Pictures That Matter and a Family Business Legacy with Atkins Photo Lab - #08

I interviewed Paul Atkins who runs Atkins Photo Lab in Adelaide - Australia's oldest print lab! We spoke about the importance of the physical print, nostalgia, re-branding in business (with design-led innovation), finding your people, wedding photography, and the highs and lows of carrying on a family business.

"I'm terrible at change. It's my biggest problem... so for me to survive that is to trust people who are better at change and to let them do their thing... and then to help them, and to still be the person that they can turn to, and be carrying the load of nostalgia with them..."

Find out more about Atkins Lab - http://www.atkins.com.au

Follow Paul on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulaatkins

Paul's boat website - https://paulsboat.wordpress.com

Claudio Raschella - https://claudioraschella.com/

Rust Salt Tar by Tony Kearney - http://www.rustsalttar.com/

The carousel scene with Don Draper from Mad Men - https://youtu.be/suRDUFpsHus?si=45skYIxGT3NYfD5b

The Eddie Vedder Project - https://www.iamgenevra.com/pictureinaframebook

You can also watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/N97aRQbi68U

Chapters

• 7:22 Smelling a sale
• 13:21 Rebranding using Design-Led Innovation
• 14:07 Narrative Interviewing
• 35:05 On living where the business is located
• 36:41 AI and the photo industry
• 44:53 Sustaining the passion for photography
• 47:52 Aging out of wedding photography
• 49:21 Claudio Raschella
• 52:19 Vows and Vulnerability
• 54:53 For boat lovers
• 58:14 Atkins Podcast
• 1:03:00 Dealing with change

Transcript

Genevra Siciliano: I sat down with Paul Atkins, who runs Atkins Photo Lab in Adelaide. I'd been a client from when I ran my photography business full time, and became quite fond of Paul. You'll soon see why I find him so lovable. I've always seen Atkins as an iconic service provider for photographers in Adelaide, and so it was a real privilege to chat to Paul. Hope you enjoy this episode.

Genevra Siciliano:  So hi Paul Atkins. Who is Paul Atkins? Give me the 30 second spiel on yourself. 

Paul Atkins: Good luck with that. I'm famous for over talking. So I've always felt my family business defined me, which is sounds awful. It doesn't, but it's quick. My grandfather's business was started in the thirties and I'm the caretaker of it at the moment.

Paul Atkins: Which sounds like it's a big thing but it's just what it is we're at. So I, I work for myself, I work with my wife my children also work in the business as I did. We've got around 25 staff. I started in the business when I was 12, but I did go through and do uni and that kind of did business and all those sorts of things.

Paul Atkins: So I'm not total child labor, um, victim of my father was the same. He started when he was 14, so, but his was. He left school at year 10, uh, and so our business has evolved over the years and my life has evolved around the business in the letting go of pretty much that feeling I may have implied that I'm the caretaker of this business in the sort of easing of what that actually means being a person taking on a family thing.

Paul Atkins: My life has gotten better in the last few years when I've realized that I can't. Maintain it in the way that I expected. They all wanted it maintained all the ghosts. Oh, wow. Cause you know what, what's that term is something's bullying by ghosts. I don't know. There's a term we, at any rate that, you know, it means like you feel obliged to do what your ancestors did or to keep them happy and they want you to be happy.

Genevra Siciliano: So was there some guilt in that? 

Paul Atkins: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Massive. And I fought it from so many years. And the hardest thing was that I put my wife through all of that and she could see it from a mile away. Like anyone can see that sort of stuff, but you try and tell the person who's, who's going through it and they have to go through the series of steps that will help you through to realize that yourself, you can't be forced into understanding something.

Paul Atkins: so That in some ways it defines me. So I, I found that getting away. And the, the dead key that I wasn't meant to be. The only thing I did in my life was I escaped from the business as often as I could. Mm-Hmm. , you know, I wanted to live in the hills and I got into boats and everything. That would mean I couldn't be at work every day.

Paul Atkins: Mm. Yeah, I know it was kind of leaking out a bit. I didn't realize that. And then when you have kids, you know, kids kind of, they really mess. They're wonderful and I love them. I never go backwards, but they mess up everything. Like you think you got your plans right? Uhhuh? , yes. And you get railroaded. I hear you.

Paul Atkins: And so I kind of dropped all the. Good stuff. And then you need all the money that kids need. And so then your focus goes in the business and you go, how do we make it work? And then it doesn't. And then you feel like a failure and yet your kids are succeeding and you're not. And you know, 

Genevra Siciliano: so this is awesome for the first  few minutes.

Paul Atkins: This is who I am. I mean, how many minutes did you want? 

Genevra Siciliano: Like, I mean, I just, I'm so glad that it's just coming out naturally. For you. Lots of therapy. By the way, those glasses are 

Paul Atkins: cool. Thank you. Thank you. It's funny you say that When we chose them I really liked them because they look like an election post that someone had drawn the glasses on.

Paul Atkins: Yes. Because they're matte. Yeah, yeah, you're right. They're like, someone's got a little texture on a thing, and I thought that was kind of funny. Thank 

Genevra Siciliano: you. Yeah. I was, you know, picking out something to wear today and dropped a coat hanger on my face. What? So I'm like using eye concealer. It's on this side, but actually should have been on that side, but I just feel more comfortable on this side.

Genevra Siciliano: So. That was a nice little incident. 

Paul Atkins: That's tough. So you pulled the thing off the 

Genevra Siciliano: rack. Yeah, it felt like the wooden one. So it could have been a lot worse. 

Paul Atkins: Yeah, you got your eyes, I can see. 

Genevra Siciliano: I don't think you mentioned what your business is. Okay. 

Paul Atkins: Yep. Okay. So we print for professional photographers.

Paul Atkins: And we predominantly do, we've tried to be lots of things to lots of different people, but the essence of our business and the way it's been for at least sort of 50 years was focused on working for professional photographers. We do see the general public in the building. We see enthusiastic photographers.

Paul Atkins: Contemporary artists, we deal with all sorts of people, but our bread and butter is mums photographing their babies as professionals other people's babies, weddings, portraits. That's what puts the bread on the table for all of us. 

Genevra Siciliano: And it's Atkins photo lab. 

Paul Atkins: Yep. Atkins. com. URL. So if you go to that, you'll see the aesthetic and the feel for what we are now.

Paul Atkins: It's a pretty good website in that it's sort of. There's a lot of words on there, and there's a lot of feelings in words on there, and that is all our, ourselves lay bare very much. 

Genevra Siciliano: Genevra here with a quick insert. Rather spontaneously, I had asked Paul during the pre roll if he wanted to promote anything today, and I think his thoughtful response gives a nice insight into his genuine character.

Genevra Siciliano: This is what he had to say. 

Paul Atkins: You've run out your own business, and you know what it's like when you, you feel you should be selling. Because everyone tells you the only way you get money is by asking for it and promoting yourself. And of course it feels awkward and awful to do that, but it's a part of being self employed that you need to do that.

Paul Atkins: Well, I'm in a bit of a luxurious position that, and I've always felt this way, whether it's because I'm just lucky cause we've got this business that's been around for a while, that I don't have to do that and I don't want to do that, I don't feel comfortable doing it. So just being here with you and talking to you That's doing the job of getting the word out about the business.

