When I look back at 2016 I will remember it as the year I became completely lost. I will also remember it as the year where I found myself again.
Right back at the beginning of my journey, I set myself 2 goals for my business:
#1 – To provide for my family #2 – To create beautiful images for myself and others
But in a noisy and busy industry, it is so easy to be swallowed up by the success of others and to lose sight of those simple goals we have for ourselves. I had thought I knew who I was and what I wanted for myself, but I was trying too hard to be something to everyone and too scared of being the very thing I most needed to be: me.
So I experimented with studio photography and bought a load of stuff that I really don’t need and spent time doing things that I didn’t really want to do until I couldn’t understand where I was any more. But in the midst of all of this, I realised that I was over complicating something that didn’t need to be complicated.
I am in the business of making beautiful images for myself and others, so I just need to do some of that.
I didn’t reach this insight on my own. A combination of mentoring with Stephanie Belton and a workshop in Glasgow with Mark Pacura (two of my all time photography crushes *swoon*) helped me start to gain momentum. Weekly talks with my photographer bestie Lara Frost and for the ups and downs also smoothed the path ahead.
There’s still plenty to fix. There’s still much to do. My work is evolving so quickly I hardly know whether I am the crafter or it is crafting me. My creative process is literally just looking through the viewfinder and knowing when it feels right. Surely I should be more scientific? And yet, when I look back through my favourite images of the year, I know that whatever I am doing, it must be working. Because I’m proud of every single one of these.
There’s still plenty to fix. There’s still much to do. And yet, I am more inspired and excited than ever.
If 2016 was about being lost and found, I want 2017 to be about soaring.
