Friend called Jamie Baulch

I have been really privileged to get to know some amazing people here in Cardiff. One of the coolest guys I have met is Olympic silver medalist, World Champion and generally an awesome guy Jamie Baulch. Here is the short version of the story about how I ended up taking pictures of him in this beautiful F-Type Jaguar.

The story is actually a good example of two different chain of events leading to unexpectedly good things: me befriending Jamie and his son Jay.

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Network branch #1

So the story starts after I moved to Cardiff, when I contacted a media company called The Orchard. The Head of Design & Digital in that company is a really nice guy called Andrew Minton, and he introduced me to her wife Ceri Angel, who works in University of South Wales, in the Design & Arts department. After few chats with her I ended up keeping a 2 hour lecture for their current students about my work and how I network. In that lecture was also a guy called Jay Baulch listening to my speech and later on telling about me to his dad Jamie. Of course I didn’t know about him at the time, or anything about Jamie Baulch for that matter.

Network branch #2

Few weeks later I was approached by Mr Kevin Hart, head teacher of Coed Glas primary school where my own kids go to. He asked me to come and take photographs during a sport day they were having in the school, and I decided to help them out. Well… Jamie was the one organizing the event through his Jamie Baulch Academy, so he and his son Jay were at the event, too. When Jay saw me coming to the school he said to his dad, “That is the guy I’ve been telling you about!”. We hit it off really well with both Jamie and his son and had a great day sporting with the kids. Like always, I had my portfolio with me and showed some of my work to Jamie who got really interested about what I do. The next thing I know we were already planning to do a photoshoot together for his other company Call Bruce, a PR agency that sparks communication between celebrities and their fans about different brands!

Later that week, I pitched Jamie an idea to make pictures not only of him but also of his sponsor brands he is working with. We were both excited about the idea of producing stand-out images useful for Jamie, his sponsors as well as myself as a portfolio material! So after few months from the meeting we were off taking the pictures in a mind-blowing place along some major brands Jamie works with.

Photoshoot

The photoshoot took place in Celtic Manor Hunters Lodge and the surrounding areas. The brands we wanted to involve were Jaguar (Jamie is the ambassador of Jaguar academy of Sport), Under Armour, Oliver Sweeney (The Brogue trader), Watches of Wales and of course the Celtic Manor. I had done lots of background research and wanted to portray Jamie in the best possible way among the top notch brands. Through the hectic day, Jamie’s son Jay was there to help me and also took some of the behind the scenes -footage.

Conclusion

It has been really cool to backtrack the events when the initial contact happened, and which things affected how the future played out. From these network paths I can see that these life changing events actually happen all the time; I just need to contact and help people as much as possible. I will continue on this path of #sharingiscaring and it will bring me many more adventures I’m sure.

So be kind, help people, contact and share. That is my recipe for success stories.