How it all began...

At this time of year when we’re all going shopping-crazy, it made me think, what one thing have you bought that you could honestly say has changed your life?  I guess for a lot of my wedding clients, they might say an engagement ring!  Well I thought I’d share with you, that for me it was a photography magazine.  Like many young people, when I was at school I had little idea of what I wanted to do for a living but one day I went out and bought a photography magazine and you could definitely say “the rest is history”!

This one purchase literally “sparked me into life” and my passion for taking photos began in earnest.  With a new sense of direction and after a lot of hard work, I qualified to go to Plymouth Art College.

My first job was in Still Life Advertising in a studio in London where I was lucky enough to “stumble” into Terence Donovan, one of the most renowned British photographers of his generation. 

I became his assistant and worked on high end portrait photography with him, a fantastic learning experience to which I will always be grateful.  This led me to Stefano Massimo, son of an Italian Prince and talented fashion, portrait, lifestyle and now reportage photographer.  Although I was still on really low pay at that time, I was living a life of travel and 5* hotels, photographing such icons as the late Princess of Wales (the irony was I couldn’t even afford to tip the bell boy in my hotel!)

 Most of my twenties were spent working in fashion photography and then some years later after photographing a friend’s wedding, I decided to place a small ad for about £70 in Brides Magazine.  I got 20 weddings to shoot that year and haven’t looked back!

I love photographing weddings for many reasons, mainly for the obvious happy and optimistic atmosphere on the day.  I’ve now clocked up over 600 weddings and as you can imagine, have some amusing stories to tell from along the way. (Don’t worry, all those stories of hungover grooms vomiting on their bride, drunken bridesmaids falling into wedding cakes, bride’s hair catching light by a nearby fire eater have all been filed into my “Album of Horrors – The Private Collection” and names will never be revealed I promise!)

I love the variety of my work now, moving from weddings to corporate shoots, family portraits to school and nursery shoots and I defy anyone to say a photographer can’t do lifestyle and corporate photography as I hope my recent blogs have shown.  I simply love what I do and I hope this is evident in the photos I take.

Anyway, I've had a busy week as always, which has included photographing over 100 children in a dance troupe and we're off tonight to the Wedding Industry Awards event I mentioned a few weeks ago.  I will keep you posted on all of that in my next blog.  Wish me luck!

Signing off for now,