A New Photography Adventure

You’d think by now I’d have had enough. It started when I was a small boy, borrowing my dad’s old manual film camera to photograph stuffed animals in the woods. In my early twenties I was shooting as much as I could, learning my craft, and then somehow in my mid-twenties, I accidentally turned professional.

I say accidentally as I had no intention of turning pro. I was asked to photograph a wedding for a friend after their photographer had an accident. They liked their images, word got around and somehow I started earning more at the weekend than I was during the whole week.

And that was me for the next 18 years, weddings & portraits. It was an honour being part of a couples most special day. I loved it, all of it. The long hours, the pace, even the responsibility, which is immense at a wedding.

But I started to grow stale, I still enjoyed it, but I could shoot a wedding on autopilot. The images were always fantastic and the couples thrilled, but I could see how formulaic I was becoming. It was the same images with different set of people.

So when 2020 came around and the world was forced to stop, I did. But more than that, I chose never to go back. 2020 was a year of endings and beginnings. I gave up my allotment, the gym, being an instructor at Air Cadets and competitive ballroom dancing. What began, was I got a dog.

And Bolt got me back into the outdoors, walking everyday, meeting other dogs and their owners. I loved it so much the following year I got another dog, Nova.

And these two got me out everyday and rekindled my love of walking and the great outdoors, so much so I started a YouTube channel Dog Dad Outdoors. And being out there in nature with a camera to do my videos, it wasn’t long before I started taking the odd photo, and then more than the odd photo, until I was taking my camera out a couple of times a week whenever I was walking the dogs.

And now being fully immersed in the dog owners world, only taking UK holidays and choosing cafe’s and pubs based on whether they were dog friendly or not, it dawned on me, dogs and photography, two of my biggest loves.

And so here I am, decades into my photography journey, giddy and excited about what is next. Weddings probably still are where ethe money is, but dog photography is where my heart is at.