How did I get into Photography?

Hi there,

So this is my first blog post on my website and I hope to continue this so that I can share more about who I am, and what I do.  I’d first also like to say, hi!  Thanks for reading and I hope I can also learn from this too.

I’m 27 years old and about to turn 28 in May, I’m from Nottingham and basically love all things Photography.  So much so that I learned about it at A-Level and studied it at University.  I have won a couple of awards for my work and was offered an exhibition slot along with a few selected others from my course all those years back at Uni.  I really do love photography and take photos all the time.  A lot of my youth was spent outside, and when I was gifted my first point and shoot camera back in 2004, it felt so nice to be able to do something different than my brother and sister who had talents of their own.  I was into acting a lot and went to The Lace Market Youth Theatre in Nottingham and performed loads of shows there.  And after that ended, I never kept it going and wasn’t really sure what to do with myself.  My teen years ended up with me and my then mirrorless digital camera outside, soaking up everything I could with photography.  I also had an iPhone 4 and took advantage of the amazing features it had, (at the time haha).  I was so into editing too - I had a little computer I managed to edit cool and different ways than my friends did in my photography class.  And for my final project, I was awarded for best portfolio in the whole of the year; I was pretty chuffed with this.  And it was then that I decided that I should take up Photography.

I ended up only down the road from where I lived at Nottingham Trent University.  It was a whole new thing for me and I wasn’t really sure what I had in mind for it.  I loved the new living experience and on my course, I always went above and beyond with trying my best to answer all the questions in the seminars.  There were a lot of quiet people in the class too, so whenever I spoke it felt like I was being a bit of a teacher’s pet, which I really am not!!  But I ended up with a really good grade and proud of what I achieved there.  7 years after graduating, here I am 3 years into my own Wedding Photography portfolio and some amazing photos along the way.

Photography was easy for me, and I’m not trying to sound cocky.  I found it easy because I loved it.  I wanted to learn more about it therefore I put my own personal time into watching loads of videos and tutorials about cameras and photoshop and editing, so I continued to just shoot, shoot and shoot!  At university we learned how to use 35mm, (old fashioned) film cameras.  Nowadays these cameras are being picked up a lot more because of their nostalgic looks and just to be a bit ‘different’, but I did it to better myself and learn about how to manually use a camera and not to just let a digital camera do it for me.  I even ended up using along with a friend, a Hasselblad.  A Hasselblad camera is a medium format film camera and everything about it is beautiful.  It looks beautiful, it sounds amazing when taking a photo, and the images it makes are just on another level.  I ended up using the Hasselblad camera for my final photo project and enlarging the photos for our final exhibition.

Photography is in my blood.  Getting to know a camera well enough so you don’t even need to look at the buttons and just know what you’re doing, and figuring out the settings as the light changes around you - I know it.  It’s fluid to me and is really easy to adapt to a situation.  For example… Last summer I was asked to shoot my childhood best friend’s wedding.  I said yes of course!  And then he said… We’re having it in a cave.  My eyes widened and I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work.  I said to him, “Cave’s are completely pitch black, right?”  He replied, “No not this one, it’s man made and it has a couple of small windows for the light to come in through!”  I was still sceptical.  My partner and I went to go and take a visit with them and yes it wasn’t as bad as I thought, but I was still nervous about how my camera and skills would adapt to an environment like this.  A couple months later and it’s the Wedding Day.  It is very rushed and I have to communicate well with my partner so that I can be in the right place at the right time.  And if you’re not in the right place at the right time then you might as well not be a photographer.  The Bride walked in and I made sure my settings were adjusted for the lowly lit cave.  It was beautiful let me tell you, the cool blue contrasting with the warm daylight coming in made for some amazing scenes in there.  With the walls of the cave being completely… how do you say… ROCK!  The light just did not reflect at all, so from a photography point of view, this was going to be a challenge.  The most important part of photography is light, and if you don’t have light, you have no photo.  This is just physics!  Are you keeping up with me??  I’m not one for using a lot of flash as I feel the looks can be quite garish if pointed directly as the subject.  And I also wasn’t prepared to lug in my large flash diffuser into this compact cave.

I planted myself in the best position I could and when the first kiss came, I got it!  Walking back up the aisle I was concentrating on the couple and seeing all of their friends’ faces as to capture the moment.  It’s August and 2pm in the afternoon so the sun was blazing down, I was aware of all of this so had to quickly adapt to the light as I was practically walking backwards along a cliff edge.  Oh did I not mention that the Cave was right next to a drop face cliff??  Oh well I have now.  The only thing keeping us from tumbling down was a metal railing and my good sense of balance.  And when we did the confetti photos, it was just such a relief.  To know that myself and my partner had captured one of the two most important parts of the day without any hiccups was a real achievement.

To summarise…  I really love what I do.  Photography is something I will always have with me even if I didn’t do wedding photography, I’d always have it in my life.  It’s such an honour to be a part of a couple’s day and making moments through a camera so that they can keep them for the rest of their lives.  It really means a lot to me that I can put smiles on people’s faces through just taking photos.  I take a lot of pride in what I do and when it comes down to editing the photos, I make sure all the images I give to the client are just really nice moments.  Some moments that you might not see in people in day to day life, so managing to stop a moment in time and give it to someone is one of the things I really love about photography.  It’s in my heart.

So I hope you’ve learned a bit more about me and what I do and where my Photography has come from.  I hope to be able to do another blog soon so stay tuned for more of these!

Well done if you managed to read all the way down to hear - good on you!

Much love, Hugh.