Who or what is DrPhotophonics?

My name’s Dave, and I’m a bit of a creative all rounder.

I never really liked the idea of staying in my lane… or sticking to one discipline, and I have an insatiable hunger for learning new things. Mainly stemming from music. So if you don’t mind, I’ll outline how I came to create DrPhotophonics, and if you’re not bothered… don’t feel like you have to read on if you don’t want!

I started playing guitar when I was about 11, and by age 12, was starting a band, and writing music, playing gigs and doing all the things that teenagers do. It was alright! For a bunch of pre-teens, we actually weren’t bad, but “due to musical differences” we decided after about a year and a bit, to call it a day. From that point on, I was in 75% of the bands that were around in one way or another. Mainly guitar, a lot of the time singing, sometimes bass guitar… I drummed for a soul band for a while, that was fun… anyway! So after finishing school at 18… I already had a good solid 5 years of gigging experience and got a job teaching music and music production for a secondary school. I loved that job and it taught me a lot, and I wanted to learn more, so I applied for a certain notorious music college in Brighton for musicians. I didn’t take very well to it, but I’m glad I did it nonetheless.

Running alongside this, I had also been doing a fair amount of acting in the local theatre and was getting more and more interested in the thespian life. However, making it in acting seemed much less likely for me than music. After all I’d been doing it a lot longer!

So after a relatively short time, producing other peoples demos and EPs… I joined another band, and another one, and another one… and found that, decent photographers and videographers were hard to come by… and when you could find one, they were impossible to tie down to book for a shoot, and even more impossibly expensive. This got me thinking… I already know what musicians want, because I am one… and I’ve always been keen on production of all crafts… I love good photography… I love film… yeah! I’m gonna sort out the music video and promo photos for this band!

This kick started a whole new passion. I’d always found cameras fascinating, and even more the effects you could do with them and with the software afterwards, and the experience I had working with music software, kinda gave me a head-start when learning visual stuff!

After this point, I decided to do a bit of traveling and working. I did a year stint playing Danny in a Mallorca production of “Grease” and another year performing the hits of Backstreet Boys, N*SYNC, Boyzone and Take That, before return to the guitar and vocals to take on a contract band in Dubai for a year. These contracts meant I could hone my photography and videography skills, whilst being paid to hone the musical skills which was pretty much a dream.

I moved back to sunny Kent in 2019 and have been setting myself up at home to deliver the same quality stuff that I’ve learnt to love delivering abroad. The last few years have been filled with challenges, but I’ve had the pleasure of working with some fantastic clients including rising songwriters and racing drivers all the way to churches and charities, and worked with some amazing determined and talented creative producers and directors, each time learning from each of them. I’m now performing in multiple musical outfits, taking headshot, portrait, promotional and editorial photography… videography from music videos to promotion campaigns and designing logos and creating content for both budding and well established organisations. Myself and some friends have also bundled together for wedding packages which are pretty unique!

So all in all… I’m a musician, singer, a songwriter and producer. A director, a film-maker and an editor, a photographer and retoucher, but at the end of the day. I’m Dave, and I love what I do. So if you’re in need of content of any description, gimme a shout and let’s talk about you! What you want, what you need, why you need it, and how we can make it work together.

Lets get creative!