Bio

The first memory I have of taking a photo was on a family holiday to Tunisia at about four years old. I was amazed at the way that something I had seen through a lens could be captured and printed, and kept for so many years to come. The photo was of my godparents, and was taken with my mum’s disposable camera. I missed off their heads, filled the frame almost entirely with the brick floor, and the horizon was far from level. However, despite my obvious mistake, I was fascinated and amazed by what I had created.

This interest continued and I got my first camera, which was a Kodak. I loved it and took so many photos, stretching its capabilities as much as I could. Then, on another holiday at the age of 13, I was devastated when a large number of the photos I’d taken turned out entirely pink! It was only after this experience that I realised how valuable my camera was to me, and how I relished in taking photos. Looking back, the malfunctioning camera was probably one of the things that inspired me to improve my photography the most.

After this episode, the number of photos stored up on my hard drive dramatically increased. Out of focus flowers, overexposed sunsets, blurred city lights –exactly what you might expect from a thirteen year old enthusiast. But far from deterring me, these photos simply made me want to learn how to fix them and improve. After a few years, for Christmas and my fourteenth birthday, I received a DSLR: my beloved Nikon. I borrowed books from the library, scoured the internet for all the information I could find and spent hours practising and editing.

Since then, my love of photography has only increased. Some days I can’t take a single photo that I like, some days I feel creative and inspired, and sometimes I can’t even concentrate on a conversation because I’m thinking about an idea for a shoot or a batch of photos at home waiting to be edited.

For me, photography is summed up perfectly by Marc Riboud: “Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every  hundredth of a second.”