We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Patric Allen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Patric thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Honestly I learned from just making small projects with my friends, as cliche as that sounds. I really try and pride myself that I’ve been self taught through almost my entire career, just doing whatever with my friends and I’m sure you can definitely tell in my work but I learned slowly and of course am continuing to learn every single day. When growing up, I definitely slacked a lot more and lately I’ve been finding myself saying that I should’ve branched out a lot younger cause then maybe I could’ve found a mentor and been leagues better than I am now, but that’s not at all what art in general is about. The core basics are definitely essential but once you know your equipment and what style you’d like to focus on, I think you’re imagination really does most of the work from there, no matter where you’re at in life.
I personally think it always helps to find a hobby or craft at a young age so you can find that community a lot sooner and just have a stronger grasp of your art once you start entering real world society but I think once you start saying “Oh am I doing this correctly?” or “I won’t be as good as..”, you’re already not giving yourself the advantage. Let yourself try new things, be overzealous in the process and in the end, the art is for you and represents only you. Again, no matter your age or where you’re starting out, everybody has their own pace.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

My name is Patric Allen. I’m a concept photographer and filmmaker and it really all started halfway through high school. I made short films with my friends in any of our off-time and that was just how it went until even after I graduated. But in the winter or spring right after I graduated, I really started delving into photography. More or less, that replaced filmmaking in my life for a short while, and I just would shoot any time I wasn’t home. Literally would spend my time working and brainstorming and then as soon as I could I would be asking somebody to hang out and shoot. I was obsessed, it was a wonderfully hectic lifestyle. But filmmaking thankfully sprang back into my life in full force during the summer of 2020 and by January of 2021, I had finally directed my first short.
I think that’s definitely one of the biggest accomplishments in my life. The film itself is absolutely nothing crazy by any means, technically or visually, but it was me finally breaking this idea in my head that I can’t do it. That I’m not capable like other people. I wanted it so badly.
So within a month or so, the help of an amazing crew, and my sheer will to just make the damn thing, we finally did(stay tuned on my instagram for the release). And the best part was, the stress and hiccups that littered the process around every corner is exactly what fueled me to make what I saw in my head come to life. And without the cool little details that made that shoot what it was, even with its technical setbacks, I don’t think it would be anything worth releasing without those memories ingrained into the project.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Whenever my social life started I struggled heavily with making friends and more deeply just being sure of myself. For me, it’s just never been easy being confident. Just hasn’t. Wasn’t into athletics or being smart, so just making sure I was doing the bare minimum was really all I knew how to do. And once I found people who would later become like family to me, my confidence definitely rose but I would still be miles away from actually being confident.
It was like that until I began visual storytelling. Once I started making short films and just trying to delve into the parts of my self that were hard to deal with through art, I found a place among my peers that I think continues to grow and will hopefully grow stronger.
Creating stories that I feel confident in is what 100% drives my journey. I use my work to deal with things that are hard otherwise. Having confidence that hopefully the message is really striking the viewer and creating some kind of emotional impact. Happy, sad, scared, nostalgic. It’s all very important to me in the end.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: PattySme1t
• Linkedin: Patric Allen
• Twitter: @CorelloPictures
• Youtube: Patric Allen

Image Credits
The picture of me in black and white was taken by Hunter Jones