Hello lovely followers, clients and friends...
As you may have noticed I've been a little/a lot quiet on the old posting front lately.
I've still been beavering away behind closed doors on various different things, but I want to be really honest with all of you and myself as I've really struggled over the past year to retrieve my creativity and drive when it comes to shooting, writing and pushing new work out there, and honesty is always the best first step to personal and professional growth. There's been a lot going on in my little life of late, if I sat and listed or talked about it all I feel like firstly it would be a bit much, as (how I think most people feel) a lot of the rubbish stuff remains best private, and secondly this blog would quite possibly turn into the size of a slightly depressing small pamphlet. So lets just generalise and say I've never been more ready to enter into a new decade of my life than right now! Through it all however I've found my work has taken one of the biggest hits, which is definitely a struggle to admit, but also quite cathartic as it's slowly lead me to acknowledge what's lacking and gain a new perspective on my passion, my work and my business.
I love taking photographs, that has never wavered in me for a second. I've recently been spending a lot of time back up in North Yorkshire for family reasons, and getting out up on the moors and in my favourite childhood spots has really ignited something back into me and my work that I'd really lost. I want to photograph not just people and the aesthetics but their stories, dig a little deeper and know what matters to them, what drives them to love and makes them their unique and individual selves. I get to know my clients of course but to really listen to and take in the subject your photographing is another experience entirely. I've started slowly putting together bits and pieces to begin a personal project that I think could become something really special and I'm going to need some beautiful open-hearted volunteers to walk into it with me, so I hope you're all ready!
This blog is also part apology letter, part thank you note.
To quote the wonderful and talented Amy Poehler; "Apologies have nothing to do with you. They are balloons in the sky.” - Once you put them out there with sincerity and grace, what people choose to do with them is really none of your concern. Maybe they'll choose to accept it, maybe they won't, maybe they'll laugh at the absurdity of thinking you needed to apologise in the first place! The point is if you feel you need to, want too, or should, then apologise away. So here I am, apologising to you. I would like to say sorry for abandoning my post, for throwing heartfelt images of beautiful souls in your face then taking them away without word or warning. I apologise deeply for any of you who may have waited longer than you should have to see your finished projects, I know you exist and I also know you have all, without fail and especially over the last few months reacted so kindly, compassionately and full of patience it has been truly overwhelming at times. Finally I apologise for letting my work take a back seat (or forcing it into the back seat with warm juice and no snacks, more accurately) when it probably could have helped me through a really difficult time.
To all it may and does concern, thank you. Thank you for sticking around, for encouraging me with supportive words, smiles, invites and shares, and most of all still hiring me through the white noise, how that's happened I'll never know! Thank you to my wonderful long standing clients who come back to me time and again, from your giddy engagement sessions to your beautiful weddings, to bumps and then babies, documenting your incredible lives has 100% kept me going and hanging on to remembering why I love this job as much as I do. I can confidently say I will never tire of stalking your lives! I hope you'll forever have me till I'm taking your Christmas Card photos complete with dribbling grandchild on your lap. A big thank you also needs to go to my incredible super-glue family, my extraordinarily supportive boy (and bear) and my wonderful long suffering friends, without whom I would surely have crumbled into a little pile of dust surrounding a creaky old lens by now. So thank you.
I'm not really sure what caused me to write this today but there we are and here I am, writing properly for the first time in months, surrounded by equipment and cards and prints and what feels like a hundred to-do lists of how to blow the dust off my brain, get creative, be a grown up and basically get my shit together and be a badass woman of an apparent talent I will be forever bemused by, and eternally grateful for.
I'm afraid you're pretty much stuck with me now.
VK :)
Image Credit: Darren Hamill