that are just digital content and I probably wouldn't necessarily print it all out, but there are some photographs that shouldn't sit on a hard drive and they should be sitting on your wall. That's the kind of direction I'm taking with my photography as my passion and hobby photography should be able to tell a story, but it also shouldn't be cliche. 

The whole travel photography game is insanely intense now! The content is beautiful and a lot of it is aesthetic, but there is an artificial nature to it because it’s so edited, people remove trees and heaps of other things to make the image a certain ‘perfection’ if you like. 

I try to keep it as natural as possible and kind of showcase the relationship between humans and nature. Instead of an advertisement, your photography should be more so art and interpretation, everyone will interpret your photo a completely different way allowing the viewer to conclude their own stories from that photograph rather than trying to sell someone something. 

I've got the prints coming in, which will be fun. I don't know how many photographs I've taken over my time as a photographer but probably in the hundreds of thousands of photographs, out of all of them I think I’ve got about 30 images. I've been very picky.

One thing I’ve really focused on that I've learned from my marketing degree is it's not just about the product. It's about the experience of the product. We did heaps of case studies, with one based on the reason why people love Apple. Obviously the product is excellent and beautiful but also opening the product, the packaging, when you crack open a new iPhone and you just get to peel that layer of plastic, it's just satisfying. So that’s the kind of direction I've taken with the prints. I just wanted there to be a point of difference from people who traditionally do prints. I've purchased prints in the past from photographers and their work is incredible, the stuff is amazing, but the attention to detail of the customer experience with the opening of the package was quite bland, it is just packaged in a grey cardboard tube. There was no aesthetic to it. So what I've done is really focused on the customer package experience to complement the product. With instructions and all the boxes ticked.

Well, so during lockdown my mate Cam Hay and I pitched a project to Fujifilm. It’s awesome, we are at the point now where we have developed a relationship between a brand that we love and we love to use, and shoot, we can showcase what we can do with it. It’s awesome that we can go out and create something that stemmed from an idea and give them the content. 

Connect back with Sam:

Website: https://www.binghamcreate.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/binghaam

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/binghaam/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-bingham-a81052117/