Today’s interview is with the two lovely photographers who photographed the inaugural Do What You Love retreat as well as our very own wedding! Christine and Xander Neal of navyblur (who themselves are Mr & Mrs) have an amazing knack of blending into whatever is going on so they get a lot of great shots without anyone feeling like there is a photographer in their face. They are lovely, bubbly and fun to have around, and we love their attitude and amazing creativity. Here’s their story… – Beth
Christine and Xander on their own special day
Hello! We are Xander & Christine Neal, one English boy, one Irish girl, living in Northern Ireland but slowly and surely working our way around the UK and further afield to make navyblur known wherever possible. We are two photographers who absolutely love meeting new people and taking fun, beautiful photos of their faces and everything else that comes along with them. The best part is we get to become friends in the process…
1. How are you leading a life ‘doing what you love’?
Every day, we get to work together, which we love. We get to meet new and amazing people, which we love. We get to take photos of them in places and spaces they love, which we love. We get to show people how awesome they look, which we love. We get to be a little part of some big days in people’s lives, which we love. We get to be the people to capture a whole lot of love, laughter and fun for people to keep and look back on forever, which we absolutely love. We don’t know anything else in the world we could be doing that we would love any more than being photographers.
Courtesy of Navyblur
2. How did you come up with the brilliant name navyblur?
It is simply two words mashed together, a made up name that we created after 3 solid days of brainstorming. Even though it didn’t initially mean anything, it has been so cool to see this made up word of ours become a brand with it’s own identity. That was part of the fun, when we gave it to our designer he had no preconceived ideas of what ‘navyblur’ should look like as a logo, so it gave him creative freedom to make something awesome that we all loved!
Courtesy of Navyblur
3. What did you do before this?
We started building up our photography business pretty soon after we left school, but while it was coming together Xander wanted to prove to himself he could work harder than he did at school, so he joined an HND course and became quite the teachers pet. He loved the challenge of being set projects where he could really show off his creativity and it was one of the best ways for him to push himself as a photographer. I (Christine) had given up on a one day a week photography course due to the theoretical side of things and worked in Next instead. It was a good way for us to have time to work on Navyblur, but not be full-time with it straight away.
4. What was the a-ha moment that pushed you to change / realise your passion in life?
We always loved that with photography, it was so practical and you could just get out there and do it. The more we took photos, the better we got and the more we wanted to be focusing all our energy and attention to it. Looking back, it doesn’t seem like there was a big changing moment, but instead there was a perfectly natural progression in everything we did to lead to going full time. We knew it was what we were meant to do in life and we were determined to make it work for us no matter what.
Courtesy of Navyblur
5. How did you make it happen?
I think it’s a mixture between us believing this could be our job so we worked hard at it to make it happen, but also the people who gave us the opportunity to photograph them, allowed us to grow in confidence and develop our style. It was important for us to find a style that worked for us and then use that to build our business – this helped us to attract the kind of clients we knew we would click with and in turn continue to make photo fun with them!
We’re also very blessed to be in a community (both online and in ‘real life’) with other like-minded photographers who are happy to share advice, offer an encouraging word or even lend some kit if need be.
Courtesy of Navyblur
6. What has been your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
Comparing ourselves to others. It was especially hard when we first started to not put ourselves down because of the amount of work other people were producing compared to us and also the style of work they were doing.
We realised quite early on that it wasn’t a healthy (or necessary!) part of business – we made the decision to stop looking at other photographers for a period of time to allow ourselves to focus on what we were doing. This was definitely a learning curve and it helped us to really do things in business based on what we loved rather than what we felt we had to do to be like everyone else.
Courtesy of Navyblur
7. What mistake has taught you the most?
Being people pleasers and not being able to say no really hits you hard at times! There’s still a bit of it in us but we’ve definitely learned that it’s important to say no to some things. In the past there have been times we’ve agreed to something even though it leaves us in a bad position, and through these mistakes we’ve learned to be sensible and say no when necessary. Learning to walk away from one thing can sometimes lead to a better opportunity further down the line.
8. Who is your role model and why?
Our families are probably the biggest influences in our lives. We owe a lot to our parents for their continual support of everything we’ve done. They helped us out financially when we were kicking things off and they are always our port of call if we have a moral dilemma. There’s no one more honest and straight forward thinking than our parents! We think it’s amazing to look at both of our families and see each person in a different job and know that we are all following our own dreams even though they are so different. Life is exciting!
9. What is the best advice you have received?
Do things your own way and because it’s something you want to do. Of course there might be times you have to listen to the thoughts of those around you, but more often than not it’s important to follow your own gut instincts. We believe that if you love something enough your passion will show through and people will be excited by your enthusiasm.
Courtesy of Navyblur
10. What is it like working with your husband/wife and what advice would you give to anyone who is thinking about going into business with their partner?
Amazing! You get to work alongside your best friend experiencing everything together. If you have an extra long day, you’re tired together or if you have a super exciting day, you’re super excited together. There are days where one of us can be having more of an ‘off day’ but it’s great to have the person who knows you best there to snap you out of it, and it’s good to have each other there to bounce off each others energy.
Our advice would be to keep things business related to work hours – it’s pretty obvious but it’s one of the hardest things to do. Have a healthy work/life balance and most definitely don’t bring work grudges into home life, you can’t take things too personally!
Xander and Christine
11. What is the big dream for navyblur?
We’ve had a little flavour of travelling for work with shooting a midnight wedding in Paris in 2012, and having Ibiza and Tuscany in the diary over the next year..we’ve got the bug! These are such amazing opportunities and we want to take on the world, one wedding at a time!
The biggest thing though is to keep doing what we love and make sure it stays that way. We want to push ourselves creatively with personal projects and continue to meet and photograph awesome people.
Courtesy of Navyblur
To find out more about Christine and Xander visit their website and blog or follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook.
