About me

(c)sarahjanefield 2015

I've always had an interest in photography, and a boyfriend at university (now a good friend) bought me my first proper camera which he worked really hard for  - serving beers in a nightclub after college, not his thing at all!  It's a Minolta X1 and I still have it.  It took me until my father died 20 years or so later to think about learning how to use it, although I did have it on auto before that and took some lovely photos with it too.

I joined an evening class in the Autumn after my dad died.  I suspect taking up hobbies following a death is quite common.  I loved it and very quickly fell in love with it all.  I decided to study it further but had a beautiful 3rd baby instead which feels like an incredibly lucky turn of events now, although at the time of discovering my pregnancy I was pretty upset not to be heading in a new direction.  The thing I eventually realised is that I could still do the study, personal development thing AND have the 3rd baby which I must have secretly longed for.  (I bought a dog and tried to convince myself that would do and that I didn't really want another baby which clearly didn't work!!)

At the beginning of last year I signed up for an online course which was technically focused and which helped me to get to grips with how to operate my camera in a far more detailed way than the evening course ever could.

Half way through the course I bit the bullet and built a website, advertised on Facebook for volunteers and started building a portfolio of actor's head shots - because that's what I used to do a long time ago.  I can't tell you how scary that felt.  Each and every time I posted something online I felt an immense sense of terror.  I really took a lot of bad photos but learned so much each time I went out.  I found that I really enjoyed meeting all sorts of different people, chatting and taking some photos of them, which as time went on began to get better.

I completed that course in December and started to charge nominal amounts to individuals and families which I'd not done before.  I also did a couple of corporate jobs.  In January I signed up with OCA because I feel I have so much to learn - yes, still on the technical side of things but I think that would have come anyway without any organised study, but more, so that I might begin to develop a style of my own - with some guidance and help.

I'm not sure I'll ever earn an actual living with photography although that would be really wonderful.  But studying will at least give me more experience which might inform some future job or career and I think education is always a worthwhile venture even if for no other reason than enjoyment.

I am extremely busy most of the time so fitting this course in is challenging to say the least.  And there are often moments when I can't quite believe what I've taken on.  But we only live once - so best make the most of it if we can.

Please forgive the many typos and mistakes that I know exist here - I do try but I know I miss a great deal.