Before photography, there was the workshop. Four decades as a working tradesman — welding, fabricating, building things that had to be right because someone was going to depend on them. That is where the discipline comes from: measure properly, prepare properly, do the job so it lasts.
It turns out that is also exactly how you photograph a wedding.
Photography began for me the serious way: weddings. Ten years of them. A wedding is the best training a photographer can get — one day, no reshoots, every kind of light, every kind of person, and a couple trusting you with something that can never be done again.
The planning calls, the timelines, the family groupings, the quiet moments nobody else notices — that discipline never left. It is still how I photograph every wedding today.
After ten years of weddings I took the camera out onto the street — and found the hardest thing I had ever pointed it at. A wedding hands you the picture: the dress, the light, the moment, all arranged for you. The street hands you nothing. You have to see it first.
That is the skill I teach now, because it is the one that changes everything else. Learn to see on the street and every other kind of photography gets easier. We only see what we focus on.
Leeds, Knaresborough and beyond — £32, two hours, any camera, every level. Run through Leeds Photography Club.
One wedding a weekend, photographed the way the day actually happened — a street photographer's eye with a wedding professional's discipline.
A video series and course in production — learning to see, not just to shoot. Free episodes will land on YouTube as they are finished.
Fifty-three photography questions answered straight — no jargon, no gear-snobbery, no silly questions.