One Great Idea – Meet Mick Buston

If you have a blog, you know the routine. Create a new post, approve and answer questions in your comments, add new features. A while back as I read through my comments, I came across one that really captured my attention to a post I had created, Are You An Artist Or Just Another Photographer? So being the Internet surfer I am, I clicked over to his site and started following the trail. And again, I was enthralled in what I saw. So…

I would like to introduce you to Mick Buston.

Even though Mick is fairly new to photography, its his journey that captured my attention. He didn’t want to become a traditional photographer, jumping at the portrait and wedding markets. He didn’t want to do what thousands of other photographers are doing – and struggling to some extent. So he set out on a new path. Rather than telling you about his journey, let me show you instead.

As you can see from his photographs, he’s a great storyteller. And his goal is to  “Create  photo story books based on my own creations, my visions, my interpretations. Kind of like a visual writer.” I love that concept – a visual writer.

Mick also recognizes the fact that “Digital photography has many pluses but one negative is that too many images remain on a hard drive somewhere, lost, buried, forgotten, essentially abandoned.” Yep, I couldn’t agree more. And with many photographers simply handing over CD/DVD’s of the images, and people storing them that way without every printing things, we’re producing a generation that will eventually have no memories from the most important events in their lives. So Mick’s idea of becoming a “visual writer” is right on, and I feel in the future one he is going to do very well with.

So I sent over a variety of questions, to dig deeper into his photography goals.

Mick provided such great responses to my questions, I want to provide his answers in their entirety. I enjoyed reading through his progression to where he is today, and I know you’ll get  caught up in the story too.

Interview

My name is Mick Buston and I am a UK-based photographer predominantly working on self-assigned music and editorial photography projects.

LORI: What was the process for finding what you are truly passionate about?
MICK: I left school with pretty much no qualifications and went straight to work in the construction industry as a plasterer.  My father was a plasterer and so it was a natural progression for me to do this.  In total I spent around 14 years in construction, including  18 months working in Germany, before finally deciding to try something else.

I applied for a job as a sales administrator in ’96, more for interview practice than anything else, and to my surprise I got it.  This started in place another 14 year period of work with various employers in a series of sales, marketing and management roles.

In between this I also set up my own business marketing a product I designed to help people to stop smoking.  The reality of launching a new product into such a competitive market meant that I did not have sufficient funds to carry on so after 18 months I made the difficult decision in February 2009 to close the company.

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