Craig Leetch

I picked up a camera a little over four years ago, never expecting it would become a career.

I’ve always had a strong pull toward the arts – film, music, performance. I played multiple instruments and spent over ten years performing in a band, which kept me around photo and video without ever being directly behind the camera myself.

I started working at 16 in odd retail jobs, then moved to Belfast at 18 and spent the next eight years in different roles within the financial sector. It was during that time that photography crept in as a hobby. I knew early on that a “normal” job wasn’t going to be the long-term plan, so I spent a lot of that period working for free just to learn, until people started paying for the work instead. Within two years I’d quit my job and gone freelance full time.

It was that freelance work that led me to Xpert. Jack, our Head of Brand & Marketing, got in touch through a friend of a friend to shoot a recap video for Xpert’s 10 year anniversary. Around the same time, Xpert were looking to bring creative in-house. I applied, and here I am.

What’s always driven me creatively is making content people actually connect with. “People remember how you made them feel” is a line that’s stuck with me for years, and it’s the thing I try to bring into everything I create for the Xpert brand. Every purchase you make is influenced by marketing in one way or another, and whether you realise it or not, how a brand makes you feel is what actually stays with you.

Outside of work I like to keep busy. I’ve trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for six and a half years, lift weights, play golf regularly, and hike here and there. I read a lot too, it’s about the only time I can actually sit still