Paul Atkins: Mm. And I don't wanna be one of those business, I'm one of the bus people who come to us. I don't wanna have to go and drag them, but I'm very, very lucky. And that's yeah. Lucky, blessed, whatever you want to call it. You know, I don't have to go and chase that right now, so that's why I don't wanna sit here and pitch stuff.

Paul Atkins: Okay. To your audience. 

Genevra Siciliano: All right. Noted. But I like that. Isn't that, don't they call that the new way of selling? 

Paul Atkins: I don't know how new it is. Surely when society began and we lived in villages and I grew potatoes and you made some decent mead, some wine out of honey, you'd come to me and I'd give you some potatoes and you know, you'd give me some mead and vice versa, right?

Paul Atkins: So. But we'd live together in this little village. We were friends and the place was small and you do that for one another, don't you? So I think that's the beginning of time. If anything, it's maybe going back to what it was rather than the, being the new thing, perhaps. 

Genevra Siciliano: Yeah. Yeah. I get you. 

Paul Atkins: People smell sales a mile away, don't they?

Genevra Siciliano: And it's so icky with me and that's why I've never been good at it. Like if there's a way that I can reframe it in my mind so I don't see it as a sale, it's just like natural conversation, but I'm not quite. There yet. Meanwhile, I'm still in the village. I'm like, yeah, that story you just told, I'm picturing it.

Genevra Siciliano: I'm like. 

Paul Atkins: Don't you think that, I mean, I think if we think of society that way as a, as, as a village of sorts, you know, you're going to go out and you're going to, you know, you see a weed in the ground of someone else's place, you're going to pull it up or tell them about it. You know, you're not going to just ignore it.

Paul Atkins: You're going to try and help if you can, if you can afford to or whatever you're going to help if you can. yoU're going to do things that other people want out of you. You're not going to do sort of dumb stuff for yourself because that won't help those people around you grow or whatever it is. So you try and do those little things and you try and bear them in mind when you're living without giving yourself to them.

Paul Atkins: Cause that's not healthy, is it? I mean, you've, you've been through a lot of personal growth. I can see a wall of fabulous books. 

Genevra Siciliano: Don't, don't define me by my book titles. And I 

Paul Atkins: had, unfortunately, unfortunately that actually really does happen. You are what you read and eat and 

Genevra Siciliano: all that stuff. It's pretty funny.

Genevra Siciliano: Cause like my self help is all on one shelf and it's just like, okay, this lady is going through some stuff. 

Paul Atkins: Hey, we all are. I'm 54 this year. And everybody's going through stuff. And if you're not going through stuff, you haven't got your eyes open. Yeah. Yeah. You don't 

Genevra Siciliano: realize what it is. I like that. And you used to be called Atkins Technicolor.

Genevra Siciliano: Correct. And I just remember like kind of watching from afar, the whole, the rebranding was one of the most, would you call it a rebranding? Yeah. That was just one of the most interesting. Rebrands I'd seen because it was a real change and a real, like a real transformation. I would love to know more about that, like what, did you have to do some soul searching to get that happening?

Paul Atkins: Yeah, they're great questions and a great story you know, I'm, I'm, I apologise, I don't mean to say that. Like we have a great story because we went through this process to find all this stuff out. So my dad and I always did a lot of business development together. We always went up to any seminar you could get to, like I'm sure you did too, Jen.

Paul Atkins: You know, you just go along and you, you get pulled from here to there and you're going to be like this person and like that person and and then. Kate and I got into, well Kate alerted me to the panic that we, business isn't great and we're not going to be able to, this is not going to work. We can't afford to have a house and kids and put kids through a school that we might want to or have holidays like we want to, you know.

Paul Atkins: We could see this sort of. Dead end coming up and it certainly felt like that. So I went to the family business association and I said, help, and they got us an accountant. This is independent of dad. So he's still working the business very much involved. He was managing director still. I was, I think I might've had some shares at that stage, but, and this would have been mid two thousands, something like that.

Paul Atkins: And so that led to an accountant coming in going, Oh yeah, you've got some problems coming. Have you heard there's these grants available from the government? And I would encourage all listeners to be really alert to this sort of a thing and their business development grants. And basically they match you.

Paul Atkins: So you spend five grand and they'll give you five grand. And I said. We'll get you a, an assessment. You can use the money for the assessment. I'll give you a free assessment. That's right. It's a federal government. We'll give you a free assessment and we'll see where we go. So this guy came in and his name is Stuart.

Paul Atkins: I remember his last name, but an Adelaide guy. And he looked at the place and he said, you've really got something here. You've got all this history and it's gotta be worth something. There's this course coming up. You should think about. And it's called design led innovation and it's creative thinking, right?

Paul Atkins: What's your podcast about? This is kind of really spot on for your listeners. And there's a process called design led innovation that has been developed. I don't know how long, but it's nothing really that new. Like everything it's rehashed again. And it's basically creative thinking. For helping you go forward and making plans and this sort of thing.

Paul Atkins: And it involves. Firstly looking at all your stakeholders in your business, yourselves and your customers and that, and doing what's called narrative interviews. So not surveying. So a survey, you put a thing out and people tick a box or whatever, and they're easy. Survey monkey things are free on the internet and they're wonderful and all that kind of stuff.

Paul Atkins: Narrative interviewing. Yeah. So we would sit down with someone for one to two hours. There would be two of us and we would have a story that we would, cause we want to know something from you. And what we had to do was to, before all of this, we had to plan our story out and the story would be, I've got a rough idea who you are Jen.

Paul Atkins: So I would have someone who you might identify with in the story. And I would say, you know, Sally's doing this, she's home, she's got you know, she's a single parent, she's got her kids at home and she's doing, you know, X. And you tell the story along and then I'm, and we're listening for your reaction to the story.

Paul Atkins: So we're kind of surveying you and we're throwing ideas into it that I like. Well, we really want to build a product that looks like Y and and then, and then, you know, you get you as Gen to react for Sally to talk about it. So it's this little thing that allows you to be detached and give answers that You might not want to give, because you want to please me, the interviewer, because you, you're a human and we all get asked questions and we want to answer them in a really nice way to make the interviewer happy.

Paul Atkins: We want to not get eaten by the other person, you know, we're trying to make friends and all that. And so this, this, this sort of removes that. And then you have this conversation and the nice thing about that conversation and doing it in such a relaxed timeframe is you can say, well, why did you say that?

Paul Atkins: And then you can say, well, tell me more about why you said that. And the idea is I think Simon Sinek was his thing was start with a why. Isn't it wonderful. So you want to ask five times, basically. I mean, that's just a silly number, but you want to ask why enough times till you feel like they've run out of juice and explaining their story.

Paul Atkins: Now you can't do that in a survey. You can't follow, a rabbit down the hole to find out what's going on in that person's life. Now, obviously who you interview is important and you've got to think about that before you go and you need to do that a lot of times. So we did 60 of them over about 18 months as part of a course.

Paul Atkins: And so we did this design led innovation course. And part of it was you had to interview people all the time. And so that's a lot of investment in time. And some of the interviews were quick. You know, there might've been five or 10 minutes. Some of them were. Literally two or three hours and some of we had lunch together and, and because of the two people there, one could be the engaged in the chat and the other could be getting the information and then you could good cop, bad cop it a little bit and swap whose roles it is.

