Today I talk to an old friend, Darren Bowen, of Darren Bowen Photography. I met Darren when I worked at a Starbucks, downtown. He has since become quite the photographer. It’s a good time catching up, finding out what he’s been up to since I saw him over 10 years ago!

BROOKE

Just for fun, yeah.

DARREN

Yeah. Then people started complaining when I didn’t. Yeah, that’s kind of how the whole picture taking started in its infancy, but it was never going to be a business at that point. It just … That was in 2016 when really the sun of the moon kind of came together and it was a very bizarre happening.

BROOKE

Yeah. Well that’s really neat. Your photographs are just fantastic. I mean, they’re way better than mine or any hobbyist’s.

DARREN

I’m very proud of the work I do, but yeah, it’s real special. I appreciate that Brooke, thank you. 

BROOKE

When you were working for the bank, were you into like any kind of artsy type stuff?

DARREN

Oh yeah. I mean, going way back, going back to when I was a toddler, I was actually going to be a commercial artist.

BROOKE

Oh, neat.

DARREN

I never … Well, I kind of got put off that for various reasons. Then I ended up playing in a band. I was a musician for 10 years in London.

BROOKE

Yeah, I think I knew that.

DARREN

Yeah, and so that’s kind of how it all came about. Then from … Well, from when I came to America until 2009-ish, I was a software engineer and still am actually, but that’s where all my creativity was going. Then I got bored and I hit my 40s and software engineering wasn’t really that much fun anymore. 

DARREN

Anyway, yes. I actually … It first came out that if you saw the Coca-Cola picture ironically, that was the very first picture when I kind of was talking on the phone. I took it with an iPhone 5. I was talking on the phone to the girlfriend, and as we wrapped up, I noticed in the far corner a sign, the Coca-Cola sign. I hung up the phone and walked over into the bushes and simply took that photo with the phone. Then I looked at it and I went, “Oh my God, what have I just taken?” It was just stunning. I really think it’s very … It’s iconic of an iconic logo.

BROOKE

Right.

DARREN

You’d recognize that picture wherever you go. It was that powerful to me, but it wasn’t for another six months that the photography really went anywhere. It was just a wow moment. Yeah, so it was quite strange really. Then I think it was May, May of 2016 when that sun and the moon came together and things just all started happening that I even couldn’t hardly explain because it’s been a really weird journey when I look back on it.

BROOKE

You’ve got some really, really cool partnerships, it seems like. You’re in that coffee place, which I wrote down the name, in Rush Espresso Café, which is in Waxhaw, right?

DARREN

It’s actually … Well, the sad part about that, that’s a bit of a story, but they were in Ballantyne Village. They were in uptown by Hearst Tower and they were also in Latta Arcade. I did … Yeah. They were all over the place and then the guy that ran the show just simply disappeared and went to Florida, I think, and shut everything down.

BROOKE

Good for him. He’s smart.

DARREN

Yeah, it wasn’t a bad idea. Yeah, and I have my work in various places, but predominantly it’s done online and then I do shows on and off as well. I think one of the most fascinating things is in the early days … It’s a very strange feeling when somebody asks you to sign something. Actually it’s-

BROOKE

Yeah, it’s like you’re signing your life away.

DARREN

It’s a really surreal moment. I remember I was doing a small show and this guy walked in and he was just so super excited about one of my prints from a shot I had taken in Charleston. He says, “Oh, is that Charleston?” I said, “Yes.” He says, “I grew up there.” And then he says, “Tell me about this picture.” I started telling him, because most of the pictures, the abstract work or the core work really has a story behind it. That morning I’d come out the hotel and I started following this very southern gentleman down the road and I really loved this hat. I really kind of wanted it. I followed him down to actually a Starbucks. I don’t really know why because it was quite a while ago that was taken, but he just suddenly came out with his whatever he had, his latte, and stood there. If you look at the picture, it’s called Coffee Stop. He just stood there and I was sort of behind him and I thought, “Well okay, I’ll just take a picture for the memory because he’s not going to give me the hat.”

