My First Blog

Hi,

I am new to this blogging thing and was unsure where to begin. So I guess I start with me.

I am a 39 year old Mum of one. Well, a big one and a little one 🙂 Do men really ever grow up? My little boy, who is five, is pictured below at our favourite place in the country (and second home that we never visit enough and are hoping to move to permanently eventually) the Yorkshire Dales.

Ribblehead Viaduct, North Yorkshire

I was born and raised in West Sussex, as was my husband, and come from a family of farmers and artists.

I started out on my artistic journey at Herford College of Art & Design after leaving school in West Sussex at sixteen and moving to Herefordshire to live with my Dad, an artist himself.

It was during those three years at Hereford that I found my love for Photography and was my chosen specialist area in my final year. This was before digital had taken off and I used an old minolta film camera and learnt to process the film myself. I had the most fun in the dark room watching the images slowly appear under the chemicals. The dark room was my favourite place!

On completing my time at Art College I did the thing that was just starting to gain popularity. I took a year out worked and went travelling with a friend and took in the sites and backpacking culture of Thailand, Australia and then Bali before returning to my childhood home of West Sussex.

It was upon my return that I made my first bad life decision (although I did meet my husband, so I would not change it!) and turned down my offer of a place in a BA Honours Photography course at uni to undertake an HND in Business and travel & tourism. My reasons were sound, i knew photography was a tough industry and having a second job was probably going to be necessary for a while. But why oh why?!! I only did the first year, which i passed, amazingly, but that was it for me.

Next I undertook a City & Guilds in interior design, which i passed with distinction and moved onto an HND in spacial and interior design, which i thoroughly enjoyed and found another passion in my life, History of art!

I had every intention of continuing photography as a hobby and I spent a lot of time photographing ruined castles and abbey’s whenever I could quenching my thirst for both photography and history.

Through my college course I got a job at a kitchen company, which I started upon leaving, which was designing and drawing kitchen layouts on a cad (computer aided design) style system.

I did this for two or three years before I could no longer stand being stuck in an office in front of a screen five days a week. Digital photography had really started to take off by now and realizing I had no means of setting up a dark room at this point, I took the leap and brought my first digital camera.  This is where my current career started and it has not been easy! In fact it has got harder as technology has progressed so much that even a basic mobile phone can take good quality photos and this means it is at everyones fingertips. However, luckily there is more to taking a photo than just aiming and shooting, which means there is still a place for the likes of me!

I have dabbled in many spheres of Photography but it was only after having my son that I found my love for photographing babies and younger children. They are often so much easier than adults! 🙂 Once a child is comfortable and relaxed they are not  worried about how they look. They don’t mind that I maybe didn’t get their best side or a hair is out of place. Let a child be a child. It is the subject that makes the picture, I just try to capture those moments so you can treasure them forever. ❤

As I always say:

‘When a child is lost in that most perfect state of just being a child, that is when you get the best pictures’.