Award-winning photographer Danny Eastwood was not born with a camera around his neck. Instead, as a child, he honed his ability to hold his breath for long periods and played a lot of underwater hockey, eventually representing his country in his chosen sport.

Later on, he left high school to study architecture and industrial design. His dreams of being Howard Roark or Le Corbusier were foiled however, largely due to a complete incomprehension of even the most basic principles of physics – an affliction he puts down to possible cerebral hypoxia from playing obscure water sports.

His years of study left him with a slightly more welcome legacy however – an abiding love of the Fibonacci sequence, the smell of Polaroid, Wim Wenders and, ultimately, a Bachelor of Design, majoring in photography.

Initially inspired by the greats of photo-documentary, including Robert Capa, Don McCullin and Sebastião Salgado, Danny’s first-hand experience of war and famine on TV led him to a change of direction. Realising it would be far easier and more hygienic to stay home and photograph shiny, pretty things, Danny followed his new calling and dedicated himself to shooting advertising. Along side his commercial work Danny has also pushed his personal projects. In doing so he found that, like life itself, shiny, pretty things have a darker side – a side he then set about capturing on film.

Years of practice and the requisite obsessive-compulsive nature have yielded some stunning results and a perverse degree of expertise. Danny is driven by a desire to bring ideas to life and remains inappropriately excited about subtle gradients, crisp highlights and occasionally smashing things at high speed.

Danny Eastwood’s work with Australia’s leading Advertising Agencies, including Special, DDB, Clemenger BBDO, McCann, The Monkeys and Ogilvy, has cemented his position as one of Australia’s leading lights in commercial photography. He has been recognised internationally at D&AD,  the New York Advertising Festival and features in Luerzer’s Archive Top 200 Advertising Photographers.

The list of clients who he has worked with is similarly impressive, including as it does, Absolut, Samsung, McDonalds, eBay, Crabbies, Smirnoff, J&B Scotch, Volvo, Gatorade, Canon and Uber Eats.

Alongside his commercial work, Danny has pursued his fine art interests and is a core member of POOL – a collective bringing together the very best in photographic talent with common aim of producing world-class work while inspiring and contributing to the wider community through visual art. Their work, including the D&AD awarded Blow Up and the POOL Collective iPad app, continues to confound expectation and break new ground.

This bio is now about as old as the portrait Danny is still using, both are past their use-by date.