Meet James Marfleet | Musician, Composer, Songwriter, Photographer and Fine Artist.

We had the good fortune of connecting with James Marfleet and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi James, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I have always enjoyed the freedom of being my own boss, even though it comes with its own trouble, like being the only one you can rely on and not having much of a fallback position. But that also creates the drive to push forward. It has thus become familiar to me.

I have been self employed for most of my professional career. The first business I started was a video production company. “Reel Estate Productions”, was a new idea for video in the early 90s. I had the idea to videotape Real Estate for Realtors, something that is an industry wide standard now. Back then no one was doing it yet. I procured financing for just the camera, after doing presentations at real estate offices and getting a list of names of Realtors all along the San Diego coast who said they would use my services. I also had to rent an editing suite to finish the videos, and hire the editor since I did not know how to edit video, the machines were extremely expensive, and digital video hadn’t even come out yet! I did the dubbing, narration and music. I also did some weddings, and even my first music video, which is on Youtube.

Since then I have not always been in a creative arts business, but I have always continued to explore creative work on the side. Have done fine arts, graphic design, music in the form of composing, singing, songwriting and production, creative writing, and also more recently, photography.

Particularly with music, I feel the creative process is not a choice. I hear music in my head all the time, so it compels me to try to get it down to be able to perform or record for others to hear.

Jim Carrey once said, referring to his fathers difficulty in business, something like ‘you can fail at what you don’t like to do just as well as doing what you love, so you might as well do what you love’

To me that’s a great way to express the drive of creative people to want to make their passion a career, and it certainly is true for me in trying to make creative enterprises a business.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
While I have explored all sorts of creative endeavors, even painting portraits on commission, most recently I have been involved primarily in music and photography.

I have produced and released 2 full albums and a couple of singles. One solo piano album, “Sonic Imagery” and an instrumental album “Distance” with electronic and other styles of music I find difficult to categorize. The two singles “Bound” and Running Free” are with vocals. I am also featured on numerous albums with some of the music I have written for film and tv placement, songs that are available in music libraries as well.

I would love to get my work synched to TV and film as well, I just need the right connection!
I have many songs in the process of production and hope to release a full album of original songs soon.

I have always loved video and photography, so while I have always enjoyed taking pictures, recently I started to make these available online for purchase as prints in places like FineArtAmerica.com, and as stock images through iStock.com, Adobestock.com and Shutterstock.com. I have also been offering portraits.
I look at photography not just as a cold documentation of life or people, but an artistic display of life through careful presentation of images that create a story. So if I am doing a macro shot of an insect, it’s not just to get the animal in focus and even out depth of field like a scientist would, but to capture a moment that expresses the beauty of the animal and the unique life it lives. It’s the same with other creatures when capturing wildlife. It needs to be more than just showing the animal or scene accurately, but capturing a unique moment that highlights a unique aspect of why the creature or scene is beautiful . So important factors are of course lighting, color, background, all with minimal editing.
For instance, while I am probably in the minority, I am not a fan of the long exposure images of flowing water which blur the flow of a stream or waterfall, because I feel this makes the image lose the character of the water, and make it unreal and cold. I also don’t like to create images that are over saturated or over edited so as to appear more grand, where sometimes even the sky is changed and added from another totally different picture. I understand this is a style and even an art form, Just not what I prefer to do. I feel the natural beauty of a well taken and composed photo is enough, and conveys true and real beauty.
If I am going to edit a lot, it would be to make portraits look more like paintings.
When it comes to portraiture, I like to use natural light where possible, and capitalize on shadows and depth through the drama of contrast, instead of just having an image that is evenly lit to document a person or family. Life is dramatic and beautiful, so I feel the images that capture it should be too. There is a reason people prefer paintings to photos. They convey a mood and feeling that tells a story, or even many stories, in a way that touches you. It’s not just a picture that shows what people look like, or has everyone smiling like they are just happy all the time.
As with my music I feel all art is very much tied to emotion, more so that mere documentation or mechanical replication. I had a piano teacher tell me once that playing piano is like typing. For some it may be so. But for me that is the farthest from what I would ever want to feel when playing music. I would rather be less skilled (and I know there are far better technical musicians than I) and play with deep feeling and emotion, than meticulous and perfect in technique, but cold and stale in my performance. At this point since I play primarily by ear and my own work, that’s pretty much what I focus on.

