no gods or masters.

Kollin Paul Collins was no normal child, not even since birth. He came into the world after putting his mother through nearly 24 hours of labor. He was going to come out when he was good and ready to come out. No sooner, no later. That was until his twin sister Mavi decided to kick him out. His birthday was meant to be July 17th, but he held out for the 18th. If you ask his father to this day he'll tell you that his first son was meant to be born on Paul McCartney's birthday. That he held out just long enough to be born on such a day. He felt so strongly about this that Kollin's father insisted his middle name be Paul. His mother fought him on the matter for nearly five minutes before finally succumbing to her husband's demands. She was too exhausted anyway to put up that good of a fight.

Growing up in London was just like growing up anywhere else. To say he lived a normal childhood would be a lie though. His father was a famous musician and his mother was a stay at home mom. Though Kollin's father was was gone at times, either on tour or in the studio creating new music, he was around as much as he possibly could. He didn't want his children to grow up without their father. That was no life to live and he wasn't going to allow his job to keep him from his family more than it had to. His mother was always there though. She did work though, somewhat. To an extent, between glasses of wine. His mother loved fashion, like any woman with more money than she knew what to do with. She tried to focus such a love into a small clothing line that she mainly sold to her friends, friends of friends and her family. Her full time job was taking care of her wild children. Kollin was a handful from the start. He wasn't so much a fussy baby as he was an energetic baby. He learned to walk before he was one and if you counted baby talk he was talking before he could crawl. His love for music started young as well. There wasn't a day in the Collins home that you didn't hear some legend playing on vinyl. Instead of GI Joes to play with, Kollin's favorite toy was a play guitar that he played with for hours. When he was done with that it was a toy keyboard and so on and so forth. It was in his blood to play music. His father's father was a musician, uncles, aunts, the family lived for it.

Kollin's father was insistent on his son's natural born talent and was quick to begin lessons. He never took formal lessons. Everything was taught to him by his father and his father's friends. A guitar felt like an extension to his hand nearly instantly. Kol would have rather had a guitar in his hand than a pencil or pen any day. By the age of four he could strum on a small guitar and just a year later his mother was teaching him how to play the piano. His father would coach him on how to rude music, what each note meant and how to manipulate the guitar in different ways to make different sounds. For Kollin, this was like the Bible. He was so much more interested in learning how to play different instruments than anything that had to do with school. His mother put her foot down though and demanded that Kollin start focusing more on his school work. After all, they were paying a ton of money for him to go to some fancy private school. A school that Kollin often acted up in. He just had a difficult time being quiet and didn't quite understand the concept of being quiet. Kollin was a free spirit, he loved to talk and befriend anyone around him. He always excelled though in his music classes. It started to seem like the only thing that could actually hold Kollin's attention was music. So his mother again, had to step in. She felt that her son was spending too much time focusing on music so she decided to enroll him in ballet. Now, no young boy wanted to do ballet. It wasn't the cool thing to do. It was awful and he fought her through the entire process. To his mother's delight though her son was actually quite good and he tried to channel his dancing through the sounds of the music. Maybe dancing would somehow, someday help him to better understand his craft. At a young age he was trying to think like an artist.

Kollin somehow managed to skate through school with average grades. He was an outgoing kid but not necessarily popular. Doing ballet wasn't exactly cool when you were in high school. It was in high school that he found out another passion of his was photography. He was pushed into the class by his mother. Again, thinking her son should have more than just a couple of hobbies. The first time he picked up a camera it felt like it was an extension of his hand. Much like playing the bass guitar did. He had a natural gift for photography. A good eye as they said and something about capturing moments appealed to Kollin. Life was all about life experiences. It was about taking something from each moment so why not capture them through film?

At the age of five Kollin met his best friend and soon to be band mate, Walliam. The pair hit it off nearly instantly and the friendship only grew over the years. To Kollin, Wally was the brother he never had. It was clear from the start that they were destined to play music together and to eventually form their band Infinite Jest. Kollin finally felt like his hard work and dedication had paid off. He was meant to be in this band, he was meant to make music for the world to hear. To explore the world with his very best friends and pump out great tunes for people to escape into. Of course anything in the music business takes hard work and complete dedication. Once school was over himself and his best friend Wally began playing at local pubs around London to get their music and names out there. You have to pound the pavement after all. It wasn't until the duo met Kate James and their lives changed forever. It was wild how one event, one meeting could completely morph your life. From there it seemed like things just snowballed in the best way possible. It was only until then that they met their final band member Ewan O'Connor and created Infinite Jest. Kollin was eating up band life. Bonding like brothers with people that loved to do the same as he did.

It had always been Kollin's dream to do this. To make music, to play on stage and watch people sing along. They had made it. The folk scene was only growing and their music was taking off like wildfire. Kollian remained positive through it all. He knew that they had talent, that all those nights spent in shitty pubs would someday pay off. In 2013 the band decided to take a break, let things cool off. It was something that was mutual and all decided on. Kollin welcomed it. It allowed him to dive more into photography and finally do his first solo photography exhibit.