On The Couch with Jarrad Seng

Jarrad Seng is a filmmaker, creative director, photographer, and podcaster. He specializes in music photography, which allows him to combine his greatest passions. Regularly commissioned to shoot interesting projects around the world, he tries to balance this out with his own creative photographic pursuits. We caught up with Jarrad to find out how he got started and carved a name for himself in this competitive field. 

While Jarrad is well-known for his digital content creation and absolute enthusiasm about it today, it wasn’t a career he’d always dreamed of. An excellent student at school, he went on to study law at university, thinking this was a sophisticated, logical path. However, throughout high school and uni, music was his true passion. He found himself going to concerts every weekend and constantly looking for ways to get involved in music. 

He became the music editor for his uni’s paper, which is what exposed him to photography. When a big festival was coming to Perth he put his name down as a reviewer. When filling out the form, he confirmed he’d have a photographer with him. To his surprise, they sent him a photo pass. Jarrad hadn’t used a camera before, so had to give himself a crash course in concert photography. He came across a blog post by Daniel Boud (also a Canon shooter), which was his only guidance.

A natural, Jarrad found this first experience taking photos easy, and he loved how the camera allowed him to get so close to bands. He went on to do nightclub photography, which was his first paid photography job. It wasn’t as fun as concert photography but he doesn’t regret it. 

This is typical of Jarrad’s attitude to life and his work, which is to try new things. He loves meeting new people and travelling, which his projects allow him to do. Jarrad says he loses inspiration if he stays in the same place for too long. Although, he always loves working in Western Australia, where he grew up and is his base. He was never tempted to move to the East Coast, despite people telling him he’d have more opportunities there.

Photto by: Jarrad Seng

“Western Australia has every kind of landscape you can imagine. Love the people, love everything. There’s lots of inspiration that comes from there.” 

His first introduction to filmmaking occurred when the Canon 7D camera was released. This meant he could take videos too, and he quickly spotted an opportunity. When Matt Corby came to town, he asked if he could take a short video of him, and Matt agreed. From then on, he started contacting bands coming to Perth, asking if he could video them before gigs. The videos were fun and unrehearsed, like Ball Park Music playing with shopping trolleys. 

Jarrad often pushes the boundaries of his comfort zone in the name of his art. The Perth Fashion Festival once commissioned him to fill a window with art for a month. He decided to take portraits for 24 hours. He took one portrait every four to five minutes of strangers. Being quite introverted, this wasn’t easy, but he pushed himself and succeeded. He likes that the camera gives you a reason to talk to someone, and even pursued a similar endeavour of his own in Europe, challenging himself to take a random portrait of someone every day. 

This perseverance once led him to get up at midnight to hike a mountain for a shoot (and he doesn’t like hiking at the best of times). He thinks it’s worthwhile to do whatever it takes to get a unique vantage point. This applies to any location or landmark, where Jarrad recommends walking in the opposite direction from other photographers at times, or further away, to get a different shot. 

Photto by: Jarrad Seng

“I would never do any of these things if it wasn’t for the photo involved.” 

He says the keys to concert photography depend on who you’re working with and if you’ve worked with them before. The pre-production process includes scoping everything out in a venue. He always looks for different areas in a venue to shoot from to get different vantage points. If Jarrad knows the show well, he looks for what will make that night different. Sometimes he’ll use a new lens, e.g. just a 50mm lens for the entire night.

Someone Jarrad has collaborated with extensively is singer, Passenger. They both began their careers around the same time and have watched each other rise up in their work, something that takes a lot of dedication. 

“Keep going, keep going, keep going. If you just keep going long enough, the break will come, you know, your break will come. You just have to keep going.”

Another close collaborator is Benjamin Hardman, also from Perth. They ran multiple photography workshops every year in Iceland, over the space of a few years. His adventures and incredible work over his career were noticed by Canon. He’s one of their ambassadors and they’ve been working closely for about five years now. Canon actually noticed Jarrad before that though, in a very unconventional way. 

Jarrad and some other photographers were finishing a job in New Zealand and waiting around for a helicopter to pick them up. Always on the hunt for another great photo, he spotted an opportunity but his battery was dead and he didn’t have a tripod. Borrowing a camera and tripod quickly, he ran off to set up the shot on the side of the cliff. Alone, he had to set up the timer so he could jump into frame, but kicked the camera over the edge as he did so. 

Retrieving the broken camera in flip flops, he explained what happened to his friend. It turns out the camera was on loan from Canon, so an apologetic email was sent offering to pay for it. Someone at Canon looked up Jarrad’s work and was obviously impressed. Canon’s reply was that the camera was insured so just send it back, and asked if Jarrad wanted to do some work for them. That was eight or nine years ago now.   

Photto by: Jarrad Seng

Jarrad’s always been a fan of Canon products, from the moment he borrowed his first camera (a Canon 450D) from a friend. He liked the preview on the back of the screen and how everything made sense. Other friends had Canons too, so they could swap lenses. He’s stuck with Canon ever since. 

The first camera he owned was a Canon 40D. The main camera he uses today is a Canon R5. His B-camera is an EOS R but he’s thinking about upgrading that to the R6 soon. His three main lenses are the 50mm 1.2, the 70-200 2.8, and the 15-35 2.8. They’re in heavy rotation and all he’ll normally use for a shoot. However, if he has to take just one lens and one body to a shoot, then it’s the R5 and a 28-70 F2.

“There are so many things you can do with a camera, every day the possibilities grow. So I think if you have the chance to chase all these different adventures and experiences, go for it.” 

When it comes to finding the right balance between creative and commercial output, he thinks it’s something that every artistic person struggles with throughout their career. He believes it becomes ever more difficult as you get successful too because you’re constantly trying to weigh up the opportunity cost. However, he thinks working on some of his own projects is important if he wants to leave a legacy of his work. 

“I feel like I’m constantly juggling everything. But, you know, I think you just gotta really ask yourself, what’s the reason that you’re doing everything, and there’ll be different reasons for different jobs or different pursuits but there should still always be a reason.”

Check out the full conversation with Jarrad Seng to learn more about him and how he built a career in digital content creation.