It is always a challenge to make a creative pursuit profitable, because sadly our society values cold economics over artistic enrichment, and businesspeople often exploit the artist who is more concerned with beauty and passion than money. For me I have always had difficulty with this, and so only recently have I been able to begin making money with what I create, and it has been many years of doing other work, that wasn’t quite as fulfilling, but was much more profitable. Having a family, bills and responsibilities has made it hard to do what I love. But in many ways I have grown because of this, and more slowly developed a more mature sensibility to what I want to create, and its given me time to really focus on each step to get there instead of being in a hurry.
So as I said I began with music, but also create artistic and functional works such as handmade capos (“The Boa”) from repurposed wine barrels, or other wood or sculpted products.
Then with photography, I have opened a whole new door to expression and opportunity. I was reluctant to work with people doing portrait work for a long time, because I prefer the peace of nature. I decided however that while there are many photographers available, there are only a few that make portraits or other photos more like art, which is what I prefer to do if I am going to take pictures of people. If someone wants me to take portraits of them, they have to want something different, something dramatic, or even character driven. It takes more time to set up, and may even be a bit more costly, but when its done it is not just a photo, but something people can look at like a painting. Something that can bemuse them. At least that is always my hope.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I think where you go and what you do depends on the time of year! Especially in Southern California. If season was not a factor, then I think the desert and its spring blooms are amazing. They are also one of my favorite photo spots. That would be a day, perhaps either Anza Borrego or Joshua Tree would be a good start. Los Angeles Obviously has some great spots like Santa Monica. when there I’d have to take them to KazuNori Hand roll Sushi bar. Small place but big on flovor. Hand rolled sushi and sashimi with warm rice which makes all the difference!
Apples are great in Julian, so that would be another place to see. Both the town and the surrounding mountains are a relaxing place to visit, if you go at the right time.
A visit to Southern California would be incomplete without the Beach, and I tend to favor locations like Laguna Beach, or Encinitas. These are the smaller town beaches with more character and a much more relaxed vibe, than the larger more populated beaches like Newport.
But like I said Santa Monica is close to so many LA hotspots and Venice Beach, is always fun, and has some of the most interesting characters you will see in Southern California. An experience not to be missed.
It also couldn’t hurt to visit Balboa Park, which is an example of why San Diego is one of my favorite cities.
Architectural creativity is sadly lacking in so many places, but not there. I am so glad they preserved it even though it had originally been made to be temporary for the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. Its like traveling back in time and is reminiscent of why people visit foreign countries. To see unique and artistic structures that are just pleasing to the eye, and even evoke an emotional response. Also a great place for pictures.
Summer brings Comic-con to San Diego as well, and my daughter and I try to attend whenever possible, so I would try to bring any visitor that could come there.
Big Bear is also great in winter especially, so if a good snow has come in, we would have to visit there, if not to ski, then to just enjoy the mountain air.
In any of these places, good espresso is essential so Better Buzz coffee is my go to for San Diego county. In Orange County Keane coffee in Tustin and Costa Mesa are preferred.
Little Italy in San Diego has some wonderful food and you can choose from so many different restaurants there.
In Orange County, if you like Pho, you have to go to Pho 79 on Hazard in Garden Grove, which is in my and every Asian I know’s opinion the best there is.
Sadly with restaurants I find most begin to change ingredients, portions and prices as soon as they become popular, instead of keeping things as close to the same as possible, knowing that’s why they became popular in the first place. I know inflation forces price change but never change the food!! Many of my go to restaurants have gone out of business for this reason, or have become mediocre at best and thus lost my business.
Old Town Temecula has some nice spots. Thomson & Twain is a nice little speakeasy style bar, with some great atmosphere. There are also some nice shops and restaurants to visit there, along with The Press Espresso, which makes some great coffee well,
Since my family and I though, really enjoy cooking, and exploring new exciting recipes, so much of our actual eating would likely done at home. Food is a medium that creates art in the form of cuisine, and its just hard to beat the complexity and quality of a home cooked meal when its done correctly. We enjoy using the most authentic ingredients for foods like Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, French and Mexican among others, and love to try new things. However I find that knowing what should be in the original recipe makes eating out often disappointing! I find most restaurants will cut corners or use inauthentic ingredients, thinking, and possibly correctly, that most people won’t tell the difference. It might be true, but when you know, you know, and that can be disheartening. I encourage all restaurants to use the very best you can and keep to the authentic, to represent the cuisine as it was meant to be!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My wife Lisa is by far the most supportive and encouraging aspect of my professional and personal life. She has always believed in me and supported the things I have pursued, as well as encouraging me with kind words when things are down. Whether it’s my music, photography, my inventions like my unique repurposed wine barrel capo, She is the first to convince me I can do what I set out to do. She doesn’t sugar coat it, because she has seen the difficult process, but she is always keen to point out the positives and keep me from getting too pessimistic.
I am also a firm believer in our Creator, Jehovah, the original artist. Since art is unnecessary for survival, it is therefore a gift with the purpose of enriching us and giving joy both to the artist and those who appreciate the work. That makes art a powerful part of how we as people relate to one another, and bind together, often without words, or anything strictly definable. Art affects the emotions, of both artist and listener or observer, which makes it extremely powerful, which all means it must be used carefully.
It is encouraging to feel that by creating artistic and beautiful things, we support each other, and follow the example of the original Artist too!

Website: https://www.jamesmarfleet.com

Instagram: @marfleet_photographic_arts @jamesmarfleetmusic

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmarfleet/

Twitter: @jamesbmarfleet

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamesMarfleetStudios/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI7t0h2sfcq6U7CGf0yfMJQ

Image Credits
Personal Photo by Loren Marfleet