When I was at uni, I always hated taking photos of people I didn’t know. And when you’re doing a photojournalism degree, it’s quite hard to not take photos of strangers. Whenever we had a lesson where we would have to go out and find news stories, I would get this sick, nervous feeling in my stomach. And often, I’d just bunk off so I didn’t have to do it (sorry lecturers!).
Once I graduated, I told myself I would never have to feel those nerves again. Why would I? I wasn’t ever going to pick up a camera again, remember? Well... that’s one promise to myself I’m glad I broke.
After shooting my first wedding, I decided to try and battle these nerves head on, whilst also building up my portfolio. So I advertised free shoots on my Facebook page, in exchange for being able to use the images on my social media platforms.
I ended up booking to photography a lovely lady called Samantha and her family. After having to rearrange the shoot servers times (thanks British “summer time”...) we finally managed to do it on a lovely, sunny Sunday afternoon. Even walking over to Bure Park, where we had agreed to meet, I was a nervous wreck. I felt sick, I was hot and I was adamant that I had no place photographing people making out I was a professsional photographer.
Once I had met them though, my nerves went away. I realised that having your photo taken was much more nerve wracking than taking the photo (to me, anyway). And I needn’t had worried as Samantha, her kids and her partner were all lovely.
I knew Samantha wanted at least one group, staged photo, as in her words she could “never get all the kids in one place”. So I made sure we got this out of the way first! After we had taken this, we went for a walk across the fields, along the river and ended up at the park. And I ended up with some lovely candid photos.
I think that’s 1 to me, 0 to nerves.
