GARTH BADGER - young at heart fishing enthusiast, turned professional fashion photographer - is mapping the way for other New Zealand photographers to follow.  With a pure passion and and drive for photography, Garth picked the rocky road as an intern for American photographer Nicholas Wagner, whilst he was in New York in the mid-00's. So with some interning experience behind him, as well as a fluke exhibition in Canada - having only committing to photography a few years ago - you've got to give him kudos for the hard work that has got him to where he is today!

Garth's beautifully timeless editorials, never cease to amaze me. He creates aesthetically pleasing moments, adeptly capturing them forevermore in a still-photo-moment. Read on, for our discussion on how moving image is a direction that Badger is heading in - as are a lot of other photographers currently. Garth Badger is definitely an up and coming photographer to keep your eye on, as his innovative 3D editorial in the latest Remix magazine proves - his amazing work kicking up a storm, both locally and internationally.

COUP DE MAIN: Tell us a bit about how you got into professional photography...

GARTH BADGER: I'm completely self taught. I didn't pick up a camera until I was about twenty-five. I had no idea I wanted to be a photographer. I was a beekeeper for a long, long time. Photography was just something I started as a hobby while I was traveling, trying to take better photos. Then I had a realisation that people actually do this for a living and there's no reason why I can't, as well.

CDM: When were you absolutely positive that you wanted to pursue it as a full-time career?

GARTH: It was three years ago when I started doing just photography. I was overseas. When I came back, I made a conscious decision that if I was going to earn any money it was going to be from photography, and nothing else. I wasn't going to accept anything else as a profession. I wasn't going to work in bars to make money, I wasn't going to do any other little bits and pieces. It was either photography or the street.

CDM: So what did you study in high-school, what were your interests then?

GARTH: Fishing.

CDM: Where did you grow up?

GARTH: Gisborne... I didn't go to University, because I had no idea of where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to do. I sort of left the country, started moving around and just experiencing things, rather than breaking straight into something I was unsure of. That didn't make sense, it wasn't right for me.

CDM: Where did you travel? What was your favourite place?

GARTH: New York was amazing, it was incredible. I lived there for about six months. There are lots of beautiful parts of Canada, I really enjoyed Canada. Didn't really get much out of the UK, I found the UK a bit bland.

CDM: Did you train or study in New York?

GARTH: I did an internship in New York, for a fashion photographer called Nicolas Wagner. This was just before I came back to New Zealand, when I had realised that I wanted to be a photographer. I honestly just called one person [ Nicolas ] and he was like: "Yeah you can be my intern". He was shooting 'Flaunt' magazine at the time. He shot quite a big few people - he had shot Madonna. He's not a huge, huge photographer there, but he was of a high enough calibre to be shooting Madonna. He was a great, great person to work with.

CDM: I love the idea of 'interning' - America has it down!

GARTH: There is a far better system in America, it makes so much sense. As a photographer you start off as an unpaid intern, then you go from being a second assistant to a first assistant, then you can become a photographer. Where as here, you get people that sort of jump the queue and don't really know anything about photography. They think that they are photographers right off the bat. Sometimes you get people straight out of school that want to get into assisting, but still aren't at a level of understanding about the industry, even though they have just had three or four years of school. They still don't know enough about the industry to start assisting properly. They really should be doing an internship, or the internship should be part of the school curriculum, at least a year working with professional photographers.

CDM: Even across other industries - such as Fashion - I think it makes a lot more sense to work or gain experience in the industry that you are interested in whilst studying...

GARTH: Because you need to prove that you want to do something, with money not being an object. There is great money in photography at certain levels. But to get there, it can't be about the money. It's got to be a burning desire in your heart. You need to love it. The interning side of it will weed out the people that are just in it for the money.

CDM: Commercial projects aside, do personal projects help you sustain your inspiration?