Paul Atkins: And, it was mind blowing. And so let's say this course, yeah, it was put on by the state government this course. It was at the National Wine Center every month for this, I didn't know how long it was. I can't even remember the length now. It started with about 30 different companies. And it ended up with about four or five of us.

Genevra Siciliano: So, but when you're doing the interviews, are there, are there businesses there or you're just there? 

Paul Atkins: It's homework. You go and do it yourself. Oh, okay. So part of the homework is you coming back with. These results of these interviews and you're building a business and testing ideas and you should never stop doing it.

Paul Atkins: The thing is it's a training process to, to, to listen to people properly and also to ask questions and be scientific about it and not try and second guess or, or drop what you want them to say into the conversation to be completely honest with them and to hear their, I mean, being honest that their narrative interviews and you can tell people, I'm trying to get you this information out of you.

Paul Atkins: You don't have to, you don't have to disguise it and cloak it in the story, but they forget it and they just talk about the story very quickly. And it's a nice trick. And so we did this and in the end, so most people dropped out of it. Those that didn't drop out of the course, cause it was very hard to keep up with.

Paul Atkins: And it led us to a realization that we're not in the making, and this is again back to Simon Sinek, we're not in the, we make prints, we're in the, in people, people, helping people understand their memories and their history and not everyone fits with us. Not everyone's nostalgic and and has a feel and a love for family.

Paul Atkins: I mean, I totally get it. Family's a tough thing. But there's certain times in your life where you go through these sorts of things. And so I realized we connect with these people who probably like to collect vintage stuff. They maybe go to op shops or maybe they have beautiful things on their wall. So these are the, we've sort of found who our people are.

Paul Atkins: And so then from that we know we need to present ourselves to suit them better. And so we stopped looking within our industry at all the ideas that other labs and photographers are asking or putting for. And we started looking outside the industry and went, you know, home decor, fashion collecting design you know, beauty.

Paul Atkins: Yeah. 

Genevra Siciliano: So you said just going back a bit, you said the interviews went for like 18 months. 

Paul Atkins: We kept going. We haven't stopped doing them frankly, but the formal ones were the part of the exercise was for the length of the course. So we, we saw 60 people over that period. Well, 60, sometimes pairs of people over that period, I'll give you an example.

Paul Atkins: If you like how one of them went, it was a couple that were neighbors of ours and they were a retired couple. And we knew that we wanted to find about their ability and the desire to buy things online. And we said, you know, would you submit, you know, not, we didn't say, would you, but the question, the heart of the question is, would you send us your images online to print?

Paul Atkins: And they they said, no, no way we wouldn't do that. And we said, well, you know, what's the story with that? Oh, look, my pictures aren't good enough. I don't need anything like that printed. And and then, so then we got them to show us some of the pictures and rather than say your pictures you know, but rather than look at the pictures and, and sort of respond to that, we're, we're seeing them and going, well, that's a lovely picture.

Paul Atkins: Tell me why that's important to you. And I was because I know no one's smiling that, but that's the last picture we got out on Harriet and look at, you know, she was a horrible person, but look there, she looks like she's got a glint in her eye and a blah, blah, blah, blah. So there's nothing any robots could ever get no.

Paul Atkins: AI sorting. No, no. 

Genevra Siciliano: I'll talk to you about that later, by the way. 

Paul Atkins: This is my feeling on it. This was an important thing to them that we sort of derived from all of this. So then we said, okay, so what about online spending? You know, oh, we booked our last trip to Europe on it. So tell me about that experience.

Paul Atkins: Well, we had an online travel agent. They were pretty good. We ended up booking some of the stuff for the airlines. I said, well, in the end, how much money did you put through your credit card online? Oh, about 18 grand. Oh. And so I said, so online shopping is not your problem. Oh no, that's nothing at all.

Paul Atkins: We're pretty, you know, happy and trustworthy of all of that sort of stuff. So, so, you know, and so what we derived from is they wanted to sit down with someone who'd tell them their pictures were important and that. They wanted to have that reinforced and be told that they actually quite then quite nice pictures.

Paul Atkins: You know, they're not, I can see that's not a great way everyone's smiling, but not every picture everyone has to smile and people just wanted to be felt like they're being seen and understood. And then like spend the money that's, you know, they're happy to. Now I never felt that we're in a business that.

Paul Atkins: Was doing bad by people. I always wanted to be giving people stuff that would last forever. I believe in physical print because I think it's a wonderful thing to live with a simple image on the wall, to live with a simple image in your hand. When you look at a picture on the phone. You're scrolling, getting notifications.

Paul Atkins: You probably photographed where you parked the car or a seat, or maybe you paid bills through it, or maybe you're sexting with your best friend and there's pictures of your babies there as well. Like it's super complicated phones. It's not a one use device. The picture of your baby on the wall. It's a single use device.

Paul Atkins: And I really believe in that. So I've never felt that what we were doing was predatory or otherwise. So when I say, now we've got a great client out of these people, it wasn't there to get them as a client. It's wanted to know whether that demographic, how they were thinking about photography. So they were retired, they were older than us.

Paul Atkins: They were happy to throw money at the internet. They just needed someone to hold their hand and to talk to them about their pictures. So that sort of helped us understand that kind of a client. 

Genevra Siciliano: So did the rebranding. Did that take as long as, or longer than what you 

Paul Atkins: thought? No, actually, I think Kate actually knew what she wanted to do pretty much from the beginning of that course.

Paul Atkins: And Kate's your wife? My wife, yeah. I think what had happened, she had, she's miles ahead of me, right? And I think her, a lot of her existence has been steering me very slowly down a path that would be right. Now, I don't mean to. The part, she got a lot out of this course. We talk about this course fondly all the time and we still think about, in fact, she went back and taught with them.

Paul Atkins: They didn't, they didn't run it the same way again. Ours was the longest they ever did. It was a prototype. Oh wow. Yeah. So it was about prototyping and rapid so part of the course was rapid prototyping and changing. So the course itself was a prototype. It was hardly rapid though. This guy that came down from Queensland to teach us once a month.

Paul Atkins: And we spent time with him now, she, he came back in the following year and then Kate went and was one of the sort of class mentors who helped the groups because you break off into little groups and you do those silly group exercises. Some of them are silly, but they're all those things that we've done over the years, sometimes at high school and that just to try and get group dynamics working and then to spit ball ideas and rapidly prototype ideas.

Paul Atkins: And so we would change something. And we would take it to market and then we would stop doing it. Like we made a whole product with a website and everything and, and got subscribers and never went anywhere with it and stopped it and then pivoted. So and it was not, and it was also being able to let go of that idea.

Paul Atkins: So the course was amazing. And there are, you will see design led innovation. Listed places, there's some wonderful books that came over and it's all about creative thinking and it's the way creatives think. If you're a painter, how you work about going, putting oil on the canvas and all that kind of stuff.

Paul Atkins: There's a process that this is echoed in, in this same thing. And funnily enough, like we've been through some and financial industry, you know, what monster city that happens to be. But they've been through a period where they don't understand and they're in it now. What's driving the economy and how it works, you know, post COVID it's all like, what do we do?

