http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk 31
FOLLOWERS OF FILM
make a living from photography,
and can make money by selling the
rights to pictures I’ve already taken,
which is great as you just send the
file and get paid. I also sell prints.
‘I made a book of my pictures that
I published and sold myself which
has worked out well. I found it was
much better than going with a
publisher as you only get a tiny
fraction of the sale price that way.
The worst bit was storing all the
books in my apartment and having
to post them all!’
Despite his large following and the
fact that he earns his living from
photography, Louis says he doesn’t
feel like a photographer. ‘I’m just
creating memories,’ he says. ‘I started
photography just to have pictures I
could look back on of places I was in
and people I knew, and I’m still
trying to do that – making pictures
for when I’m old. When I go back to
old photos I feel the same thing I felt
at the time. Pictures unlock
memories in the same way that
smell can – and without these
reminders you can’t always conjure
those memories from the back of
your head. Photos bring those
feelings back and make me feel like
I’m in the same moment.’The trappings of success
Louis has come to a point where he
wants to move on from working in
double exposures, but as he has
become very well known for them
he is finding it a challenge to change
direction. His social media followers
expect his pictures to be double
exposures, and no matter how good
his single-exposure pictures are they
vote with the ‘Like’ button and
almost demand more of what they
came to him for. Rather than him
defining his own style, double
exposures have come to define him
as a photographer and it is all that
interviewers want to ask about.
‘I’m now trying not to shoot
double exposures as I feel like I’m
getting stuck. I don’t feel like I know
everything about the technique or
that I’ve done it all, but I know how
it works now and feel I want to do
something else. People expect me to
shoot double exposures though so I
know when I don’t give them what
they expect, unless it is something
really awesome, my stats go down.
‘I’m still grateful that people like
my double-exposure work, but I’m
becoming bored shooting it. It’s
a weird feeling. I have to askRobin, Los
Angeles, Summer
2018, Nikon F2,
Portra 400