091: Neale Haynes/Through The Lens

“Doesn’t matter if it’s Spielberg or Dr Dre, they just want to think you know what you’re doing. Even when you don’t.”
Shining a light in stories you may not know about, or speaking to people who are deserving of a wider audience, is a really important part of the Looking Sideways ethos. That’s why my guests have included journalists, activists, chefs and musicians, as well as the big-name professional athletes we all know.
And it’s why I invited my old friend Neale Haynes onto the podcast for this week’s episode. Neale is a photographer, although that description really doesn’t do justice to the life Haynsey has led for the past 30 years.

It’s a truly picaresque tale, which sees Neale (a man definitely both under a lucky star), forge a truly remarkable career that takes in the birth of Loaded and lad mag culture, sees him set up a ground-breaking action sports stock agency; and generally garner enough shameless, name-dropping anecdotes to give DJ BBQ, previous Looking Sideways namedrop world record holder, some serious competition.

Yes, this is a romp of a conversation in which Neale outlines the entire rollicking tale, while also imparting a couple of really salutary life lessons which apply to everybody, no matter what they’re trying to achieve.

Sure, it’s nice to embark upon a three-week road trip around California. But sometimes it is equally nice to hop on a train to London and sit down with an old mate who you know has had one of the maddest, most incident-packed and downright successful careers of anybody you know. So that’s what I did.
Hope you enjoy the episode. Listen to it below:
Connect with Neale
Show Notes
- Hanging out on the 10th floor at The B&H Garden Room, London.
- Surfboat in the Maldives.
- Having 3 kids: “they’re not so hard to look after”.
- House in Cornwall.
- Blue Juice.
- Surf doubles.
- Windsurfing the docklands as a kid.
- Interning at Allsport.
- Meeting Graeme Chalmers.
- Neale’s book.
- Early 90s snowboard magazine commission.
- Christian Stevenson’s unrivalled success.
- Shooting mainstream sports.
- Allsport bought by Getty.
- First X Games.
- His career break with Loaded.
- 90s Lads Mags and Britpop culture.
- Working with Tim Southwell, James Brown, Martin Deeson and Bill Borrows.
- “Non-stop adventures for years”.
- Fosters funding a trip to Australia.
- “Where there was the battle of the bands between Blur and Oasis, there was the battle of the magazines”.
- Loaded changing the magazine landscape.
- Syndicating his picture library.
- Setting up Buzz Pictures.
- Building reputation across extreme sports.
- “Surround yourself with people who know what they’re doing”.
- Shooting before digital.
- The internet boom devaluing the work of images.
- Shooting Sylvester Stallone in his plus 4s.
- Moving between worlds as a photographer.
- Shooting big name celebrities: “there’s a lot of things that can go wrong”.
- “Every photographer has a million stories behind their photos”.
- The art of blagging.
- Shooting Ron Howard.
- Shooting Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine for The Defiant Ones.
- “Experience really does pay”.
- His process behind shoots with little control.
- Vinny Jones’ portrait.
- Signed with a new agent.
- “Photography is a changing market”.
- Negotiating industry changes.
- “As a photographer all you want to do is take pictures”.
- His relationship with social media.
- “The still image is still needed”.
- Taking iconic shots.
- Starting out as a photographer in 21st century.
- Being a triple threat before going niche.
People Mentioned
- DJ BBQ
- Tom Kay
- Steve England
- Gabe Davis
- Euan McGregor
- Catherine Zeta Jones
- Alex Williams
- Graeme Chalmers
- Nick Hamilton
- Chod
- Stuart Brass
- Christian Stevenson
- Tim Southwell
- James Brown
- Martin Deeson
- Bill Burrows
- Beastie Boys
- George Best
- Evel Knievel
- Shaun White
- Terje Haakenson
- Kelly Slater
- Laird Hamilton
- Ted Grambeau
- Tim McKenna
- Nick Hamilton
- Sylvester Stallone
- Bill Gates
- Steven Soderbergh
- Ron Howard
- Mario Testino
- Gloria Estefan
- Steven Spielberg
- Vinny Jones
- Boris Becker
- Elias Elhardt
- Jamie Brisick
Places Mentioned
- Innsbruck
- Maldives
- St Agnes, Cornwall
- Lanzarote, Spain
- Capbreton, France
- Hossegor, France
- Biarritze, France
- Colliers Wood, London
- Rhode Island, New York
- Canary Islands, Spain
- Putney, London
- Indonesia
- Chamonix
- Munich
- Friedrichshafen
Companies/Brands/Organisations Mentioned
- Loaded
- Finisterre
- Ripcurl
- Quicksilver
- Allsport
- Ski & Snowboard Festival
- The Press Awards
- Snowboard UK
- White Lines
- Snowboard World
- Getty
- X Games
- Sky Magazine
- IPC Publishing
- Fosters
- Maxim
- FHM
- Esquire
- Marie-Claire
- The Arctic Challenge
- Winter X Games
- Buzz Pictures
- Conde Nast Traveller
- Reebok
- News of the World
- Type 2 Podcast
- OutDoor by ISPO