Interview with high-end retoucher Danny Joslyn
Danny Joslyn is a highend image retoucher and what he can do with tiny little pixels is MIND-BLOWING! He can create amazing hero images beyond the capabilities of professional photography – which is sometimes due to budget, and others, because they can only be imagined.He’s built up a solid reputation amongst clients and agencies for being a solutions man in the advertising industry. Danny’s collaborated on projects with photographers and clients worldwide, for huge brands such as Smirnoff, Jim Beam and Mack Trucks and more locally, BADC, Brisbane Broncos and Tourism Queensland. To casually throw in another large brand, Danny is currently working on a retouching project for Real Madrid FC – WOW!
Together with his wife Jennie, Danny also runs Moo Studios, a photography studio out near the Port of Brisbane. Check it out if you need space for a shoot.
The size of the images here don’t in any way show the detail of Danny’s work. I highly recommend a visit to his website to marvel at the larger sized images!
A must see! Danny Joslyn Retouching.
Tell us about your role as a highend retoucher and a little about how you work…
My main role (as I see it) is to get someone else’s idea out of their head and onto a screen using images and illustrations.
I’m the solutions man who works with the person with the concept and normally a photographer or Mr iStock. All my best work is in pre-production not post.
How have you got to where you are today?
I landed a 4 year apprenticeship at the age of 15 for a company now known as TAG Worldwide back in the late 80s in London. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for that industry it was just when a combination of Rupert Murdoch, postscript and Apple changed the world of print media.
Fortunately I avoided the early Mac revolution and landed the higher end role of working with a software called Dalim. I looked on with green eyes at the guys working the Quantel Paintboxes and the guys on the creative retouching side. I probably spent the first 5-6 years just working in CMYK and colour correcting before I did anything creative at all in RGB.
It was only after working in New York in the mid-90s under the wing of a retoucher called ‘Willie’ that I started to really learn the craft. I never touched photoshop until 2001.
In a few words, describe yourself…
Happy and lucky. I’m a family man with three kids and a Missus. Probably work too many hours. Probably has too many ideas. I’ll be a multi-millionaire or broke in the next 5 years.
What are you spending your time on at the moment?
Retouching wise, I’m working on some imagery for Real Madrid FC and starting this year’s Mack Truck calendar.
My projects are all very diverse. My wife and I are really busy with Moo Studio – the mid-sized photographic studio that we own and run.
I also have a side-line project where I’ve created weighing kiosks in Airports and I’ve just installed three in Sydney International and hopefully will go overseas with them in the next year.
Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process?
Anything really creative and taxing has to be done at night or at a weekend, lots of music – with no distractions.
Also never get too excited about something you’ve done and send it in too soon. Always walk away, ideally sleep on it and you’ll always make a tweak or better it in some way.
What or who inspires you?
Due to my lack of creative and art education, my methodology is weak.
My only inspiration is the Queen, Edith Cowan, Nellie Melba and all the other faces found on a dollar note!
What are you most proud of?
Emotionally it would be my Wife as she’s my best mate who backed me in all my adventures, including immigrating to Oz. Work wise it’s hard as everything I create ends up out of date and in a bin within a couple of months.
However, I have worked with an artist (whom I cannot name) and we/he has work out there which is gaining a few plaudits and he/we have a piece hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. So hopefully I’ll have something out there hanging in someone’s front room long after I’m gone.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I was born and raised in a dodgy part of South London. The only people with wealth and happiness were normally villains. I really wanted to end up like my Dad, but a hit-man would have been cool as well.
