Meet the photog!

Hi Everyone,

I mentioned in a Facebook post earlier this week that i have been challenged to write about myself! Waaaaahhhhhh!!! It's not something i'm comfortable doing and sharing photos of myself isn't something i would ever choose to do (cringe), however, people connect with people, and in this industry you can be a technically great photographer but have the personality of a damp squib! I really hope i have the balance right between being a great photographer and capturing the joy in life but also that i'm a nice person and people enjoy the time they spend with me. So, here goes ......

Photography to me has always been a part of everyday life. Before camera phones (yes some of us are old enough to remember life before mobile phones) i used to have a small digital camera that i carried around with me most days, mainly for days out with friends and nights out or parties. Social media wasn't a big thing back then and i kept the pictures on an old laptop that is probably up in my loft somewhere, never to be seen again. Thank goodness technology has moved on so much as we can now share images so freely.

I'm still not talking about myself much am i? Sorry!

I've loved photography all my life, growing up i was lucky to have a Mum who is artistic and shared her love of modern art with me, she had hundreds of books on artists who she loved and huge art posters up around the house and at weekends we would go to places like Salts Mill to see work by David Hockney for a day out. My creative streak comes from her! I spent most of my teens wishing I was better at maths, science and just academic subjects in general, never realising that it wouldn't matter in the slightest about those subjects when I got older and I just needed to focus on what made me buzz! I was always a bit of a rebel at school, it wasn't 'cool' to be different when i was at school, not like it is now where it's encouraged and nurtured. My name was different so i immediately stood out, so when a teacher caught me talking to my friend next to me or gazing out of the window, wishing I was somewhere else, it was always my name that they remembered! I was never into sports, id much rather play an instrument. I failed miserably when it came to fitting in with the 'cool kids', but who wants to fit in anyway? I had a lovely group of friends throughout my time at school and then later at college and uni who made me feel like i was special to be a 'mis-fit'.I finally found a way to channel the rebel in me when i went to Sheffield Hallam to study Fine Art, i'd never felt more at home or understood, and then they gave me a module on photography and the rest is history. I think now I've well and truly made headway into my 30's I've found a really nice balance of being normal and being a bit weird :)

At uni I learned about how photography can and has influenced social change and how it can be a story-telling and documenting medium, how it had changed the way we see the world and share moments with each other. I was hooked, whether i realised it or not, that was a 'light bulb' moment in my life.

I learned how to use an SLR camera and how to develop film in a dark room, i then moved onto digital imagery and Adobe software, which is HARD! Nothing technical they taught me made me a photographer though. That has come with being a 'hobbyist' photographer for so long and my love of working with, and meeting, new people. There's nothing I treasure more than spending a morning with a family who have chosen to spend a few hours in my company for a family shoot or have pictures of their children, have chats and capture a fleeting few moments in life which will then become pieces of art and part of their home. My hobby naturally evolved into something that made me really lucky because it started making money!

I went through a phase when my business first started out nearly 3 years ago where I was so focused on the 'business', setting up websites, having business cards printed, meeting accountants and networking. The creative side of me started fighting really hard to come back out. Thats when I rang one of my best friends (who is also a really talented photographer) and just asked for a day near the sea to just take pictures, no pressure, just snapping things I liked. These pictures are still some of my personal favourites to this day because they take me back to a really lovely seaside day where I had no responsibilities to produce anything, just enjoyed the beauty of the scenery around me. That kind of day is my kind of 'self-care' when the world and work gets a bit overwhelming my bestie can expect that phone call: "can we have a day with cameras please?'

Aren't pictures just so precious? I've shared a little slideshow here of some of me that my photography pal took over several 'out and about' days, we have an unspoken challenge of who can take the most horrendous picture of the other, these were a few of the ones that weren't too bad!

I hope you've stayed with me while a talk aimlessly about myself, I'm sure I'll do a little bit more soon! Turns out it's quite therapeutic!

Thanks for reading!

Cordelia x