Paul Atkins: No one knows. But one thing they do know is we need to think in a very different way. And so these institutions is, you know, these old school employing creative thinkers and people have done courses like design led innovation to help find out what's coming next, what will work. So for us, it was, it was amazing.

Paul Atkins: You know, it kind of knew what you kind of knew what you want to do. It was kind of reaffirmed. She wanted to make something that was more home friendly and more focused on, on people's emotions and less on we just make prints and and nostalgia is a big thing. If you've Did you watch Mad Men?

Paul Atkins: Yeah. You remember the carousel episode where he's selling the Kodak projector? 

Genevra Siciliano: Yeah. Someone sent that to me not that long ago. 

Paul Atkins: Yeah. So that Kodak wanted to call it The Wheel. Well, this is the story. I don't know what the truth is. And Don Draper comes up and it's the carousel. And if you watch that episode, we should have a link to it in the, Yes, we should.

Paul Atkins: Because there's a YouTube clip of it. I think I can get it for you. 

Genevra Siciliano: Yeah. I will 

Paul Atkins: link to it. Yeah. Because it is like, you sit there and you're just about. Tear up listening to him talk, 

Genevra Siciliano: you know, I can relate to the rebranding thing because I used to be Jennifer Sandoe photography so I kind of had to But I did take a when I had my second child.

Genevra Siciliano: I took a long break from the industry and Found it hard to get back in because by that time there's like a whole new wave of you know younger photographers different equipment I mean not a lot of the is about, not a lot of that changes, but it's, it was a long break that I took. And, The, you know, my passion sort of comes in dribs and drabs, but I do a lot of comparing to how things used to be for me, where I'm going with this.

Genevra Siciliano: I just wanted to comment on the rebranding thing because I think that's maybe why I felt the rebrand so hard, because I had my own thing going on with that. You know how some people do it because they Feel that, like, it just feel like it's time for the business to have a new direction. But yours just looked well thought out, but I had no idea that, like, that process was behind it.

Genevra Siciliano: Thank you.

Genevra Siciliano: Just want to take a moment to talk about how much I love coffee. If you listened to the trailer, then my coffee fixation was pretty obvious. I'm pumped to have Cecilia Coffee sponsoring the show. I'm always happily caffeinated, thanks to these guys. I personally love and drink their organic Fort blend.

Genevra Siciliano: They also have organic decaf as well, if you need to ease up on your caffeine intake. Freshly and locally roasted here in Adelaide, south Australia, and you can check out their range by going to cecilia coffee.com au. That's S-I-C-I-L-I-A. Use coupon or discount code LOUD10 at checkout to enjoy 10 percent off your first order.

Genevra Siciliano: LOUD10 as in L O U D 1 0. 

Paul Atkins: We were trying to be, well, I, this might help listeners to understand. So my grandfather was like a gambler, drinker, party guy, super great salesman, knew everyone. Everyone was his friend. Grandma was like, Dude, you've got to, we need money. I've got kids and we got, she had five children.

Paul Atkins: We need, you need to get your act together. And so she started doing things like hand coloring photographs. So people wanted to see the pictures with the grass being green and horses being brown and all that kind of stuff. She was hand coloring, great artist. Then she got sick of that and she said to dad who was, so their son, John, the second son was, was working the business.

Paul Atkins: You're smart. Go and work out color. So this was like in the early sixties. She did this to your father, to my dad and to grandfather who was too busy having a party to really care, but he handed the money over. Dad goes out and works out color. And it was a big thing back then. It required different chemistry and thinking and real logic and scientific approach and sort of that granddad was always winging it.

Paul Atkins: Dad was like, no, no, no. I can't do this. He was used to being an unstable growing up and he needed stability. So he built stability and then mum comes in. So it's the women that always fix this. The moral of the story, the women always fix our business. Mom comes in and says, John, this is a fricking mess.

Paul Atkins: You need to make this look professional. And so she was the one that made us a lab as in white lab coats. Yeah. Perfectly clean walls painted the technicolor. We had these beautiful front counter made out of, it was this gray with smoked glass, and it was all kind of stylish. And so she drove that aesthetic and that people come to you.

Paul Atkins: If you look like you're the part was. Dad was like, he was just trying to get the technical stuff done. And grandfather was like, yeah, give me some more money. Glug, glug, hick, hick.

Genevra Siciliano: I didn't realize that. I thought it was your father's business. I didn't realize it went back to your grandfather.

Paul Atkins: Well, as far as the lab, my granddad, while he did, did processing and printing.

Paul Atkins: He was predominantly working for himself as a general photographer and he was a horse racing photographer, but it was also weddings and commercial back then a photographer photograph for the police. There was no police. So he did dead bodies and car crashes. So he did all the processing for that. And dad did the processing for that, but it was dad is like, I got color worked out.

Paul Atkins: And then a few people came to him and said, You really got color worked out. I'm going to send my work to you. And so the color stuff was what opened us up. And, and then it was, mom was like, you need to make this look good. And then I was in there and I brought digital in because it was like around 2000, mid nineties when I started on that.

Paul Atkins: And all I wanted to do was for digital to be as good as. The best color could be. And so I worked really hard on everything you needed to make that happen. And we got the best technology and all that sort of stuff. But I think I was just lost in a world of like dad was technically sorting it out, but also making sure grandfather was happy and dad was happy and mum was happy and grandma was happy.

Paul Atkins: You know, and there's a lot of people to worry about. So, so as I took on the business more and more and they gave me shares and it got more important, they knew that they could rely on me to look after them to keep their money flowing. Now, my grandfather had already been cut off by my father because the bank said, we cannot give you no more money because my grandfather's like, Hey, here we go.

Paul Atkins: Another party. And he's great fun and all that sort of stuff. You know, so dad got into some financial difficulties and had to stop granted taking money. So dad had this thing about being really careful about money and everything. So as, as I took over that, it was like, well, I got to look after all this stuff.

Paul Atkins: And, you know, carry it very gently and make them happy. Then the pressure of my family comes in to bear. And it's like, how do you deal with that? And you deal with that by saying, dad, you know what he said to his father, you got to go. So we bought, we bought the building and this is after the rebranding.

Paul Atkins: So the rebranding had happened and it would kind of was doing okay, but you could feel we'd gotten something going here, but we could, you knew that the business couldn't afford. You know, for good incomes you know, the business couldn't afford, you know, all the things that happened, we needed somewhere to live.

Paul Atkins: We, we had a nice house, a beautiful house in a nice suburb in Adelaide, but we, we had to sell that and everything to be able to buy the. Okay. Now the problem is mum and dad lived above it in the apartment and it was like, okay, it's not going to work if they're still there because I'm going to be thinking about them every five minutes they need to move.

Paul Atkins: And that was their home. And I mentioned the financial difficulty a little few minutes ago. That financial difficulty had left them to not have a house either. And they ended up putting everything into the building and to the apartment above it, which was a series of offices that they converted to an apartment.

Paul Atkins: So if I want to feel bad about myself, I say that was their lifeboat. They built this little thing that they could look after themselves in and they did a beautiful job. And I was in my mid twenties when they did that and all that kind of stuff. But then Kate and I needed it. We needed the lifeboat. So we, and they were, they didn't know anything.

