Jack Bridgland advocates for sticking to your vision and adding a little bit of pink wherever possible.
From there onward Jack dedicated himself to developing his own style and focussing on doing things in his own unique way. This began organically, by taking trips to London and shooting people in London in their “everyday lifestyle”. But, ever in the pursuit of bigger and better things he later transferred his practice to New York – utilising Instagram as one of his foremost tools: “I can’t tell you how important reaching out on Instagram is, otherwise people don’t know you’re there?” Then, after a stint in LA – “everything I had seen in movies in one place” – Jack returned to a “drizzly” London, where every time he wanted to do a shoot it was raining; an aspect this month’s audience could definitely relate to. This, Jack explained, was a foremost moment in his career, as it pushed him off the streets and into the studio.
The real standout moment of Jack’s talk, and perhaps his whole career to date, was his recent shoot with Robert Pattinson, which quite literally took the internet by storm. Funnily enough, Jack nearly missed the opportunity entirely after failing to see an email from Robert’s agent. Eventually being called, Jack shared that “they were like do you want to do a shoot with Robert for GQ global and I tried to play it cool, when in reality I was on mute screaming”. Being afforded creative freedom, the shoot ended up being pretty much everything Jack dreamed of and more. Robert was on board with his wild card idea and they ended up putting eight ideas into one, taking the actor through a process of roughened transformation, resulting in Jack’s most iconic photo to date: Robert in a white vest, gold teeth glinting and bleached spiked hair, sporting a sinister grin. Jack ended powerfully, by sharing the quote upon which he bases his whole practice: “Don’t give people what they want, give people what they don’t know they want.”
Jack Bridgland began his talk with a situation we’re sure many creatives can relate to: “I didn’t know what I wanted to do at school.” This declaration was teamed perfectly with a (very cute) image of Jack in primary school blown up on the big screen. In his later years in education, getting a feel for photography, Jack admitted to not being too fussed about the way it was taught: “you’re learning a lot about technicality and old photographers, but not about how to be on time for a shoot.”