fter he was laid off in 2006,
Tim Wallace traded in his
silver Audi A4. Approach-
ing his 40th birthday, the
unemployed corporate
manager of data net-
work systems decid-
ed to return to pho-
tography, his initial
career and rst love. He sat down with a
notepad at the dining table in his northeast
England home to brainstorm a plan. “By din-
nertime I hadn’t written anything down and
was very caffeinated,” he says. “A bit twitchy,
but I could still hold a pen.”
For ve days Wallace scribbled. At the end
he had a business strategy for AmbientLife, a
commercial photography business for pres-
tige automobiles. The skills and experience
Wallace had gathered over a lifetime of en-
trepreneurship contributed to AmbientLife’s
success, and he’s since expanded into pres-
tige maritime and aviation transportation
photography. Nevertheless, those ve days
of brainstorming were essential in creating
a detailed road map, starting with trading in
his silver Audi A4 for a black metallic Audi
A4. He needed it for practicing.PRODIGY PRINTER
Wallace learned to print before he learned to
shoot. He was seven when his grandfather,
who didn’t like mailing off his lm for de-
veloping, talked his grandson into learning
how to do it. Standing on a stool in the gar-
den shed, little Tim developed and printed
rolls of 120mm lm, sworn to secrecy lest
Grandma, fearing he’d fall into the chemi-
cals, put an end to the enterprise. Wallace’s
entrepreneurial life began when he was 12
while attending school in Gibraltar. Boat
owners who needed their keels cleaned
paid 300 pounds sterling to have their crafts
hauled out of the marina slips. Wallace, a
diver, offered to clean the keels in the water
for 30 pounds sterling. “In two years, I was
completely booked up,” he says. “Most peo-
ple were really, really nice, and if they were
nice, I’d do a fantastic job. A couple of people
were really nasty to me, so I’d stay under the
boat and read a book.” This business creed
has evolved with maturity. He turns down po-
tential clients who signal red ags, but for the
clients he accepts Wallace adds a non-con-
tracted image or service: “That little extra bit
of value to knock it out of the park,” he says.
Wallace saved up to buy his rst camera, a54
Ricoh KR-10 (which he still occasionally uses) and
joined a Gibraltar photography club. Film was ex-
pensive, but a surveillance photographer noted his
darkroom skills and offered a deal: The photog-
rapher would provide Wallace tins with 250 feet
of lm if Wallace would teach him printing. “I’d
lock myself in a wardrobe and roll my own lm.”
When he returned to England, 18-year-old Wallace
became the Daily Mail’s darkroom manager. Pho-
tographers visiting from around the world began
sending him their negatives to print portfolios.
“I’m probably still a better printer than photog-