Hello!

Three years ago, my friend at my old job was looking for someone to take his headshots for an acting portfolio he was putting together, I knew how to work a camera as at the time and for four years previous I had been studying video production, so I agreed to give it a go. They turned out alright, and one of his friends then asked me to take his headshots for a modelling portfolio. At this point I didn't even have my own camera, I had been borrowing one from the university I was at. I actually ended up with a camera through my dear friend Harriet, one of her friends was giving away his old camera on Facebook, and she messaged him and told him I would love it. She drove with me to pick it up from Chichester, and at this point I was starting to get a little more into photography, I had done the two headshot shoots and realising I wasn't half bad, started going out on trips with my friends and taking photos then. Harriet asked me on the way home from collecting the camera if I would ever do weddings and I remember refusing, saying I would absolutely never do them, well three years later and I can confirm that has changed.

So September 2019 rolls around and I'm entering my second year of university and life is getting BUSY! I'm at my part time job three days a week and at university five days a week and photography is taking the backseat. I then am approached by my friend who was getting married and wanted an engagement shoot to see if we would be a right fit, and also if I would enjoy it. I agree, saying I would do it because she is my friend, and then spend all night awake the night before the engagement shoot scrolling through Pinterest trying to find prompts for poses I have never done before, for a shoot I always vowed I would never do. I'm not sure if this shoot really came about because she is my friend or if it was really from my inability to say no to people but either way, I was pooing myself and wishing I could turn back the clocks and say no. Three years later, me now is really glad I said yes.

The engagement shoot ended up being fine, and the wedding was postponed due to Covid, but ended up being a beautiful day in April 2021, it was my first wedding booking, and I had this new feeling inside me, I didn't know what it was at the time but looking back I see now it was hope.

I really didn't enjoy university during the pandemic like many other people, I was miserable, exhausted, and lonely and photography was pretty much non-existent in my life between March 2020-September 2020. I started to take photos again at the end of September 2020 and this is when the first dance shoot happened with a very old friend of mine Chloé. We headed down to the beach at sunset and just had fun, I had very little dance knowledge in my brain still stored from when I was little and we didn't plan anything, just rocked up with two outfits, some pointe shoes and a camera and ended up taking the photos that would kickstart everything. And February 2021 was when I took the photo that made me realise I really wanted to be a photogpraher. It was absolutely freezing, but it changed my entire life.

My dream growing up was never to be a photographer, you know when people ask you at the start of high school what you want to be in 10 years and i'm pretty sure I said a doctor or something?? But I have always loved taking photos, and have always had a creative eye for it. My dad bought me my first camera when I was 13 because I loved taking pictures on my IPod, but I had never thought "i want to be a photographer when i grow up" and to be honest I think a lot of that comes from the school system. You have to be academic, not creative, which probably explains a lot for as to why I hated school, and education in general, even university made you write essays about photography, which is why I only did one module on photography in my first year and then never did it again. I had to, and always have had to, fit in a box. If you weren't good at maths at school you were dumb, and if you couldn't get A's in biology you were stupid, and if you couldn't get a C or above in english literature you were never going to make it anywhere. And whilst you need a basic understanding of all three of them, I would love for someone to explain to me why I needed to do double science for GCSE, just tell me where my organs are and call it a day. School ruins so many creative children's potential because its forcing them into an environment that doesn't suit them, and then the government wonders why they don't thrive.

The first moment I fell in love with photography is actually on video! My dad let me use the camera at my aunties wedding, when I was 6. Screenshot attached below:

Photography only really started to be my dream from February 2021, and I think thats a good way to highlight that life is constantly giving you opportunities to create new dreams. You don't have to sit with the same dreams forever, you can change it whenever you want, its your life, do whatever you want with it. That photo in the sea embodied everything I wanted my photography to be, the style was what I had pictured creating and the concept is how I want my photoshoots to be, an adventure. I never want to lose touch with what made me fall in love with it in the first place, going out with my friends and taking pretty photos. From the moment I downloaded that photo I knew this was it, I wanted this and I started putting everything into it. I had just had my heartbroken and theres no better motivation than that, ideas started flowing, bookings started coming in and here we are a year later. I have just quit my part-time job, and I am ready to make it all happen.

Thank you for being on this journey with me, this is just the beginning.