Sean Tucker

The photographer and author of The Meaning in the Making Photography will speak at The Show in March. Niall Hampton finds out what can we expect

Sean Tucker will appear at the NEC in Birmingham on 16 March to discuss his book The Meaning in the Making, an exploration of the importance of creativity. The book draws on Tucker's career, as well as insights from his psychology degree. Rather than specialising in one photographic genre, Tucker produces work across the spectrum, taking in portraiture, still-life product photography and street photography.

Digital Camera readers can get a good flavour of his work on his YouTube channel, which offers many highly polished informative tutorials, equipment discussions and much more. But we sat down with Tucker to get a flavour of what to expect in his upcoming talk...

What has your photography journey been to date?

I didn't work as a photographer for the first 30 years of my life; I enjoyed photography as a child but didn't do anything with it. In my 20s, I worked for the church in South Africa, as an ordained pastor, and started doing videos for corporates to subsidise my income, because the church didn't pay very well. I had just turned 30 when I ended my job with the church and a friend of mine said that if you have to start a new career at 30, then you might as well pick the thing you want to do and see if you can make it work.

At that time, photography and video were definitely my main passions. It took me three or four years of trying – and failing – to launch my photography career, working in restaurants as a waiter to pay the bills. Then I got my first full-time job with a kitchenware company called Yuppie Chef; it hired me as its food and product photographer, and then as a food photographer for its magazine.