Based in Sydney, The POOL Collective now looks after a total of eight interdisciplinary photographers working across a variety of specialisation and genres, including motion. Backed by a full-time production team and Managing Director Cameron Gray, POOL also operates as a traditional collective with a focus on personal projects and working to support each other – something that’s been part of the way things have been done from the outset.
What were the driving motivations behind the formation of The POOL Collective?
Sean Izzard: I had been entertaining the idea of creating a kind of ‘drop-in’ centre for photographers at my studio. Like many other photographers that spend most of their time alone in their spaces, I was keenly aware of the value that comes from getting together to share ideas and projects; it’s where the juice is.
Simon, who was living in NYC at the time and unhappy with his representation in Australia said, “You should start a production company”. Most production company and photo agencies are run to make a profit for the owners, which is fine. But along with that comes a number of things which aren’t necessarily in the best interests of the photographers represented.
I realised that with a full-time producer and two photographers already based from my studio I had pretty much what I need already in place to get the ball rolling. Combined with the other ‘drop-in’ idea, Simon’s idea started to make sense. Hence POOL was born, based on the tenets of sharing, motivating, supporting, and creating. Plus, we dropped all of the things we didn’t like about the traditional repping agencies. We just needed a name – and we had a pool. Perfect…
Simon Harsent: I think one of the driving factors was disappointment with how photographers were being represented, not just in a commercial way but also in the way photographers interacted with each other.
Sean and I wanted to set up a space for photographers to contribute to each other, share ideas and knowledge, somewhere that provided creative interaction where we could feed off each other’s enthusiasm.
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