GARTH: I don't think I'd ever stop doing my personal projects. Personal projects are what get you the big jobs. When you take your book into someone, they aren't interested in what you've done for other people. They want to know what you do for yourself. Really good Art Directors will know this. That's where you are baring your soul, that is when you are saying: "this is who I am, this is what I do". This is why I love what I do, enough to spend thousands of dollars on a shoot for myself. They find that far more interesting, and it gives them more of a perspective on who you are, and whether or not they should book you. So personal projects - whilst they are great - personally, they are also a marketing tool as well.

CDM: Where do you get your inspiration from for your personal projects?

GARTH: It is from the most random of objects... I enjoy old films - I get a lot of inspiration from old films, especially imagery-wise. The interesting look with a flare coming off the camera, the old-skin view look from old film and old photographs. A lot of my inspiration comes from 'the look' of a photo, or 'the look' of the film. Like a scratch on a film. There is a feeling it conveys, rather than actually what happens in the photo.

CDM: In a way, do you think that how a musician speaks through the rhythm and lyrics of a song, is similar to the way that a photographer is able to speak through their captured photos?

GARTH: Yeah, I think all photographers - as I said before - are baring their souls through their photographs. I think it's a way of expressing how you see the world. Like film-makers showing the world through their film, and painters showing how they view the world through their paintings. It's a way of expressing yourself, in a way that words can never express.

CDM: Congratulations on your 'Remix' editorial! How did you come up with the idea for the 3D editorial photo-shoot?

GARTH: One thing with my photography, I wanted to steer away from typical two-dimensional photography and typical structured, boring photographs. I wanted mine to have more of a film-like quality. I wanted there to be more going on, then just the one image. After doing a few little experiments with 3D, I realised there is just so much going on in a 3D image - I mean, there's another dimension! *laughs* Yeah, and there is no such thing as 4D, I'm working on that... I want to offer more than what most people would imagine.

CDM: What is the process like when shooting and editing 3D photos?

GARTH: It is a multi sort of photograph process - that basically is representing the way we see with the two perspectives of our two eyes. You are given two images, looking through the glasses cancels out certain parts of each image, and your brain actually makes up the rest. A lot of the image that you see is not actually there. Your brain makes it up, because it can see 'this' and 'that', it finishes the image.

CDM: I read that you have exhibited in Canada? Please tell all...

GARTH: When I was in Canada, I was allowed into a religious group in Canada called 'Hutterites'. They are a very closed-off community of people, originally from Germany. They are very self-sustained, they work on a farm and all of their children work on the farm. They are very much like the Amish, possibly even more closed off. Through my beekeeping, I actually met this guy from this community. He would come and buy beekeeping supplies from us. He actually invited me back to his community, and I asked if I could bring my camera, and he let me bring my camera and take a few photos. I was one of the very few people allowed into this place - and got to photograph them - so it was quite an amazing experience really. Then once an art gallery had word that I had taken these photos, they asked me to exhibit them, so yeah! It was great, and something I do want to do more of in the future... I'll need a good enough idea.

CDM: Future projects... What can we keep our eye out for in terms of your upcoming work?

GARTH: I'm moving into video in a big way at the moment. Probably already 50% of what I do now is moving-image. I'm really wanting to blow the line between the two - it's a very common thing for photographers to move into moving-image. Most of them never look back either, most of them hit the moving-image and wouldn't imagine taking a still-image later on. That may happen to me, who knows? But it's really creative and it's fun. I'm going to focus on more of a fashion-y side of videos, like cool fashion videos, music videos, beautiful adverts and things like that. It's been an exciting way to bring my skills that I have in the photography industry through into something else.

CDM: Lastly, do you have any advice for aspiring photographers?

GARTH: To anybody in an artistic field: identify what you like, whose work you would like to emulate, and with what sort of direction you want to go. Don't copy it! Use it as a base to where you want to go. Use it as a starting point. Never try and copy anything, but take as many attributes from as many things as you can.

Click HERE to see Garth's 'WILD' shoot or HERE to see his 'Risk and Adventure' video.

www.garthbadger.co.nz