I asked the people of instagram to tell me what they would like to read about and someone asked how I started out as a photographer. So here is bit of background about me as a photographer and my journey of where I started to where I am today. (Along with a load of my work from 2012-Now (annoyingly in reverse order))

Let’s start at the beginning. I started off taking photos of bands at my local community centre when I was 15, and then my friends throughout my college courses (unfortunately these photos no longer exist and if they do i’m not going out of my way to look for them and be eternally embarrassed). 

From there I went on to Salford Uni where I studied fashion styling and image making. This course taught me nothing expect ‘you need to go intern for a magazine in London and have no money for a long time.’ It didn’t teach us how to use a studio or even a camera for that matter, everything was self taught. When it came to our 3 month intern time, I didn’t go to London, I thought if i’m going to use all my money to go somewhere it’s going to be LA. So off I went to LA for 3 months in my second year of uni, assisted a few amazing photographers i’d found on Dazed magazine and shadowed them. They were like ‘you do realise I don’t shoot every day, I only have a few jobs per month’, I get that now, being at a similar level, when people ask to shadow me i’m like, really? 

That first trip to LA sparked a whole load more in years to come, and I have returned to shoot brand campaigns and portfolio updates every few years. 

On my second trip to America, I became a bit obsessed with thrift shopping, bought an extra suitcase, filled it with gems, brought them back home and started a vintage brand called Raingirl. This was to make myself a bit of money but also an excuse to do loads and loads of photoshoots and build my portfolio and network. Looking back this was such a cute time I had so much fun creating and met so many amazing friends! 

My freelance career started at Boohoo, and i’ve worked at ALL the fast fashion horrors. Like, I really did my time doing the rounds. Despite building up a lot of knowledge and experience working in different places, the more time I spent in the fast fashion industry, the more I learnt about it. I didn’t want to contribute to the climate crisis anymore. And I was also sick of these billionaire men taking advantage of their workers. I myself almost had to take one of them to court as they used my photos on billboards without paying me, nevermind the people in the bloody factories getting paid £3 an hour.  I thought, I CAN’T be in this industry anymore and so quit fast fashion all together. I only wanted to work with ethical and sustainable fashion brands and small businesses from now on. 

Working with small businesses and independents made me re-fall in love with photography again, and it was nice to work with real people, not saying models aren’t real people, but just capturing real emotions and seeing people at work doing what they love and are passionate about just hit different for me and felt so rewarding! 

THEN in 2022 I thought you know what, I wonder if I could shoot a wedding? It had always been SUCH a daunting idea to me because i’d shot one when I was 16 (yes, 16) and it scarred me for life. It was one of those ‘our Ema has a camera, she will shoot your wedding for you’ situations. Funnily enough, this particular wedding was being filmed for Channel 4’s ‘Four Weddings’, so channel 4 paid me £50 for the photos. Lol.

Anyway. So after all of the experiences i’d had along the way, I thought maybe I am confident enough now to capture someones most important day ever, maybe I CAN do this? It’s a huge amount of pressure and it’s so so SO important to get it right. So I posted it on my instagram stories. My good friend Lati replied ‘my friend is getting married and she said she’s not having a photographer, i’m going to tell her to book you’. And she did. And the rest is history. I LOVED shooting that wedding, it was so challenging for me, so far out of my comfort zone, but I knew straight away as I was tearing up at the bride coming down the aisle, this is IT. Capturing such gorgeous real emotions was what I wanted to do from now on.