Paul Atkins: So that really wasn't a problem. So we needed to get all the money together and give them all the money so they would go away nicely. And that wasn't very pleasant. They didn't want to leave. They were happy not to be in the business, but they didn't want to leave their home. So that was my big tragedy that I've had to go through now.

Paul Atkins: I'm the luckiest guy on earth. There's no sympathy, please. It's like, but my story is that I. You know, moved them on, they moved to Port Douglas and Cairns where dad developed leukemia within six months and died a few years later. So he died last, not last, he actually is 18 months today. Okay. Yeah. So a year and six months ago.

Paul Atkins: And that was, you know, he didn't associate that with me. I don't associate that death with him. He didn't want to be in far North Queensland. I mean, if he had to be somewhere else, he was happy to be by a beach looking at the sea. So that was. Tickety boo. But the reality is that they wanted to be where they were and not be disturbed.

Paul Atkins: That was what happened. And I spoke to him every week and we kept contact and I've been up lots of times. It's very difficult, but you know, we died with, he died with a great. With, with great relationship, I think and now I'm helping mom and all that kind of stuff being a good son. So that's, that cycle has led us to being living above the business in this little self contained little life body thing, but it doesn't feel that way for us.

Paul Atkins: It feels very expansive and very exciting. That was, 

Genevra Siciliano: I was going to ask you, like, what is it, you know do you find it hard to switch off from the business when you're living? 

Paul Atkins: Yeah, yeah. It's impossible. 

Genevra Siciliano: But do you have to put boundaries? Like, how do you do it? 

Paul Atkins: I don't think you can. And I, because you, you work at home.

Paul Atkins: Yeah, we're here in your kitchen. Yeah, living room. Yeah, I don't think you can and I I actually think in my heart The more you fight to think you need those boundaries or people tell you you need those boundaries the worse it feels I think the more you embrace it. It's who you are and you go No, no, no, no.

Paul Atkins: I work from home. Like I can wear my jammies to work. You know, the more you, you roll into it, I think it, cause half of our life is worrying about what we shouldn't, shouldn't be doing. I think another half is doing it. And I think letting go of that stuff, it is hard, but we've gotten to a point now and it, and it, you know, it was really destructive a few years ago, but when we got someone, we promoted someone up to a higher level.

Paul Atkins: And it was a lady who'd been working with us forever. We got photographs of her and I at 19 together in the business. So I knew her before I knew Kate. We promoted her to general manager a couple of years ago, and I was like, Ooh, I don't actually have to pay much attention anymore. I can relax a bit. No, I'm sorry.

Paul Atkins: You can't do that. You know, I'm thinking that perhaps artificial assistance and AI will help with that because there's a lot you can do now. You can give to the robots. 

Genevra Siciliano: I I need help with still embracing that whole concept. I was gonna ask you, now that we're on the topic, like, how do you feel about it, AI and the photo industry?

Genevra Siciliano: Like, it's yeah, I, I need to have my hand held through the whole thing. Like, I'm just like, I'm kind of easing into it in the way that it's like I use Lightroom to process my photos. And, you know, they're, they're, they're putting in those little, the AI bits. And so I'm, I'm kind of using it to an extent.

Paul Atkins: the face, the, the people? 

Genevra Siciliano: The face detecting, yeah, yeah. Use all of that. So I guess it's crazy. Like it is making my workflow easier. 

Paul Atkins: And I think it's really important for us all to have enormous empathy in this time of change and sympathy for all those people that. Getting mashed about by it. A similar mashing about happened though, when 35 mil cameras came into photography, um, and mini labs, you know, they kind of crushed so much of our business before digital and digital crushed our business.

Paul Atkins: And, you know, it took us having 50 staff down to seven or 12. So, and it wasn't an instant. And I don't think any, I mean, I'm sure that's the case, but I doubt many people have instantly lost their jobs to AI. There's a lot of muck being made by it. It's not refined at the moment, is it? It's kind of, you know, when you get it to write things, you go, Oh, I can sort of see that's a bit of a mess.

Paul Atkins: But I think, and this is, it's going to be a terrible transition for a lot of people. It's going to be hard. I think we're going to be fine though at the end. Whatever, however long that takes. And of course, however long it takes is usually getting quicker and quicker. That's just one of the things that happens, but it still takes, you know Warhol had the people, bunch of people working for him, but Warhol didn't.

Paul Atkins: Put one of his pieces on the wall that he didn't say was okay. He didn't mix his own paints particularly. Whereas the generation before that, they were mixing their own oils. And so that they were being, buying pre bought paint. And there was, they weren't probably making their screen inks as well. But, you know, generation before that, they probably, they didn't have screen printing, but they were.

Paul Atkins: Had their own way of doing it. So everything we're always suffering from something which is coming over and pecking at us. But in the end it was Warhol that said, this is good enough to put on the wall. Now it's a bad example because you know, these outstanding artists you know, musicians or whatever they might be.

Paul Atkins: There's the very few of them, but there's all of us that are making average stuff. But still it's when we say, that's fine, I'm going to show it, who says to stop and say it's fine. That's where the skill and the love and everything goes into it. How you got there, whether it be AI or. Hiring a photoshop specialist or hiring other writer to tidy up your messy writing or an editor or something like that Whatever the correct terminology is you still are putting that thing out And I think people can see the word salads at the moment that are AI and they go and I think it's making people not read And it's, they're getting their radars coming up inside the subconscious saying, this is just muck.

Paul Atkins: So they're not reading that, but then what they probably are doing is hunting out better quality writing or more genuine writing. 

Genevra Siciliano: There's a kind of hope to that. That actually sounds hopeful.

Paul Atkins: I'm very hopeful. Whether that's right or not. I don't see any point in. You can't fight it. What can you do? Hmm.

Paul Atkins: Like they've already let it go. Like as soon as they privatized. I mean, ChatGPT was meant to be public, and then they privatized it behind the guy that invented its back. And it's like, Oh, well, what do you do now, corporate? So I guess there is some terrible stuff happening, but I think more than ever now, the, I feel like there's genuine power flowing back into original creators.

Paul Atkins: Just not fast enough. Just like political power, you know, I think, I don't think money's. You know, big money's really got long for control. I think that we're breaking that slowly. Mm hmm. And I think, you know, politically we're seeing less of an influence from these, and people know these games and the generation of the, you know, the right wing and the, the, of the, their time is over.

Genevra Siciliano: It's more of an opportunity to go with your intuition in those in those moments, I think, 

Paul Atkins: I think so. I think so. So I think we're just, there's going to be a lot of like every bit of changes is going to be a lot of victims and some of those victims haven't seen the better side of it yet. And they're just suffering and unfortunately they're suffering.

Paul Atkins: Might be making it harder, but there's nothing to do about that. You've got to go through your process So, yeah, I'm I am hopeful I just don't know how long this is all going to take and what's the carnage gonna be in the meantime 

Genevra Siciliano: so you were saying before that you Yeah, you provide services for photographers and that is How we connected because I had a wedding photography business for a few years.

Genevra Siciliano: I still do family events, but not so much the weddings, not, not like I used to. So I would come in to your lab and get my stuff processed there. And you're always friendly and welcoming and notice that you're a big advocate for artists. I can really feel that, but you were also a really big supporter of my Eddie project.

