This is me.
Where to start? Let’s not bore you and go back 28 years, we’ll go from where my passion for photography started.
In 2016 I began filming videos on my phone for a Football Coaching company I was working for alongside my coaching duties. I purchased an iPhone lens kit from Amazon for £30 and was having more fun than i’d ever had. Interviewing coaches, players, creating promotional work and even having one of my videos played at a Football League awards night. It was a small piece, covering the amazing work Stockport Country Foundation was doing for disability footballers in the community. In 2017 came the start of a new hobby, DSLR' photography. What an expensive decision…
I bought my first DSLR and as you can see from the photo’s above, was terrible. With no experience of a ‘proper’ camera, no idea on what to photograph and words like ‘composition’ and ‘exposure’ went flying over my head. I quickly realised I had so much to learn and my approach is to do rather than listen. I can’t take knowledge in from reading books or listening to advice, I have to do it to learn it. Spending hours out photographing anything and everything? I could get used to this.
The early days.
Equipped with a Canon 200D, Sigma Zoom lens and a new found flame, It was time to get snapping.
Experimenting with shutter speeds, exposures, compositions and the scariest of all. Manual mode. That feeling of your first camera, If only I could bottle it up for ever.
Upgrade.
So it’s been 6 years of photography on the Canon 200D and I am now starting to feel the limitations of a beginner DSLR. I go to shoots and see the pictures in my head but due to the cameras low focus points or the sharpness lacking on the lens, It just doesn’t look right. Time to upgrade. Canon R6 MKii, equipped with the RF 100-500mm and RF 24-105mm plus plenty other gizmo’s and gadgets.
One week of getting my head around all these new capabilities and the creative juices are flowing but we’re back to square 1, time to learn all about a professional camera.
-2 degree weather and a 5am start. Sat peacefully on my fishing chair next to a glistening river Ribble in Preston sounds like the ideal spot to start. Camouflage clothing on providing no warmth and the feeling in my toes has disappeared like all my worries and troubles. I could not be any happier and yet my fingers can’t press the shutter.
6 hours down, no photo’s and the only progress we have made is how to change the video settings. Welcome to photography, the passion that can fill you with the wildest emotions whilst taking away every shred of doubt, anxiety or sadness you have. It’s poetic.