I am 30 years old, and I currently live in Sheffield with my other half - James.
If I am not shooting or working on my laptop; I am drinking tea or coffee, on a walk in the Peak District, cuddling dogs (I’m a crazy dog lady), being a social being, or watching ‘friends’, or I’m in the gym. Or I am on a plane or travelling somewhere!
Travelling has been a very huge part of my life for quite some time now, my dad has always told me to travel, to see the world, so that is exactly what I am doing (and have done). I spent 4 consecutive summers in the USA (Wisconsin to be precise). Working at a summer camp, for the first 2 summers I taught photography to the campers (it was a very very big camp around 800-1000 kids) and for the next 2 summers, I did the photography for the whole camp alongside a few other people. This really pushed me and my style (we will get onto that below). Working extremely long hours, the pressure was on, but I loved that. I loved that rush! After working my arse off for 10 weeks, I would then spend a month travelling the USA + Canada (I have been to 16 states in America, most of which I have driven in - proper American road trip style). When returning home from these summers, I just couldn’t get rid of the travel bug, so I have been to many more places in Europe to still dip my toes into the travel life. My dream is to one day photograph a wedding abroad (someone make my dream come true, please thank you).
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
I’m actually going to sound like a proper cliche photographer here - but I can’t actually remember how it all began… I have just had a camera in my hand since I remember. I guess it first started at those house parties - you know the ones, that you used to go to as a teenager. I used to take a compact camera with me everywhere, all I wanted to do was to photograph everything and anything, documenting those moments that are quite easily forgotten. I took art as one of my GCSE subjects, and my passion for photography just grew more and more. My mum and dad bought me my first DSLR at the age of 16 (thanks parents), and there we go, that was it, nothing was stopping me. I photographed my first wedding at 16 (the images were truly terrible - but I guess that we have to start somewhere), I then shot bands, portraits, products, everything. (Still photographing the parties that I was going to but with a DSLR).
Fast forward quite a lot of years, I studied photography at University and graduated with a 2:1 BA(hons) degree in Photography, where I specialised in questioning “what is a photograph”. I won’t bore you with the details of that unless you want to know, so please feel free to ask questions about my degree I love talking about it!
MY STYLE
Okay, lets just start by saying - I am clearly a very observant person, I take in everything that is around me within milliseconds - this helps me out so much with my job as a photographer, but it can also be quite a detriment too (I am a clean freak and if I see a spec of dust anywhere I have to get rid of it). I am a very sociable person, I love to get to know everyone before I photograph them. I will ask questions, lots of them.
I never want to intrude anyone from what they are doing, whether that be your wedding day, a family session, or whatever it is that I am photographing, I will always photograph what I am seeing, rather than being right in your face all day. Obviously, there are going to be times when I need to get a bit closer to you to get the shot that I am visioning, but trust me when I say - I am very unobtrusive. I just love to capture everything genuine and natural. I will always take a relaxed approach because I know how uncomfortable it can feel having a camera pointing in your face. I am very wary of people feeling uncomfortable so I will try my absolute best to avoid that. One of the ways that I try to avoid this is by getting to know my clients, on a personal and professional level. You will more than likely gain a new friend.
HOW I FIGURED IT ALL OUT
So I have been taking photographs since the beginning of time (I also like to exaggerate). I have photographed sooooo many things, a variety of photoshoots, and so many people. But I guess this will then take me back to my time working in America - photographing so many people in such a short window of time, and these campers did not want their photographs taken (sorry to my ex-campers if they are reading this - you were very difficult to photograph so I had to think of new ways to approach the situation) I would try to be a fly on the wall and talk to the people that I was photographing, try to have a laugh with them - then snap - I got the photo. This has then transferred into my job as a Wedding and portrait photographer. You see where I’m going.
The pandemic - this really helped me in figuring out how I could transfer all the skills that I have learnt over the years and apply them to my job today. So in a way - if it wasn’t for the pandemic I probably wouldn’t be doing this full-time.
