10 facts about the girl behind the camera...

1.

I live in Plymouth with my partner Pete and our two dogs Vinnie and Devin. Pete and I will have been together for 12 years later this year and we are currently planning our own wedding. So I can fully empathise with all my clients who are currently wedding planning, I feel your pain.

2.

I have been a vegetarian for roughly two thirds of my life and I've never looked back. I was never a huge fan of meat beforehand, so I never missed it. The penny dropped one day when I was at school, that if I tell mum I'm a vegetarian she'll stop putting meat on my plate. I actually thought she might say, “you can decide what meals you have when you buy and cook the food yourself!” But I was overjoyed when she just said “okay” and that was that. Some people worry that I'll be offended if they eat meat in front of me but I really don't mind as long as it's not on my plate.

3.

I have a weird memory. I know what number corresponds to every letter of the alphabet, so I can write with numbers just as fast as I can write with letters. I'm still waiting for this skill to come in useful though. And this is even stranger but I also know which picture corresponds to which number on the Christmas advent calendar that I had when I was 3 years old. It's a long story involving me keeping the Barbie calendar and it ending up in the back of my wardrobe for a year. Then the following year I had the same calendar but the pictures and doors were all muddled up. So I told my mum and showed her the calendar from the year before. Everyone was in shock that I knew what picture was behind every door, and I genuinely still know it today. But I'll often forget what I did last week, so I'm no genius or anything.

4.

I am a conceptual photoshop composite artist and self portrait artist. What this means is that I use photoshop to create digital conceptual art and most of the time these are self portraits. I started this in 2020 when I had no clients to photograph, I turned the camera to myself and began exploring photoshop in a whole new way. Some of my portraits are available to buy in print and others are available to be customised to you (meaning you'll be in the portrait instead of me). I also offer custom commissions, so you can have a conceptual portrait that is completely unique to you.

5.

I collect film cameras, I currently have 17, I think? And last year I found a camera that had film inside it. So I got the film developed and there were family photos (from a family I didn't know) that were taken back in 1995!! I managed to track the family down with the power of social media and was able to reunite the family with their long lost pictures. You can read more about it here. I also offer film photography at weddings.

6.

I go to a lot of live music gigs. Usually the bands are heavy metal but my taste in music is quite vast and so I sometimes find myself amongst very different crowds. Last month I went to a Pete and Bas gig (a rap duo who are both in their 70’s) and then the very next evening I was watching Pintglass (hard core, very heavy metal). And last year I saw Gabrielle (pop music) live, then blink-182 (pop punk) five days later. And this is just scratching the surface of how varied my music tastes are - Spotify has no idea what to do with me half the time!

7.

You can learn a lot about a person based on their taste in music and TV. I’ve discussed music already so it feels only natural to mention TV next. I work from home most of the time (editing the photos) and I often have the TV on the the background whilst I’m working (today it’s Friends). I’m terrible really because I do re-watch a lot of things rather than exploring new things. Maybe this is because I know I have work to do and therefore I know I can’t focus on something brand new. Anyway, in order to make this fact interesting I’m going to list 10 things off the top of my head, that I re-watch (and I’m not counting Friends as I’ve already mentioned that). Here we go: The Office (USA and UK), Taskmaster, The Handmaid’s Tale, Breaking Bad, Phone Shop, The Crown, People Just Do Nothing, Alan Partridge, Parks and Recreation, Bojack Horseman.

8.

I’ve always loved reading in my spare time but lately I find it easier to find time for audio books. I think my taste in books is also a bit of a mixed bag and this is probably due to the fact that I studied English Literature at collage and university and therefore had to read a lot of books from a lot of different genres.

9.

Becoming a wedding photographer was completely unplanned. From a young age I enjoyed writing stories and poetry, so I assumed I would end up becoming a writer or working in English literature in some way. Then as my love for music grew, I thought I might end up working in music journalism (I wanted to write reviews for Kerrang!) I bought a camera to take photos of the gigs I went to and the rest as they say is history.

10.

I have been a wedding photographer for almost 12 years now but for a long time I still had other incomes to fall back on. I worked in pubs as bar staff for many years before I moved onto working in a secondary school as a teaching assistant. Then in 2018 the school offered a number of redundancies and I didn’t hesitate to take this opportunity as I thought it would be the push I needed to go fully self employed with my photography. But I wasn’t brave enough and I ended up taking on another job as a support worker, with a zero hour contract. This was a great stepping stone into going fully self employed as it did bring in money but I knew I couldn’t rely on it as I had no contracted hours. I was getting quite a bit of work from that until the pandemic came along and then I was left with absolutely nothing. I ended up delivering Amazon parcels to help me get by, which was the perfect job for a socially distanced world. But on April 24th 2021 I worked my very last shift delivering Amazon parcels. Since then, I have not worked a second for anybody other than myself. I'm 3 years fully self employed to the day!