The solution to being bored with photography was more photography.
Frederic Paulussen
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Fred Paulussen shoots corporate headshots and events by day. On weekends, he disappears into the streets of Antwerp with a camera.
He keeps them on separate websites, but in practice the line between them blurs. The corporate work is precise, technically demanding, and deeply people-focused. The street work is meditative, personal, and driven purely by what catches his eye. He’ll be at a corporate event, camera in hand for a client, and notice a shot he’s making for himself.
He studied photography in high school, drifted away from it, found his way back during a trip to Namibia with his sister, and then got fired from a marketing job. That last part turned out to be the catalyst. His father, a self-employed accountant, suggested he give photography a real shot and offered to help with the admin side. Fred started with corporate work as a way to fund what he imagined would be a travel photography career. The travel dream quietly faded once he realised he would never actually enjoy waking up at four in the morning for a sunrise. Corporate photography suited him. It stayed.
Street photography came later, and almost by accident. He’d been giving himself exercises out in the city, heading out with a single lens, limiting himself to symmetrical compositions, just trying to sharpen his eye for his business work. At some point he realised what he was doing had a name.
When burnout hit, the answer was more photography. Specifically, the kind where no client is waiting for results.
Fred also hosts Slices of Time, a street photography podcast he started because the information he wanted simply didn’t exist anywhere. Corporate photography had almost no community around it. But, so did Street photography, and that’s where his focus went. People who shoot on the streets tend to do it alone, rarely compare notes, and guard the flow of it closely. Fred had questions and no one was answering them, so he started asking photographers himself, recording the conversations, and putting them out.
Here’s some of what we get into:
- How a Namibia trip and getting fired set Fred on the path to full-time photography
- Why he chose corporate and headshot work over the travel photography he originally romanticized
- The way street photography and event photography bleed into each other without Fred actively trying to connect them
- Why street photography works as an antidote to creative burnout
- What most photographers underestimate about corporate headshot work, including his habit of logging every lighting setup so he can recreate it exactly months later
- Why he started the Slices of Time podcast and what surprised him most about street photographers as a group
- His straightforward advice for anyone sitting on the fence about starting something new
Fred has been doing this for many years. He’s built something that doesn’t fit neatly into one box, and that turns out to be exactly the point. Enjoy the conversation!
Q: What surprised you most about what street photographers actually have in common?
Fred: I think in general, one of the things that I didn’t anticipate in street photographers is that we’re all kind of shy and introverted, which is weird because we’re all very much into crowds and in the heat of the moment and into people. And I think it’s the same with the podcast, like people are shy but are still willing to talk a lot about their passion.
Q: What was the real reason you started your podcast?
Fred: I just started the podcast because I had questions and I needed them answered. For like half a year I kept a document with every question that popped into my mind, which are sometimes silly questions. Like I know one of them is, do you listen to music while you’re out on the streets or not? But it was something I didn’t really find answers to, and so I decided to just start talking to people myself.
Q: What do you wish you knew before going full-time into corporate photography?
Fred: I think it’s consistency. I have clients that I visit once every year and they just hired five or ten new people who want the exact same photo as the previous photos. They don’t want to reshoot everyone. And I definitely missed the reflex to write everything down, write all your settings down, which lights you use, which umbrellas, everything. Because clients don’t really notice if you miss a shot by 100 Kelvin in white balance. But they do notice if the photos look slightly different when they paste them next to each other.
🔗 Connect with Frederic Paulussen
🧭 What We Talked About
🎼 Early Journey / Origins
- Fred started shooting at 14, influenced by an older brother, and graduated with a photography degree at 18 before moving into marketing.
- A trip to Namibia reignited his passion, and early inspiration from travel photographers like Brendan Van Son and Peter McKinnon pointed him toward a career behind the camera.
- After getting fired from a marketing agency, his father encouraged him to give photography a real shot. The travel dream faded quickly once he realized early mornings for sunrises were never going to be his thing.
- Corporate photography turned out to be the natural fit, and what started as a stepping stone became a genuine specialty.
📖 Philosophy / Vision / Storytelling
- Photography has become less of a job and more of an identity for Fred, something that never really switches off.
- He sees a direct link between a photographer’s technique and their personality, from the shy shooter reaching for a long lens to the extrovert going wide in someone’s face.
- At the core of everything he does is curiosity. Photography gives him access to places and people he otherwise would not have a reason to engage with.
📷 Tools, Craft, and Behind the Scenes
- For recurring headshot clients, Fred documents everything: lighting setup, camera settings, room location, and behind-the-scenes reference photos. When a client needs five new team members matched to existing shots, he can replicate the look exactly.
- He emphasizes how draining headshot work can be, juggling technical decisions while keeping subjects comfortable and relaxed in front of the lens.
- In street photography, he has shifted from architecture and wide scenes toward people-focused work, drawn especially to crowds at public events and the people watching rather than the spectacle itself.
🎙️ The Podcast / Practice and Community
- Fred launched the Slices of Time Street Photography Podcast nearly two years ago because he had questions about street photography that no one was answering.
- The name combines the idea of photography as a fleeting, unrepeatable moment with a nod to the Daft Punk song “Fragments of Time.”
- One of his biggest surprises from the show is how shy and introverted most street photographers turn out to be, despite their immersion in crowds and public spaces.
- His dream for the podcast is to eventually take it live at street photography festivals.
💬 Advice, Sustainability, and Burnout
- Fred hit creative burnout with corporate work and found his way out through street photography. He finds it amusing that more photography was the cure.
- His approach to staying sustainable is simple: be gentle with yourself, prioritize what actually matters today, and give yourself permission to skip a week or take a break entirely.
- His advice to anyone starting out, whether in photography, podcasting, or a new genre, is just to start. Mistakes are part of it, and nothing moves if you never begin.
🌍 Influences, People, and Places
- Fred is based in Antwerp and shoots regularly in Amsterdam, which he visits partly for its photography museum.
- Early travel photography inspirations include Brendan Vanson and Peter McKinnon.
- Bruce Gilden came up around the topic of courage in street work and getting close to subjects.
🔮 What’s Next for Fred
- Fred has been running a casual monthly coffee meetup for around 15 Antwerp-based street photographers since August of last year, and the group is planning a street photography exhibition in Antwerp in February.
- He describes himself as a next-week rather than a next-year thinker, focused on keeping the corporate work, street photography, and podcast all moving forward.