BROOKE

Right.

DARREN

I walked away. That was really the end of that until many years later. Well this guy at the show was all about it and he called it his “Kramer“. He said, “This is my Kramer.” I was like, okay, so he bartered me down on the price and then asked me to sign it. It was just a very, very surreal moment because I mean, who am I? You know what I mean? It was nice. It’s those sort of magical moments.

BROOKE

Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s a great moment. That’s got to be a really cool feeling that like someone who you don’t know just like really, really appreciates something that you just kind of … I mean, just something that you just took, I mean, I don’t know-

DARREN

Just randomly.

BROOKE

Yeah, randomly. Exactly. Exactly.

Brooke

Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You’ve got a really good eye for composition. I mean, that’s a big word that doesn’t enter too many conversations, but I mean, it’s true.

Darren

Thank you.

Brooke

I actually, I think I wrote down, you were talking about this on your website and I wasn’t sure about how to pronounce this word, licentiate, “Once a licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society.”

Darren

Yeah. I don’t know what that is either. I just took that from his credentials. It’s actually something quite fancy.

Brooke

It does sound fancy. I don’t know what it is.

Darren

I wasn’t going to question it. It just isn’t worth it. If it means something to him, that’s all that matters.

Brooke

That’s funny. I think that’s really cool. Like I said, you’ve worked out some really good partnerships like with the coffee shop. You do like photographs for businesses, like for CHC Continued Care. Is that Carolina’s Healthcare Center?

DARREN

Yeah. That’s Continued Healthcare. Yeah. That’s the funny thing because this really blew up. I mean, if you go back, I mean the story, if we take it through the course, it started off with the core work, the Coca-Cola sign, the pair of boots or whatever. I was doing a show and this beautiful young lady was there with her mum. She was just really nice and talking about everything. She suddenly said, “Would you take my picture?” I said, “I don’t do people unless they’re not looking.”

DARREN

It was very strange. For five months she constantly kept in touch with me, asking, “Please do my picture.” I was like, “Okay, this is really weird.” I said, “Okay.” I really didn’t have a clue. Again, I didn’t want to get into the technicalities. I simply said, “Okay.” I thought, I love Central Avenue and really know nothing of it. It was really just … I think I was just bouncing a ball and we met there and we just started walking around. I just discovered some great little places, the murals and all that. I went around the back of one of the areas where there’s trash cans and an old dark alley. I’m not sure she thought I was going to kill her or anything.

Brooke

There’s always a danger around there, or certain parts of it.

DARREN

We went in there … Yeah, really, eventually, yeah. I took this picture and it was like as soon as I took it and it’s on the website, and you can check out under portraits, but I looked at the camera of what I had just taken and I just went, “Oh my God, what is happening again?” I realized at that point it was getting bigger than me. I went back and I kind of looked through them all on the big screen and I just was blown away. I just thought, wow. Then again, I thought that was kind of the end of it. Then I was in a health food kind of weight lifting type shop, where they sell all the protein powder. There’s this beautiful bloke in there and he knew that I had a photography show across the street. He says, “You’re the photographer.” I said, “Well, yeah, I guess.” you know, again I don’t go by that terminology of being a photographer.

Brooke

Yeah. Yeah. Well that sounds really awesome. Yeah, this is really neat. I saw that your work is available on Amazon, but I couldn’t find it. I searched for it and I couldn’t find it.

DARREN

Right. Yeah. I’m working through some changes on that at the moment. A lot of the work you’ll find, if you go to shop.darrenbowen.com, that takes you to the shop where you can actually buy what you find on Amazon.

Brooke

From your website.

DARREN

I’m actually in the process of moving it to Pinterest and relaunching Amazon. Yeah.

Brooke

Okay, because I was going to say, Amazon is a platform that I only recently found out like you can actually get fine art on it.

DARREN

Yes.

Brooke

I thought that was kind of cool.

