The photographer had recently moved to Canada from the U.K. and was trying to carve out a niche in adventure and outdoor photography, particularly with skiing and snowboarding. But he found the market to be saturated, brimming with established and connected veterans, and he was having a hard time finding consistent work. He looked down at what was burning in his hand, ribbons of smoke billowing up into the air, and saw an opportunity.

Barker is now a full-time photographer, with the majority of his work coming from the cannabis industry. Cannabis legalization has opened up new possibilities for photographers, there’s now an entire world that needs to be documented and captured, from product shots, think macro photography, to portraiture, lifestyle and commercial shoots. Even real estate photography is required to document facilities and dispensaries.

Barker, who is self-taught, is now part of that story.

He got his start shooting flower for online retailers. He had to learn quickly and the stakes were high, photos are one of the few ways that producers can differentiate their products, especially online. You can’t smell it or touch it, but you can see it.

“There’s no other way they can judge the quality of the product,” Barker says, so he tries to accentuate what makes each strain unique — the shape, the coloration, the trichome density. “They’re such beautiful plants when you get up close,” he says. “When you get down to the macro level, it’s just incredible. So I try to pull out the uniqueness of the plant itself.”

BC Organic Sour Cookies by Simply Bare. Courtesy Craig Barker

In the early days, Barker had to get creative, he didn’t have a professional setup yet so he made do with a makeshift studio in the back of his van in a Safeway parking lot, using a light box, natural light and long exposures to try and capture the plant in unique ways. It’s far removed from his approach these days, where professional studios, and a gaggle of equipment, like grips and stands and multiple lights, factor into every shoot. But those early sessions proved successful. The clients were pleased, the work started to come in, and Barker poured his profits back into the business.

“The money that doesn’t go towards my rent and food goes straight back into the business,” he says, explaining that he’s waiting on a couple of cheques so he can purchase additional storage hard drives. “It’s an expensive business to run but I know it all comes back. If I want to continually do a better job, everything gets reinvested in the business.”

And though he’s used to climbing up mountains, or bombing down them, to get adventure shots in remote settings, there are also unique challenges when it comes to shooting cannabis. Shooting in grow facilities, in particular, is a learning curve.

BC Organic Sour Cookies by Simply Bare. Courtesy of Craig Barker

When he hires assistants to help with those shoots, he warns them explicitly that the working conditions can be tough. Six or seven-hour shoots wearing latex gloves the entire time, temperatures so hot, and made worse by the personal protective equipment that must be want to enter the grow rooms, that sweat is pouring on your camera. Industrial fans droning overhead, pushing the plants in different directions, having to sanitize and then re-sanitize if you leave the room, a process that can impede the creative process.

“When you’re on a shoot day, that 15 to 20-minute window can be crucial to getting your job done,” he says. “There have been times where I’ve been really needing the bathroom, I’m sweating and I’m like, ‘Look, I don’t want to break now because we’re going to lose this whole flow and I’ve still got a bunch of work I need to do.’”

There’s also the challenge of building connections, networking with other businesses and photographers, and sidling up alongside the veterans the have been shooting professionally for decades, like Toronto-based Steve Carty.

Steve Carty. / Courtesy Steve Carty

Carty has been shooting since 1990 and his experience in the industry has led to the type of relationships that can only be built over time, getting him into rooms that others can’t always access and telling stories that others aren’t able to.

As a portrait and lifestyle photographer, he tries to capture how people interact with cannabis, whether it’s shooting celebrities like Ja Rule or Beenie Man, or cannabis dinner parties, or everyday people for portraits. For Carty, who is also a medical cannabis consumer, it’s all a part of recasting cannabis in a positive light and telling a story through images.

“All of these people have a story about how they came to cannabis and how it animates their life,” he says. “So, for me, I try to change perceptions. I think that even subliminally people look at cannabis users and it’s kind of looked down upon. And although it’s legal, there’s still a stigma to it.”

When prohibition was lifted, Carty had already been shooting cannabis for decades, but he transitioned to the legal market with a vaporizer company, doing lifestyle and product shots, and then started working with other licensed producers, bringing a technical background and flair to his shoots.

One of the challenges he’s faced is adjusting his style for the legal environment, which is restrictive about how cannabis can be portrayed. Back in the day, he says, he had more freedom with cannabis imagery. It’s a part of the process, though, he says, and it pushes his work in different directions.

Ja Rule portrait by Steve Carty.

“With legalization, it’s about coming up with creative ways to shoot flowers,” he says. “For me, I have a highly technical background with my photography, so I apply that same technical know-how to my lifestyle as well as my product images.”

And his connections and experience continue to pay dividends, even under the legal framework. “People are way more open to talking about it now,” he says, and that helps when he’s shooting musicians, or athletes, and can find a common ground around cannabis and how it fits into their lives.

“I’m just in the business of trying to change perception, man,” he says. “I think that it’s really important for photography, you kind of have to take a stand.”

For Barker, back in B.C., challenging perceptions also factors into his work. One of the first people he had to convince that cannabis photography was a viable business was his mom.

“Now my mom has a different perspective on cannabis, how it can be a positive thing and how it’s not just, you know, stoners and hippies and dropouts,” he says.

“If I can change the perception my mom has towards cannabis, I know I can change the perception of how other people feel about cannabis. And as a photographer and as a marketing professional, that is my goal — to change the perception.”