Where it all began

Part 1. An unusual route into photography, a story untold and a doggo that changed my world.

It all begins with a dog. All good things do.

Back when I was 18 I'd still shown absolutely no interest in photography. I'd taken a couple of disposable film cameras out on nights out and well, that's it actually. I didn't even really have much interest in the outdoors beyond having to be out there to play football, tennis or to go surfing.

It all changed when I made the big decision to get a puppy, Taylor, my White Shepherd.

I bought my first camera, just a point and shoot, to document her growing up.

Hundreds of photos a day followed, thankfully I chose digital over film! What I wasn't expecting was Taylor brought about a huge change in how I viewed the world. I loved my walks with her along the coast in Morwenstow and before long my hobbies had switched from time in the pub to time spent outdoors. There's nothing I enjoy more now than a good adventure and exploring somewhere new. It's hard to believe that I never used to be like that.

An adventure with Taylor and struggling with DSLR continuous autofocus settings.

My camera went with me everywhere, capturing our adventures together. There was a change somewhere along the way though. I just loved being out in nature, on the coast in particular, and had started to take more and more snap shots of the locations we were at. I loved watching the waves and became fascinated by them. If I wasn't photographing Taylor splashing in the waves then I was jumping over them myself.

For years our favourite game was jumping over the waves together. Even now in my 30's I'm that guy who will happily jump over waves because let's face it, it's fun no matter what age you are! Anyway, it wasn't long before I was spending hours and hours trying to capture the motion of the waves with the camera. Huge swells crashing against the cliffs and long exposures of them receding back into the depths of the ocean. I learned a lot about photography back then just from shooting the sea. A lot about how the camera would react if I changed the settings and exposure here and there. Let's just say most of the images were absolute crap. I enjoyed it though.

The early days of trying different shutter speeds on breaking waves.

At this point I'd purchased a Nikon D80 as my first 'real' camera and I was busy soaking up all the information I could online and from magazines to make myself a better photographer.

After a while I stopped reading magazines and online articles as I found that I enjoyed the process of trial and error more and the satisfaction it would bring when it paid off. I didn't realise until then just how much I loved being creative and being told what to do or reading about how something should be done has never really been my thing. Pretty sure my old teachers will agree with that! The process of wanting to achieve something, trying, failing, trying some more, succeeding, and the joy that process brought really spoke to me.

One of my favourite images from my early days of photography, in part due to the memory it brings. I'd usually have left Taylor to her own devices whilst shooting a landscape. She's a water baby though and she had her eye on this pool. So did I. I set this shot up and took it while asking Taylor to stay over and over again. One eye on my camera and one eye on her I grabbed the shot. I turned to her and said “okay”. She jumped straight in from sitting down, water going everywhere and just lay in there splashing around. Perfect circular pool very much gone.

Happy photographer, happy puppy, happy compromise.

I'm very much a self taught photographer. I've never had a lesson, been to university or anything even close really. I am however very thankful to magazines like Outdoor Photography that put out fantastic articles on a monthly basis. I ended up featuring in many of those articles myself, something I would never have imagined back in the early days! I still get the same buzz now from seeing my pictures in print.

So my wonderful super fluffy doggo was why I picked up a camera, why I love being outdoors and why I love photography.

Taylor is no longer with me but I'll be forever grateful for the way she sculpted my life and for the business she left me with. She made me a better human in every way, gave me an incredible love for the outdoors, gave me a hobby that would later become my career.

Although she will always be missed, I always think that she lives on in my work, and that's a pretty cool thought.

She really was “The goodest of girls”.

So that was a pretty unique way to enter the photography world. How did you find your way into photography? Leave a comment and let me know if you want...

Part 2, my first wedding and turning pro, coming soon.