Louis Youde

I’ve always been drawn to creativity. Dancing was one of my earliest forms of creative expression. There weren’t many opportunities to pursue dancing here on island, however the one thing I could do, was make dance videos. I started to do this using the webcam on my mums old laptop. Over the years my skills with the camera started to develop, later developing enough that I started to branch into other forms of videography.

During a 9 month backpacking trip, I offered tour companies video work in exchange for tours. Landing my first successful client in the Amazon Rain Forest in Ecuador. This was the first time that I proved to myself I could generate value with my videos. After the trip and an unfortunate event of a stolen camera, I returned home to St Helena. I purchased a new camera and settled into Island life once again. It was here that I decided to launch Smudge Dog Media a high quality video, filmmaking and photography service for the Island.

The focus of my work is capturing all that makes St Helena so unique.