Hi! Welcome!

Hello!!

Why is the first photo, the first blog, the first of anything, the hardest to complete!? I have procrastinated, sure, but mainly because I want to get everything right, although, I know that by wanting that, nothing gets done! So here we go….

A little bit of background info

I swear I was born with a camera in my hands. I don’t remember a time ever being without a camera – whether that’s a stills or video.

At School, College, University – I was ‘that’ person, always in other people’s faces, wanting to take photos, or blinding them with my old camcorder light, capturing video (If you went to Uni with me, I likely have video footage of you from nights out at Remdogs!)

The truth is, I just love memories. I want to soak them all up and hold on to them forever. And photography is like magic – taking a moment that we see and making it physical. I don’t know any other real life magic like that – do you?!

I always knew that I wanted to travel after University. I’ve always been intrigued by other countries, culture, landscapes, people and wildlife.

I decided to sell my laptop to purchase my first ‘proper’ camera, the Canon 400D. In hind sight, selling a laptop that I would need to edit on, probably wasn’t the smartest choice, however, I also sold my car – probably wasn’t the best option – to fund part of my travelling and I actually set aside some cash to purchase a new Apple MacBook.

It was classy too, it was black and smooth and just the most amazing laptop ever. It was also my switch from Windows to Mac. And from that moment therein, I would forever be needing more space, faster processing speeds and always be broke!

Above: Me on my very first backpacking adventure across the globe! (I obviously had to put one in there with penguins!!)

So, I had my new camera, my backpack and a 6 to 12 month plan of being away from the UK on this great adventure. I decided that I would stick my 400D into manual mode and leave it there. Again, in hind sight, I probably should have practised more before jumping in the deep end but I was stubborn, still am, and well, I thought this was the best opportunity to learn. And learn I did. I learnt that the majority of images I ended up taking were bloody awful!

Why didn’t I just put it in auto mode for some images? I really gave myself the toughest challenge of learning something new in a situation where it would be quite stressful! None-the-less, after 6 months of adventuring, starting in India, heading through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand (again!) and finishing up in Sydney, Australia, the money had run out and I had developed a weird and very painful migraine, that was causing me to feel nauseous and not be able to stand any light. I even had to have a CT brain scan in Sydney, which was all clear, but I decided that I needed to travel back home in case there was something else going on. More on this in another blog post!

What I learnt by being stubborn

So after a health scare, I arrived back home to look through all of my travel images and honestly, what a plum! I would have taken better photos with my point and shoot but I knew that I loved my new camera and photography and that I was hooked!

I came home from backpacking knowing that I was going to be a photographer.

Above: Me photographing with my Canon 400D in Delhi, India 2007.

So I spent time learning more about my camera, the capabilities, where all the buttons were without having to look every time. It was quite a jump from my other cameras to a DSLR and I needed to feel comfortable and confident in the equipment.

Not a few months later, I found myself employed at a Wedding Photography company, who decided to give me a shot. Very brave of them indeed but I was also a good people person- very smiley, always pushing myself to do better and be better. The wonderful bride’s and groom’s that I photographed loved the images but when I look back on them now, I see the progression and wish I could re-do them to give them something even better!

Starting out is hard. You think you are better than what you are! And the more you learn, the more you realise that there is always more to learn and actually, that’s part of what I love and that’s the magic of not only photography – but living!

So this was my origin story with my first Canon DSLR. And my first MacBook. And my first photography job!