Today we’d like to introduce you to Preston Collins.
Hi Preston, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started pursuing photography in 2018 while living in Corpus Christi. I had lived in the city for about 6 months, and during a work meeting, discussed photography with my boss as a way to expand the company’s presence on social media and in other outlets. I had wanted to get into photography for years, but it never felt like it would be a reality – until the camera my boss ordered showed up at the office a few days later.
My boss gave me a camera that he got back in 2005 and said that I could use it to practice in my personal life. It was an entry-level camera when it was new years ago, and by this time had long been surpassed by smartphone cameras in terms of image sharpness and usability. It was more than enough to learn the basics with though, and I spent a solid weekend without sleep watching every YouTube tutorial that I could and taking pictures of the lamp in my apartment. I started off taking pictures of downtown, buildings, the bay, and cars. However, looking at the city through a lens really opened my eyes to the fact that there were a lot of homeless people, and a lot of people ignoring them. One day while I was out, I saw a homeless person sleeping under a storefront that had recently become vacant, and I felt the need to capture that scene. For some reason, it felt important, and it was the first time I had ever felt any kind of anxiety or uneasiness about taking a picture. I didn’t know if it was morally correct and I didn’t know if it was disrespectful.
More time passed, and my job moved from one office building to another. In the new building, we were on the 20th floor – the very top – and we were on a corner overlooking the entire bay and the harbor bridge. I thought the view was beautiful, but one of the first comments I heard about it was how the homeless population made the streets and sidewalks look filthy and how the homeless were ruining the landscape. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced such a feeling of disgust and anger as I did in this particular moment if that’s even the correct way to describe it. It was an incredibly complicated feeling. I later spoke with the building manager and asked if I could get up to the roof and take a panoramic shot of the bay and was given approval. I was guided up to the roof and took the shot, and realized that I just didn’t find meaning in landscapes or cars anymore in the same way. Those pictures can be fun to take and fun to look at, but they don’t make you fight between compulsive staring due to extreme curiosity and turning your head away because of how uncomfortable you feel.
I moved back to Denton after a year at that job in Corpus Christi and started slowly exploring the places that I grew up, but had never seen through a lens. I had a lot of feelings to unpack and a lot of thoughts jammed into my head, and I still haven’t finished parsing them. Things are very broken in Dallas, Denton, Corpus Christi, and throughout the rest of the country. I’ve talked to and taken pictures of many homeless individuals, and their numbers increase infinitely while the millionaire and billionaire clubs become ever more exclusive. I still don’t know if what I’m doing is moral or respectful, but I know that it causes people to feel, think, and act. I’ve personally experienced a lot of difficulty and trauma, but I’ve always had a support structure that has helped me and I have been able to survive so far. A lot of people don’t have those options and don’t have the privileges that I’ve had. Sometimes they do have a support structure, and sometimes their mental state and the damage that has been done to them still sucks them out into the street. Documenting these things is difficult and taxing, but it’s nothing compared to living on the street and being out of options. I’ve found meaning and purpose in this work and my goal is to be a voice for people that are suppressed, ignored, and broken. I don’t believe that I can fix this, but I do believe that I can cause change that can certainly get things started.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The road I’ve been on has been incredibly difficult and stressful. Seeing all of these things has caused extreme levels of depression and anxiety on top of the depression and anxiety that I already experience due to my mental and genetic makeup. Sometimes you see people that are so high they barely seem to be conscious, or maybe they are experiencing a mental healthy episode that is causing them to erupt into song and dance in the middle of oncoming traffic. Sometimes you just see people asleep on the sidewalk because the ground is all they have. Every time I hear a new story or meet a new person, it feels like it just can’t get any worse, but it always seems to.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Somewhere in 2009, while in high school, I took a very strong interest in computers and IT. I went to college to study computer science but dropped out after half a semester because I hated math class. I continued studying computer science on my own and took some courses at a local community college while also learning IT skills very quickly on my own. I started editing video and doing graphic design in 2013 as a hobby. In 2018, it was all about cameras. This has lead to a very unique skill set and has also gone from something I’ve done as a hobby to work, both part-time and full-time. I am very meticulous about workflow and efficiency and I am very careful with data and having automated backups of everything I do. Unfortunately, a lot of other pro photographers have everything on a single hard drive inside of a laptop and are one toppled glass of water or one accidental fall away from losing everything.
I am incredibly client-driven, and my goal is to provide the best possible experience for people that choose me to work for them. If we are doing a photoshoot of your car, it’s not about me – the hour or two we are there is about the work you’ve done and the journey you’ve been on to have something you are proud of. If we are taking anniversary portraits, my job is to make sure you know that you are at the center of the world for that brief moment in time and to then provide you with a tangible memory that you can look at for years to come. If you delete a picture on accident, I’ve got a copy in the cloud, on my computer, and on my home server. If you need edits done but you don’t know how to explain what you want, I’ll meet you with my laptop because I can access your pictures from anywhere.
Above all, I believe what sets me apart from others and what I am most proud of is my willingness to throw myself out into the world and use the skills that I have to help people and let them express their frustrations and struggles through my camera. I hope that the documentary work I’m doing will also cause other people to do the same thing. I plan on creating video tutorials that help other photographers learn from my skills and also grow beyond what I know and what I can teach. I just want to help people, and I feel like I can push other people in this direction too. I think there are a lot of good people out there that just don’t know about the changes that they can make.
Contact Info:
- Email: preston@underworldvideo.com
- Website: www.underworldvideo.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/UWV_Preston
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/UWV_Preston
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCzdvMfjRgC5TtqjV-kl4zxw
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