Paul Atkins: Which I love. I still, to this day, I, it makes me smile. It's really incredible that you did that. And it's just shows you how big a voice you actually have. Yeah. You know, you really pulled a bunch of people together to do something. And you know, it's a really cute thing you did too. Like it, it wasn't, it was beautiful.

Paul Atkins: Like it was there for its own sake. It wasn't there. You weren't trying to change the world or anything, you know, like you were just doing something beautiful. Oh, 

Genevra Siciliano: thanks for saying that. After I did the project, I then was moving to the book stage and I came and saw you and you scored me up on black and white.

Genevra Siciliano: Printing, a lot of it went in one ear and out the other, I have to say, but it was nice to just to, you know, to have that conversation with you and see your passion in, you know, with printing. It all came out in that conversation and with you being a big supporter of local. And you've been involved in quite a few exhibitions and I was in one of yours, the dark, the dark exhibition.

Genevra Siciliano: Do you, have you had like the, been favourite exhibitions? 

Paul Atkins: That's a tough one. It's funny because those things follow how you're feeling at the time and the, what we did with the dark and light were just two, two ones that follow and I kind of wanted them to be. Keep going and roll on, but they, to do it properly, it has to be your thing and you have to, and I didn't feel I was quite a hundred percent my thing.

Paul Atkins: And so I was hooked in with Tony Carney, who has a series that he's been running. I think it's called rust salt tar, and you can see dark light. And I consulted Tony, it wasn't an intellectual property, copyright type of thing. I consulted him about, and he suggested that I do something simple like this and follow his model.

Paul Atkins: But Tony does it and he does it really well and he pulls a diverse group of people. I did not want it to be just about us. And I think from a marketing perspective, I felt that I was going to provide a vehicle for our customers to go to a bigger stage who are contemporary artists or wedding photographers who have an art bend or because everyone gets into photography.

Paul Atkins: Not to shoot weddings or whatever, they get into it because they like taking pictures about whatever, you know, it just happens to be, you end up where you end up. 

Genevra Siciliano: Private battle there. Yeah.

Paul Atkins: Oh, it's incredible. Isn't it? You know, you, you end up doing stuff that you don't, and it can make your love of photography go away.

Genevra Siciliano: Yeah, I was kind of hinting at that before, but I still have trouble admitting that because I don't want to sound like I'm not grateful for the talent I have but it's been hard to sustain that. Passion. Cause yeah, 

Paul Atkins: I think it's smart to, if you're feeling that, I think the, the, the butterfly that is creative and the creative skill that you can imagine, I think protecting that by walking away and getting a job at Coles or whatever you need to do is much smarter because that thing to nurture and bring out at other times in your life is great, but to actually squash it.

Paul Atkins: It's a really sad thing. And it's nice. It's so easy for me to say those words because I'm not living, needing money and I'm not facing needing to pack, you know, shelves of coals. But that thing is so beautiful and so important to so many people that preserving and protecting it is something that I think it's really worth doing.

Paul Atkins: Yeah. And we've had, and it's I've had a lot of experiences over the last. All my life, I've seen people coming at it, going from the industry, and not every exit is graceful, and You know, people have terrible time with them. They hate themselves for letting it get that far. And they ended up doing mercenary practices to get work in.

Paul Atkins: They become someone who they're not. They do high pressure sales and that just shuts their customer base down. 

Genevra Siciliano: I've seen that too, but I just realized you would, yeah, you would definitely see a lot more of that. And, have you just accepted that that's just part of the, part of the industry? Yeah, 

Paul Atkins: yeah. I think it's important to do that.

Paul Atkins: And there is a certain amount of this mobile phone industry, call it churn, where people hop between carriers all the time. Hmm. It's quite a good term. It's, it's turnover, but it's churning through. And so. You do have people coming and going because that's, I don't love it. I mean, I think everyone should love photography.

Paul Atkins: So I'm really a crap person to ask about this, but I've sort of come to the understanding that people don't all love photography and they have their different experiences with it. And so if I had to show how much I enjoy it and it's good fun and support people where I want to, then we'll get that, but people still go and you come in contact with them and they go different paths and they, our paths diverge.

Paul Atkins: But yeah, we've had people, we've seen people go into real desperate situations with their photography and just get themselves into an awful state. And I think, you know, the worst that the thing that upsets me the most is the people that are aging out of the industry. I'm not talking about particularly old people, but certain work is for certain ages.

Paul Atkins: Weddings is not really for 60 year old photographers. If you can't connect with a young couple. And be like mates and all that kind of stuff in that sort of thing where they feel like they, they know you and they want you around. It just doesn't work. It otherwise it's a very transactional thing, which it's, that's an okay business, but I don't think it turns into a love of doing weddings.

Paul Atkins: So I think naturally there is a. You say goodbye to weddings at a certain point in your life when you start looking at the bunting and the mason jars or whatever it might be this year and you roll your eyes. Yeah. Yeah. I remember speaking to one photographer who was looking at the bridal party at a wedding fair coming towards them and they're all young.

Paul Atkins: They're all excited. They're all excited to spend 80 grand on this party. And you go, and you look at them, you go, do you really want to do this? Like. Dude, a lope, you know, and I think that's the death of weddings for you as a photographer. If you're feeling that way, yes, it's a lot of money and it feels like an awful waste and a third first world magical being thing that we can actually have 80, 000 parties.

Paul Atkins: But people have the money and they want to do it and we should be excited for them for that. If you're not, you shouldn't be a wedding photographer anymore. Yeah. 

Genevra Siciliano: And like, I'm going to just be, have a, like, just say something a little bit vulnerable and I may edit this out later, I don't know, but I actually cause we have a mutual friend, Claudio Rachella, 

Paul Atkins: who I was talking to this morning, well, messaged me.

Genevra Siciliano: Oh, did you? But, you know, I was hoping that we would have a three way, but, you know, 

Paul Atkins: next time. So he's so talented 

Genevra Siciliano: and I had the privilege of assisting him last weekend at a wedding and, you know, it was a beautiful wedding. You know, I, I, I'm, I'm observing because I don't have, 'cause I wasn't shooting, I had was thinking about, you know, you have your thoughts going on.

Genevra Siciliano: I have my own. The journey that I've been through with my divorce, and it was really, I still find it hard to you know, be present at a wedding ceremony and not have that, my internal thoughts. 

Paul Atkins: Do you feel like warning the couple? I mean, what's the stats these days? I heard somewhere it's like a 50 percent get divorced, so maybe it's like 55 don't get divorced, right?

Paul Atkins: How many of that percentage left that stay married are happily married? And, and who, who's hanging around for the kids and yeah, don't think about it. 

Genevra Siciliano: I'm going to put that out as an open question. You can. Don't think about it. I know. And it's just, it's like. It's interesting because you, you know, you hear the vows and that, and your thoughts start and it's like I thought I'd process that, like I need to do more work there.

Genevra Siciliano: But you know, I'm a romantic at heart, so when I listen to the speeches and I get all, some of them I tear up at, and I'm just like, Oh my God, Geneva, just calm yourself down. Like I've obviously got a heart, I can feel things. But yeah, that was, that was really interesting to, to be at that wedding with Claude because he pretty much everything that I feel like, everything I know about people photography, I learned from Claude.

