Can you tell me a bit about the company and your career trajectory?
Lucid is a small photographic agency, we represent photographers and photographer/directors that do short form content. It’s broadly lifestyle, so we do all the things that relate to people, food, places, objects and people.
I’ve always been interested in photography but I worked on films and TV adverts for a while and then I started temping at a photo library. From there I worked in magazines and newspapers and then hopped the fence and became an agent. I initially worked with an interiors agency and then set up on my own as Lucid over 15 years ago.
How do you manage your work/life balance being a freelancer. What do you do to switch off?
You are always more ‘on’. Sometimes you are working until midnight on a treatment with a photographer, but I also don’t have to explain to anybody why I’ve gone to see the kids play in the afternoon, or go and see an exhibition I think is important. There are definitely ups and downs to it but the wins are your wins. When you see one of your artists campaigns on a billboard near your office and you think ‘we made that’, it’s a joyous, tangible pleasure and you can feel proud of yourself.
Do you have any daily or weekly work habits/rituals?
I try and do 5 a day emails, asking for appointments, introducing myself or reconnecting myself which is a good habit to get into. Instagram posting is really important but takes up a lot of time. But the rest of it, I can expect to know what I’m doing that day and then a phone call or email comes in and the whole day turns upside down. I’m somebody who likes it when everything changes and let’s go go go, that to me is part of the joy of the job.
Do you use any tech tools that simplify your life?
I use Later for posting on socials which I can do at the beginning of the week then it’s done. I make a lot of use of my google drive and google sheets. Generally I find that unless those tools are embedded in the beginning of something, you’re always trying to put back in all that information that you’ve built over a long time.
How do you split your time between your artists?
That is really tricky. If we’re posting about people or writing stuff I try and make sure there is an equal balance that people get. There are definitely tasks that I do that are for everybody and then there are tasks for individuals. That varies, some weeks someone might need loads more work from you and other times they might need nothing and you’re concentrating on someone else. It’s not regimented but it’s definitely making sure at the end of the week, has everybody had x or y. Is everybody’s work showing up in a similar way and you’re making sure everyone has the same visibility. But also the job is responsive so you just have to make sure that they feel connected.
What do you think being an agent means?
I think it is like a marriage, you are both responsible for making it work. You’re like a cheerleader, but it’s also important that you’re not a yes person the whole time. You have to be the person that says I’m not sure that is worth following, or is this the best use of your time. You have to have the guts to be able to say that and you have to tell them bad news, if they’ve worked really hard on getting a job and the job hasn’t happened, you’re the person that has to call them and tell them that. You’ve got to really trust each other, you’ve got to really like each other and you’ve got to both understand where that career is going.
How do you explain your job to someone who isn’t in the industry?
I talk about marriage, I talk about trust. Sometimes I say I’m like a jewish matchmaker, but I’m matching jobs rather than marriage. You’re putting the right people in the right place and supporting them the best way you can.
What are the perks of the job?
People. I like people and I like that you get to talk to people on both sides. You can be quite creatively fulfilled doing this job, I always say it’s creatively adjacent but actually you are part of the creative process. I also love that a thing tangibly exists at the end of this. We make things that exist and there aren’t many jobs that you can say that.
What do you think is the most useful thing to have or know as an agent?
That we all make mistakes, the ability to be humble and apologise and the ability to think laterally. Partly as an agent and partly as a producer, things will always go wrong and you have to be able to not panic about that. You might have spent months putting a photographer together for a job and given them a 1st option then the photographer says something else has come in or there’s been a mix up in the diary, you have to solve that problem and it can be frustrating but you have to be able to be confident at owning when things go wrong.
Which artists talent would you most like to have?
The talent of being able to go to a place that has maybe been photographed a million times before, but find that tiny moment or element that is totally different about it and see it in a new light which I think is what Tom Parker and Yuki Sugiura do really amazingly. Or the ability to just evoke emotion, we’ve just taken on Lydia Goldblatt and her work is so beautiful and when I was editing it for the website it just made me smile every time I was looking at it.
Do you have a good podcast or book recommendation?
My favourite things to listen to at the moment is something called Add to Playlist, it’s on BBC sounds. They play six songs and all the songs have to relate to each other, what I love about it is I feel like I learn something, they talk about musical techniques and the way music works and. I’m always adding things to my playlist.
That’s Not My Age is another brilliant podcast and that’s grown up women talking about fashion.
Favourite office snack?
We love a hot cross but at all times of the year but at this time of year the office freezer has had a lot of snickers ice creams which we’ve all decided are much nicer than actual snickers!
A shoot you love from any point in time.
One I always really loved is the Tim Walker fluffy cats covered in powder. Truly bonkers and truly fabulous. I love that a mind thinks of that and a whole team says yes absolutely let’s do it. And it’s not CGI or AI and it’s just what true creativity is.