I live with my husband and our five year old son on a 14 acre farm that was the stuff of dreams for us in the beginning, nearly ten years ago.
Unfortunately the ‘dream’ quickly became a reality and the reality got tough! It was not the working side of farming that was particularly an issue, although my Husband was new to farming I had grown up on a farm and was from several generations of farmers. The issue, as with so many things, was money. We started pretty much from scratch, we just had the land and a barn. We had no capital to invest, we had to rely on money we had coming in from other work.
It’s been a tough ride but over the years we have had several life events here, been married and had our son.
One of my Welsh section A’s at home on the farm. I have ridden since a two year old and have a 25 year old home bred Irish draught. Recently I acquired a couple of Welsh section A’s to work on during the quiet times.
Ten years on and the dream has really turned into a bit of a nightmare for us over the last two or three years, although it still has the potential to all turn out very well. We are facing some pretty serious life issues at the moment, that we have very little control over and very limited options. Work and my son keep me going and largely sane! ��
Both my husband and I are being medicated for depression, and our situation is certainly a big factor in that, but for years my anxiety held my photography back. It is only now I realize the impact it has had on me, over pretty much my entire life!
I feel grateful to have this opportunity to share my own mental health story. It really is such an issue in the world today that needs talking about and dealing with and the more people open about these things, the more people feel they can.
I never thought I would be able to find it in myself to photograph and interact with people the way I do now and children were a real fear before my little fella turned up! (This is not to say I still don’t get anxious at the beginning of a shoot!) and one of the reasons I can do this now is because I got help. It may have taken a while, but I did do it ��
For years I opted for taking photos of animals or putting myself in situations where I had to interact with people as little as possible. I still have a tendency to that now and I am not much one for talking to clients via phone (terrible phone signal is not a help!) I would prefer face to face contact but that is rarely possible or practical, so the first time I actually meet a client is at their shoot. This does not leave much time for getting to know each other and I hope by doing this blog, perspective clients can get to know me a little bit and feel more comfortable when we finally meet for the first time at their shoot.
It’s hard to know how personal to get with these things, but it can be amazing what you get back if you are prepared to give a bit of yourself.