DARREN

Yeah. It’s very challenging because when it comes to … If you look at a piece of canvas, I mean the possibilities of how you might want to order that are horrendous actually. To set all that up on Amazon is a monumental task. That’s part of the reason I actually didn’t put my …

Brooke

Part of the reason you don’t do it.

DARREN

Yeah, I didn’t put the canvas work or the fine artwork up there for that, but I did put the other stuff, but another thing that I do on my site is that I’ve crafted the sizing how I want it, not for standards. I kind of went against the grain, when often you go to kind of like art.com or something, there’s very stereotypical sizes, although you can always customize it.

DARREN

But there are also standard sizes. I went against that by going, “I want these particular sizes.” I actually … The store down in Waxhaw, there’s Stewart’s and Eight Legs Gallery. They’ve got very unique versions of my work there as well.

Brooke

Cool.

DARREN

I’m trying to create that sort of a little bit more uniqueness because I’m trying to make the brand a little bit different as well. It’s kind of like you get into branding it’s a whole other thing, but the logo that I use is my real signature ironically.

Brooke

Yeah, I saw that.

DARREN

I started to not want to sell pictures. I wanted to sell Darren. That is kind of where I started to head.

Brooke

Yeah, I think that’s great. I know that’s great. I think that that’s the ticket. That’s absolutely what you should sell, because everyone can take pictures, but not everyone can be Darren.

DARREN

Yeah. I thought that as well.

Brooke

Yeah, or it would be very hard for someone … Talk a little bit about that, about that difference. How would you … You said your logo was your signature. I mean, that’s a little bit of a vague concept. I do understand it, but I’m just having trouble putting it into words. Just kind of like, how would someone see one of your pictures and just know kind of that it’s a Darren Bowen original?

DARREN

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you, that’s always a huge challenge, right? I think a lot of it is often just society. I mean, because if you … I mean I do think my work stands out on its own. I mean, I research a lot of photographers. You have a lot of what I’d call everyday photography, which is all very nice, but then you have this sort of high end, really cool looking photography and it’s mostly Photoshopped. I think you can aspire to either one or the other or anything, but one thing I learned when I was younger was when I was going to be a commercial artist, as I started off earlier, I just kind of changed my mind. Well, the story and the breeding of that is I didn’t believe that I was good enough because my brother in law, who was also called Darren, was the most amazing artist. I remember looking at his work and going, “Wow, that’s some cool shit.”

Brooke

Right.

DARREN

I just felt I’m nowhere close to it, but it wasn’t until years later that I realized that was probably a mistake. Not a bad one, it was probably intended, but I realized that my work was good. It was just different.

Brooke

Just different.

DARREN

It was mine. It was just Darren again. When I think about that past and I look at my work now, and I’m also looking at what everybody else is doing, I believe that my work does stand out. Once you get it enough into the conscience of others, they’ll start recognizing the style. If you look at them as an overall kind of canvas of a lot of the pictures together, there’s a very common theme of angles and style in the pictures themselves. It’s weird. A lot of people say, “Why do you take your pictures crooked?” I said, “They’re not crooked.”

Brooke

They’re not crooked.

DARREN

No. I said, “You’re crooked.”

Brooke

How do they like that?

DARREN

They always smile. I do believe that. A lot of what we believe in society or as an individual, we make happen by believing in something. Yeah, I thoroughly believe it’s got its own edge. I don’t think I would fool myself on that one, because I look at it and I go, “Yeah, wow. It’s certainly got its own look.” I can say it’s a Darren Bowen, yeah.

Brooke

Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. Well, yeah, I am certainly impressed with the website, with the business, with everything. I think it’s fantastic.

DARREN

Thank you, Brooke.

Brooke

Yeah, well, thank you so much for chatting with me and I’m glad it worked out to do it today.

DARREN

Oh no, it’s been absolutely a pleasure. I appreciate your time as well.

Brooke

Thank you so much to Darren Bowen for chatting with me. It was really great catch up. If you want to see more of Darren’s work, go to DarrenBowen.com. That’s B-O-W-E-N. Thanks for listening. This is a Hotspur Media production.