Genevra Siciliano: And so I kind of view him as a mentor, which is really cool. 

Paul Atkins: I think he's, and he, you know what, he's one of these people who's still shooting weddings and he is, you know, I just said that you age out of weddings. Yeah. What is it with him?

Genevra Siciliano: Like he's, he actually doesn't do them as much. No, no. He rarely does them.

Genevra Siciliano: But when you mentioned before about those photographers that don't, Claude's, you know, he gets it with the connection. 

Paul Atkins: He does. He does. He gets it. And this is the problem. Where I was going with that story about people aging out of it, they hang on and then they blame the younger generation. And they get, I mean, I think it's mostly male photographers, mostly older male photographers.

Paul Atkins: In fact, that's the problem. The world isn't old men. But they're hanging on for their dear life for this man. I'm talking about the hanging on for the dear life of these ideas that they had that worked 30 years ago. Therefore that's not Claudio. Yeah. Claudio is. He lives in the moment and he's with the passion on the day.

Paul Atkins: And I think the challenge to you would be to see those vows as poetry and at the moment that's how everyone is feeling. What the frick's wrong with that? That is the most beautiful thing that they felt. And you know what the second best thing is in the world is people who can do a divorce well. The conscious uncoupling.

Paul Atkins: I love, I mean, the whole uncoupling ceremony, it's like a bit more, you know, but the whole idea that you can be friendly for your kids and be adult and then have your own relationships going your own way, but still get together and say, Hey, we did this thing together. Yeah. Freaking crazy. It's only the pressures we put in ourselves and we feel society puts on us that makes this thing or go to hell in a handbasket and gets us to clutch on for dear life.

Paul Atkins: It's like everything it's about. Letting go and being right there then at the moment, and that's what Claudio is. He is right there. And you know, we would sit down with, we go to lunch, three of these. Four of us. Yeah. And we're all old guys. Yeah. We're not old, but you know, like in that, in that range.

Genevra Siciliano: I can guess who was there, but we don't need to go into it.

Paul Atkins: No, we don't. But there'd be a lot of, there's, there's, it's often quite a bit of, Oh, this person's doing that. Look what he's doing for that. And you know, you sound, we sound like a three old men and the person who doesn't understand any of the gossip, who doesn't know who we're talking about, who doesn't give it, is Claude every single time.

Paul Atkins: Yeah. And it's like, he's just there, right there for what he's doing then. And it is magic. Yeah. He's a very rare person. 

Genevra Siciliano: And you opened his exhibition a few years back. So that was, and I didn't, I didn't know that you were opening. So when I went to the event and I thought, Oh, there's Paul, he's the perfect person to give the whole.

Genevra Siciliano: Welcoming, spiel, so I mean that just went right in with your support for local artistry. 

Paul Atkins: Thanks, I fall over myself for people like Claude. I, you know, if he said, can we go to lunch tomorrow, I'd be like, yeah, I'd drop everything, you know. And, and my mum. The first piece of contemporary photographic art she ever bought was one of Claude's.

Paul Atkins: Oh really? Probably the last one she bought. Oh my gosh, how do you know that? As a woman smoking at Ruby's, it was Claude's exhibition at Ruby's Cafe, which used to be in East Rundle Street, and I think it was a fringe event. Yeah. Probably back in the mid 90s, early 90s. 

Genevra Siciliano: We'll have to link to Claude's. So it doesn't sound like an inside, you know, an inside conversation, um, boats, your love for boats.

Genevra Siciliano: Where did, how did that come about? 

Paul Atkins: Okay. That's a good question. I think it was just an original escape. From the family business thing. What can I do? That's very not the family. But then again, I say that, but then dad built a boat when he was 16. So I built my first boat when I was 19. So I think there may have been a bit of competitiveness there, but his boat was a kind of boat.

Paul Atkins: Mine is a mine, the boats that I like are very romantic and they're very tied to. The past and my there might be built with modern methods, but they're just they're they're beautiful renderings of a whole lot of ideas that have come together, you know, there's this wonderful John Steinbeck the writer He he wrote about boats and this is one of the things that gets me every time Was that he was once?

Paul Atkins: interested in what Society thinks of boats and why boats are still something that gets people some people He said he went down into the stores and this is back in the I gather it'd be 50s 60s Like macy's in the us or One of the great department stores at any rate where they actually sold fishing gear and boats and all that kind of stuff And he stood in the department and he watched people walk up to the boat that was sitting there And it was all a little wooden boat.

Paul Atkins: And people would all rap on the hull three times, knock, knock, knock. And he, and he, he then once went to the furniture department and they never knocked on the piano or knocked on the sideboard. They always knocked on the boats. And he postulated that it's because it's deep in our. The first time we left home as, as a culture, we left our little camps and we went somewhere and great journeys were done in boats.

Paul Atkins: It's the first machines that were, were made, otherwise we walked, right? Carried our stuff and walked, but we wanted to cross the ocean, across the river. We made a boat. And so there's this thing that he, that Steinbeck postulated that was. Deep in deep within us that we had to see that it was safe by knocking on it.

Paul Atkins: And it felt, Oh yeah, that sounds great. It's going to be okay. And I, that's sort of a, I think for me, it's that it's, it's so deep in my soul that I just love them. They're so, they're such elegant, simple things. So yeah, that's my, my boat thing. 

Genevra Siciliano: And you referred to your upstairs area as a lifeboat. Yeah. I didn't think about that.

Genevra Siciliano: I noticed that too. Yeah. 

Paul Atkins: Yeah. And a lot of my metaphors come from that, you know, being anchored to, to something. So sailing, you know, in a storm, the boat is safest out of a harbor in a storm. They're not, they don't want to be tied up. The better being out in the storm and working around it. You can never with sailing, you can never go exactly where you want to go.

Paul Atkins: You're always tacking off, be trying to get there. Whereas a motorboat, you can kind of drive there, but even then. Something's going to stop you. So you've got to change your plans. So that's life, isn't it? Yeah. 

Genevra Siciliano: Yeah. And you know what? I've never been, I mean, aside from ferries, I've never actually been on a boat.

Paul Atkins: You might hate it. You 

Genevra Siciliano: know, I know I should try it, but that's kind of why I've just, you know what? This can save this. 

Paul Atkins: Well, don't let my story. I'm not here trying to convert people to be boat lovers. I'm just there's just something about them that I just can't get out of my head. Hmm. I just can't shake it, you know 

Genevra Siciliano: So you have your your own podcast through is it an atkins branded?

Genevra Siciliano: Yeah, we call it 

Paul Atkins: the lab cast. Okay it is and we've kind of and this is you and kate. Yeah. Well, we it was kate's It hasn't run regularly for a year now And mostly because it's actually really hard to get both of us in tune as in On the same wavelength to, to, cause we would have a chat together like you and I are doing, and then I'd interview somebody and then we'd come back together and review the interview together.

Genevra Siciliano: Oh, cause I'd only listen to, did you do that for every single? 

Paul Atkins: We did. We did that. But then we stopped for maybe a year or maybe longer than that. And I did maybe 30 or so episodes of that format. And then I was like, no, Kate and I are just going to. Talk together and then I'm going to interview someone.

