Hello curious…
Who am I?
I am James Bridgman, a UK marketing and creative director, photographer and branding consultant. I ran a specialist branding agency for startups, Silverleaf, for 18 years after leaving University of the Arts London studying Photojournalism. Since then I’ve worked for lots of start up tech companies, advise founders and help not-for-profits. Photography has always stayed as my passion for a creative output, although I’m only recently getting serious again, which is one of the reasons for this substack. On Instagram, which I joined soon after it launched @Creativexplorer.
On my long and wiggly professional and creative journey, I’ve also founded a creative festival (Crouch End Festival, still the largest community arts festival in the UK), transitioned from film to digital photography, and recently dived into the chaotic world of AI. I’m also a Non Exec Director for Lowr, a digital platform for sports clubs to lower their climate impact.
This substack — and about creativity
Both professionally and personally, I’ve always been fascinated by what creativity actually means – we can all be creative, but how can we make it meaningful, interesting and engaging? I never trained to be a marketer, but fell into it after working for a management consultancy in their design department, while I focussed on my photography projects. So in my eyes, creativity is all about curiosity and a willingness to be open to new ideas, not what you studied or what your job description says.
For me, and for this ‘stack, I am defining creativity as follows:
Creativity is the act of connecting ideas, content or people in a way that is unexpected, surprising or illogical – but has meaning for others or yourself.
This ‘bridging the gap’ between people or ideas to create meaning is something that is uniquely human (or is it… discuss) and can come in many forms, from images to conversations.
This substack is an exploration of connecting ideas – whether in photography or any other sphere – and I will be covering topics like:
Finding a subject – exploring and building a creative project
Inspiration, serendipity and collaboration – new ideas
Talking to designers, entrepreneurs, photographers and others about what creativity means to them, and how they keep moving forward
Creativity and collaboration in marketing – often discussed, less often delivered
I think it’s these questions that has kept me interested in my private and professional projects over all these years, and why I hope you’ll enjoy this substack.
