Hi, my name is Laurence.

I am based in Perth, Western Australia and have over 6 years of experience, including formal studies. I specialise in Music Photography, Weddings & Social Events and also offer professional Web Design, Hosting and Promotional Artwork.

If you are interested in any of my services, please take a look at my Purchase page or Contact me.

A Brief History

I became interested in taking pictures at quite a young age and owned my own camera at 15 (Canon A610). Like most teenagers I was inspired by the arts and lived by music, so I took my camera to every concert I went to and spent all my spare time in my high-school art classes making gig posters for local bands. Thanks to this, I developed design skills and abilities with Photoshop very quickly and before the end of the year I was designing t-shirts and posters for headlining acts.

At 16, I fell in love with the technical abilities of my older sisters Digital SLR (Canon 350D) and borrowed it at every opportunity I could. This was the point where I really began enjoying Photography more than my Design endeavours, and also where I decided I would make every effort to make a name for myself. To this point I had been working under the name “Minds Eye” and made the decision to change that to “Shapeshift Creative” after using “Shapeshift Photography and Design” for a short while.

In 2007, at the age of 17, I owned my first Digital SLR (Nikon D80). I had established that my favourite form of Photography was Live Music due to it’s challenging nature: constant changing light and moving subjects. I’d dived right into the deep end as my favourite genres of music at that time were fast-paced metal and hardcore – If the speed of the subjects weren’t difficult enough, the rough crowd made it more challenging and a few costly repairs were involved. A few bands that I shot for also had me design their MySpace pages, which is when I first started learning html, css and php code. Later in the year I began working at a bar in Northbridge called The Bakery. This gave me a great opportunity to capture an array of National and International acts of different genres.

After graduating high-school that year I began studying Design & Photography at Curtin University in 2008. At this point I’d managed to successfully photograph a few big acts including Carpathian, The Devil Wears Prada and Thrice. Throughout the year I continued to photograph every gig I possibly could and my images started popping up in locals Drum Media and X-Press Magazine. My work gave me a reputation and with reputation came connections. I soon had bands asking me to photograph their shows and began shooting “Promo” photos of bands for Magazines and Posters.

In 2009 I left my studies to work full-time and save for some serious gear. After only a few months I’d saved enough for a Nikon D700, which along with my 50mm 1.4 never leaves my side. I continued working full-time while still photographing gigs on the weekend, managing to work on some pretty big tours such as the Parkway Drive & Suicide Silence tour (Sweatfest), Death Cab for Cutie and a number of Location Shoots for local talent.

I continued this trend in 2010 photographing the likes of Architects, Genghis Tron and Health. I began working more on Web Design projects, refining my css and php coding, implementing this in getting my website up and running the way it is now.

2011 saw Shapeshift Creative’s “coming of age” with proper ABN and Business Name registration, as well as photography for National heavy-weights Tonight Alive and The Getaway Plan. I left my full-time retail position in March and began studying Journalism with core units in Photojournalism and Digital Marketing. The year saw a large number of design clients including academics and small businesses independent of the music industry, as well as regular photography for weekly gig nights and the usual live music.

If you’re interested in what kind of gear I currently use, head over to the Wishlist page. I do have a Last.fm account too if you are keen on my music interests.

That’s about it!