Paul Atkins: So we're going to alternate the interviews. We're going to do interview one week, chat, Kate and I chat the next week. And whether we talk about the interview, we talk about the closing of the show succession, which we did do, they would be you know, like that we just go with the flow and how we feel.

Paul Atkins: And it was just something that, and for us, we, she didn't want to sit down in front of a microphone. It was for her cause she's got ADHD and she's like, I just can't, you can't make me perform now. I can't do this. And she's also diagnosed with autism the last few years. And so she, her life and with other people is.

Paul Atkins: Been a performance and she's been really good at it. People love her and want her to do the Kate thing. And it's not her. Right. But she suddenly realized that she it's so hard on her to do that. And she's now reworking exactly what she is. She can still do that when she wants to, but sitting for the microphone was making her do that.

Paul Atkins: And so we we said, okay, let's do it when we walk the dog. So I built a rig with lapel to walk the dog and to talk while we're walking. And And it was, it is great. It does work really well, but we've just not been able to strike it because the ends of the day, sometimes when we walk the dog and at night have been so.

Paul Atkins: Exhausting the thought of then putting a conversation together. And I found editing. It was hard too. Cause extra background noise. 

Genevra Siciliano: Oh, okay. Yeah. You just mean. Oh, that 

Paul Atkins: and two microphone echo. It was really, but we've done a few of them and the format is awesome. And we're going to do, we're going to do more and we're going to do it when we're driving, you know, car trip, road trips and that kind of stuff and just.

Paul Atkins: You record conversations about things because she's got a very good analytical brain. She thinks completely differently So the, what I do, she's much more aware of of social situation of political cultural change and that kind of stuff. And so she's got some great thoughts on that. She's very progressive and both my daughters are as well.

Paul Atkins: Like they're amazing white miles ahead of me. And I'm now the silly old man in the corner that they have to come and tell me what's going on. Ooh, that's what that means, you know? And then I'm, I'm just trying to be as open. And as learny, learny as possible and not be that crusty old man. I've just been railing against this whole podcast.

Genevra Siciliano: Well, I don't think that you have a crusty old man vibes today. I haven't seen you in a while. Like it's been a long time. 

Paul Atkins: It has been a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crass old man vibe. I look, I think that's my only thing I want to do now. Like personally in my life is not to fall into that trap of, of of being in that situation where people could look at me and go, yeah, you're not accepting of what's going on.

Paul Atkins: You're not willing to listen to, you know, young people and what they want. I don't want to be that. It's a real thing. 

Genevra Siciliano: Like I can almost feel myself. I mean, like, I don't want to. Actually label myself 

Paul Atkins: as a 35 year old or whatever you are, 27, wasn't it? 

Genevra Siciliano: Oh, I love it. Thank you. We're not going there either, but thank you.

Genevra Siciliano: Because yeah, huge generation gaps and I see it with my, my 15 year old and yeah, big culture shifts. So I kind of want to stay balanced to just immerse myself in some of that world. But, you know, what you were saying before about nostalgia, sometimes I look at my life as one kind of, like, nostalgic journey, so I have to, you know, I think the best way to get out of that is to stay present, which I find really hard to do.

Genevra Siciliano: What are your future plans for Atkins?

Paul Atkins: I, I think being ready for change and being responsive is the thing. I'm terrible at change. It's my biggest problem is, you know, so I'm, and it's, so for me to survive that is to trust people who are better at change and to let them do their thing and then to help them and to still be the person that they can turn to, to be carrying the load of nostalgia with them and to make that.

Paul Atkins: Bridge and I'm cool with that. Like I'm great at carrying nostalgia and I think I can teach, I think I've taught my kids who are 18 and 20 what about what's nostalgia and what's important about it and what's not important. I think that's. That's there. And they have such a thing for old photographs and they love it.

Paul Atkins: They take pictures themselves quite a lot, but I think they get that. So that's my job. So I can't, what's next for Atkins is to, for me to be as limber and as responsive as possible to make sure that we can afford to do whatever exciting thing we want to do. Cause I do a bit of financial controlling, which just is the worst thing in the world.

Paul Atkins: I hate, I hate all that stuff, but I feel like I can put myself. That's my, that's my thing I gotta deal with. Yeah. They can dream and should be able to dream without worrying too much about that stuff. Mm-Hmm. , you know, they should be able to go out and break things. My, one of the things that really I loved about my dad the most is he said once Kate should be allowed to do nothing all day and sit and stare and just, she's gotta do whatever she wants.

Paul Atkins: Because that's when the great ideas come out, not when you're dragging yourself to work at nine in the morning, you know, you've got to be easy on yourself. So I just want to be able to facilitate that sort of thing for her and for Mandy and the other team. And if I can do that, that's cool. Because I think the business will be fine.

Paul Atkins: As long as you're responsive and not clinging to the past and making sure nothing changes. Cause Yeah. 

Genevra Siciliano: Well, I've got like a potential slogan, so like Atkins, not run by crusty old men.

Paul Atkins: Take that on. Here you go. Is that, that sort of. Not run by crusty old men. I like it. In fact, you know, the CEO is our dog.

Paul Atkins: We've got him. He's on the top of the organizational chart, Frankie, the, yeah, he's the Cavalier King Charles cross with a poodle. 

Genevra Siciliano: Really? I've got a thing. I've had three dogs in the past and they were all cavies. I've got a soft spot for cavies. 

Paul Atkins: Well, you've given us the big eyes, hasn't it? It is. Yeah, Frank's amazing.

Paul Atkins: So he actually ran by Crusty. You know, I won't tell you what he does, but he's a dog, you know but yeah, that, that, that's what I want to do. So not rung by Crusty Oldman. That's good. I'll take 

Genevra Siciliano: that. If you weren't running a photo lab though, what would you be doing? Oh 

Paul Atkins: God. That's a hard one. I really don't know.

Paul Atkins: Look, I might, I might be, I might've been a boat builder or a like working on a tugboat or. Like a captain of a freighter or something exciting. I think it's very romantic, but I don't know if the reality is that much fun. But there's a guy on TikTok I watch who's a captain of a freighter. And I look at him and go, Oh, I could do that.

Paul Atkins: And he's just so great the way he talks about where the containers go on the ship and where he sleeps. And he's, he's very engaging. And it's like, you can see there's this whole world that I could have been a part of because I really, you know, I thought of joining the Navy and all that kind of crap. But I just didn't have the courage for that big a change.

Genevra Siciliano: So there's like, you know, as far as retirement is concerned, would you consider a career change then? 

Paul Atkins: No way. No, no, no. But I do consider disappearing on a boat to be an imperative. I don't think it's a career thing, but it's a, where's Paul? Oh, you know, he'll be on it some, somewhere. 

Genevra Siciliano: Oh, so like the end of Shawshank Redemption.

Genevra Siciliano: That's it. I've got like an image of that. Yep. 

Paul Atkins: That'll do. Yeah. That'll do. 

Genevra Siciliano: What do you reckon? Good, good, good note to end. Very well attended. Yeah. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Pleasure. Made it really easy. And lots of little nuggets in there that I can package and share. Thank you so much.

Paul Atkins: Pleasure, Gen. 

Genevra Siciliano: All the best. Thank you. For Atkins and and your family. 

Paul Atkins: Thank you very much. Thank you.