Photographer
Scottish Parliament

Adam E

00:00:01 My name is Adam E, I’m the Scottish Parliament’s Photographer.

00:00:07 Well in the early stages it involved covering the construction of the building here at Holyrood and it’s now moved to covering the business inside this building rather than the building itself.

00:00:16 There’s no average day here, every day is different. On Monday I had to travel down to a small village in the borders and I had to photograph a committee meeting. Yesterday I had to photograph a leaflet. I mean I don’t mean take pictures for a leaflet, I mean photograph the leaflet itself.

00:00:39 Since 2003 when I started was taking about 60,000 pictures. These are now in archive and the archive’s available to the public for their own use and to provide information about the business of the parliament.

00:00:55 I used to work for Scotland On Sunday newspaper. I was very lucky to be offered the job to work or Scotland On Sunday at a very young age. Really it was a job that I should have taken ten years to work my way into but, as I say I was lucky and got my foot in the door and I pulled the door open and they let me in.

00:01:18 To be honest I have photographed everything. I have photographed Margaret Thatcher, I have photographed sets of cutlery, I’ve photographed musicians, Rolling Stones, I’ve honestly photographed just about everything that’s possible to take a picture of.

00:01:34 I put down my cameras I wasn’t interested in working as a photographer anymore because I had spent ten years travelling Scotland and the world as part of my job as a photographer and I was tired and I was bored and I’d just had a daughter and I wanted to see her more than I did want to look through a camera. But I was offered this chance to cover the construction of this building and to work in the political environment and that’s always interested me so I picked the cameras up again and here I am.

00:02:14 It was very difficult to study photography at school because there was no support and that is still a problem, at the moment there is, it is very difficult to establish a career as a photographer when you’re a young person. It is very difficult. When I was at school, I saw my friends going off to be things like accountants, and working in offices and that kind of thing and I couldn’t face the prospect of doing that for the rest of my career.

00:02:45 All I wanted to do was do a job that didn’t involve what I would call work and, I was taking pictures at the time so, I applied for university to study photography which was quite good cos it avoided working and went to university, managed to get through a degree in photographic arts I think it was called and came out of there and somehow found myself working in a newspaper.

00:03:17 I used to spend most of my time at school looking out of the window. You had to go there in the morning and you couldn’t leave until ten past four. You weren’t allowed to leave and I didn’t like that.

00:03:30 There’s no limitations on anybody, they can do whatever they want to do. I could have taken a route where I could have made a lot of money but it would have been in a career that I hated so I took a different route and I did exactly what I wanted to do, and I’m still doing it and I don’t make much money but I’m really, really happy in what I do.

00:03:48 The major turning point in my life was when I decided to leave the newspaper. It was a very difficult decision because I was making a very good living but I wasn’t enjoying what I did and one day I took the decision to leave and pursue something else but I didn’t know what I was going to pursue. Difficult one, but it was the best thing I’ve ever done. Apart from the birth of my daughter.

00:04:16 END