5 years of Photography

Have you ever been so in awe of someones work that it affects you emotionally?

I heard a quote last week which was:

"When you see someones photograph and it inspires you and affects you emotionally, you change..."

These words resonated with me massively. They were said in a classroom by Joe McNally, a photographer that astounds me. I had no experience of that feeling until I attended a weeks workshop with this photographer in Vienna/Prague.
5 years ago, a link was sent to me showing me this photographers website. I was instantly inspired and wanted to get out take photographs with my old 2nd hand Nikon D70. I looked up his workshops which were based in NYC but the 28 year old me couldn't justify the cost, and I've never been good at saving money so it would take me ages to save up and get out there... Instead I would have to take courses in the UK held by unknown photographers and learn by myself... So i spent the next 5 years with a camera in my hand. Taking pictures of friends, friends kids', parties, events, objects in my room, anything I could.
Constantly frustrated that I can see amazing photographs in my mind, but when it comes to transferring that through my camera, it never turns out the way I want it to.

One night, after photographing a friends hen do, my little old D70 got knocked to the floor, smashing the LCD and causing a CF error... Nikon quoted about £300 to fix it... That's more than the camera itself... Luckily my friend happened to be selling his D300 so I snapped that up so that I could continue taking photos.
A few years ago, I changed job which meant I was now travelling the world with work. I say travelling, but it was more work than travel. I didn't get to see much of the countries, of which I would have liked. Other cultures, dress, language, people, fascinate me. But unfortunately, all I saw was my aeroplane seat, a hotel room and a garage with a bunch of mechanics. It didn't matter what country we were in, the set up was the same each time. We could have been in the most amazing place, but my view was still of cars, white garage walls and not often enough, the backs of my eyelids.
This put a hasty stop on my photography. I bought a Nikon J1 for portability and so that I could occasionally take some snaps of a cool restaurant, food, my hotel room or a Chinese backdoor market or  cowboy boot store that I may have been visiting that week.

In the middle of 2013, my job changed again where I could be in one place and have time to do my own thing again. The D300 came out of the dust and the J1 is now in its place.
I've spent the last year trying to get back into taking photographs, trying to decide how I can turn my job into something I would love to wake up and do each day, to live out my passions rather than have to wait for weekends to shoot in my garden, the park or 1000miles around France looking for interesting places.

I got into derelict photography. Finding derelict buildings, which look like someone has walked out of their house some day in 1950 to go to work, never to return. This amazes me. How a house or a building can be left with all its contents for so long. It's great for me, I find it fascinating. But I wander around these places imagining what it must have been like, dreaming up scenes and images of how I imagined it looked like.  As always, never being able to capture the shot that I can see in my head.

At the beginning of the year my friend asked if I wanted to go to the Photography Show at Birmingham NEC. Yes! Sounded cool. So we bought tickets. Looking into the line up, I saw a name I recognised. A talk with Joe McNally. "Hey, thats the amazing photographer I'd heard of 5 years ago". I had to go.
This is the day that all hell broke loose in my head.

Listening to Joe speak about his photographs was not only inspiring but I was amazed at how what this guy was doing, is exactly what I wanted to be doing. I don't want to set up a website with my photos from parties and weddings and promote myself as a Pro photographer. I want to do something different. People have often said "so, what photography do you want to go into?" and I haven't been able to answer, except to say; "Well, I haven't got an answer. I like to turn boring things into something interesting. I guess thats not a market..."And Joe answered this for me. He is a generalist. He takes on anything without a question. Just goes and does it. Gets given an assignment and shoots the most creative and inspirational photos from something that could otherwise be seen as normal.

After the workshop, I sat looking at his website again and noticed that "Workshops" section again. Hesitantly I clicked it, hoping there'd be a workshop I could attend. Maybe a one day course in lighting or something in London? I might be able to scrape my pennies together and go on that? Damn, there was one of these, but it had completed last week. I'd missed it. No more UK workshops on the schedule. Then I noticed Vienna and Prague... Well, that isn't too far away.... I e-mailed the organiser, Liza, who was a lovely friendly animated character by e-mail. She replied saying that she had had 1 person drop out, so they luckily had 1 space free... Uh oh... What to do now...
The price of the course was a lot higher than what I am used to paying for, but this was Joe McNally. I wasn't paying some random so-called pro photographer to show me how to take photographs, that sometimes I'd thought I could take better myself...
After a day of thinking and trying to talk myself out of it because I couldn't afford it, and somehow I had mailed back and said "How do I sign up?", paid the money and booked the flights.

And the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Vienna...

Where is time going?

It's April... 2014... I have no idea where the last 4 months has gone... I have been keeping myself so busy, I haven't noticed life whizzing past me at the speed of light.
I don't think I have recovered from the pressure you are under when racing. I don't know how to relax. To just stop still and do nothing. I get antsy and get up and do something, even though I feel like I don't have the energy to. I need to learn how to stop still...

A lot has been going on. Since December, I have been in a play at the local theatre. First time i've been on a stage and had to say lines. In fact, i've been in two. One was a radio recording called Downcast Abbey, which we recorded on stage in front of an audience. The 2nd was a play called 84 Charing Cross Road, based on a book by Helene Hanff.

I guess I like to be challenged. I do stupid things that scare me. We spent a few months rehearsing for 84, and rehearsals were fine. Although i had a tough job learning lines. In the midst of that we had 1 rehearsal for Downcast Abbey. I was totally fine with it... until 30 seconds before the curtains opened, when my legs went to jelly and I wanted to run off stage, never to set foot on a stage again. I got through it, but this scared me even more for the upcoming play... I had far more lines in 84 and we had to remember movement as well as lines... I was so scared of being so rubbish and disappointing my fellow thespians.
Anyhoo, got through that one as well. And I can now say I have been in a play :) As for whether I'll do it again... I might stick to photographing them instead of being in them...

On to photos... I had to go to Germany for work a few weeks ago. As I was already there, I decided to take a few extra days and go and explore Berlin to take photos and see the history. Berlin is an awesome place.  I don't think I have ever walked so much. I tried to fit as many sights as I could into 2 days. Managed a fair few! :)

I am currently in Prague, where I've just been on a week long photography workshop which started off in Vienna. It is the best thing I have ever done. It was also taken by my favourite photographer, Joe McNally. His work astounds me. I first heard of him when I first got into photography about 5 years ago, when I took a few photos here and there. I remember looking at his workshops back then, wishing I could afford to go one in the States... The time finally came... more on that in my next blog.

Right now, I am absolutely shattered.. time to go to sleep so I can get on a plane tomorrow and get home, learn how to chill out for 5 minutes and then get back on it again!