Me before I became a Wedding Photographer

Want to know a bit more about me before I became a wedding photographer

Now, I know I have an 'about me' page, but I thought I would do a little bit more than just that, and give you a bit more of an insight into myself- more than a photographer trying, I suppose, to sell himself as a wedding photographer to new couples who are looking to invest in for their wedding day.

So, right now I'm sitting in my office and I'm thinking about what to do, and I just thought, I know! I will write a new blog, and thinking of a topic that I haven't covered, I thought why not introduce myself properly?

So here is a little bit more about myself

So where do I start?

I was born in the northeast of England, in a little town called Stockton near, Middlesborough, and not too far from Newcastle. My parents are both Greek Cypriots, both from Cyprus, but they met in the UK, they had me as their second child and I have an older sister and a younger brother. We spent most years in Cyprus for our holidays and I was the family go-to for anything to fix techie or the one who was trusted to take a video or photos I documented every holiday.

I understand and speak Greek very well, I had no choice my parent's English was hit and miss.

All my family is basically in Cyprus, but I have a small number of cousins and Unlces hear in the UK. And the rest are in Cyprus and I do have a big, big, big family over there with lots of cousins, aunties, uncles.

Both my parents have plenty of siblings and each sibling has plenty of kids and each kid has plenty of kids, you get the idea.

Now I have three kids myself and I love them to bits. They are my world as every single parent would say.

I have skipped quite a lot going from being born in Stockton to all about my family right, so you know I have 3 kids so let me rewind a bit.

I spent most of my life in Stockton but I have travelled a lot I took a year out in my early 20s travelled Asia, and Australia, and spent a bit of time not only in Australia as a tourist, but a worker as, I had a working tourist visa so managed to do a little bit of work.

LET ME REWIND A BIT MORE BEFORE GETTING INTO THAT.

So at school, I wasn't the most popular kid, I wasn't the least popular kid, I wasn't a bully, nor was I being bullied. I was just the average kid. The only thing that I would say that I remember from my childhood is that I didn't find it easy, being dyslexic, finding everything quite difficult and back then we didn't have a lot of help. I'm sure they did there best, the time at school was difficult for me, apart from joinery I loved that!

I struggled and the bits I struggled with were the bits that the school couldn't really help me, my reading and writing were okay upto a point, but for me it was more understanding.I could never understand the questions in a test, so every time I answered them, I probably answered them incorrectly.

So I wasn't the greatest at school but I always worked hard, and tried my best. In the last year of school I got myself a job, I started with a paper round, one in the morning, one after school and then after that I got myself a job as a pot washing in a restaurant nearby of my house. Well, 10 minutes if that, and luckily, the head waiter and the owner of the restaurant lived very close by, so lifts were never an issue.

At this point, I had a paper on in the morning, school the rest of the day, of course, another paper round afterwards, and then I would go to this restaurant at 5:30 pm, and I sometimes finished at midnight, so from the age of 15 or so, I worked very, very hard with and I liked it I saved and saved to buy myself a little car, and I did eventually bought myself a brand new citron Saxo 1.1i in Black oh yes, citron Saxo. I developed from pot washing to becoming more of a helper in the kitchen and then eventually a chef.

So I decided to take a course in Middlesborough College for catering and hospitality where I got my qualifications, I moved on to another restaurant when I was about 19. Working for a quite famous chef at the time and a person in the area. It was by the McCoys, at a place called the Golden Lion in Osmotherly, and not too far, luckily had my license it was about a 30-minute drive, which was no issue at all, any excuse to drive. I was here for a good 3 years and even became head chef, which helped with my organising skills.

Before I go any further I better tell you a few of my hobbies and interests, I love anything that gets the hart pumping, adrenaline junky as some would say.

I love cars, all things F1, lego, gadgets, photography the list goes on... love dogs but have yet to have one ( waited until I was married before I had my 1st dog AJ)

Anyway, a few years later, from there, I started doing things like private events and worked for a company called getting ready for it "Popcorn".

Now, popcorn was a company that organized caterers for festivals and concerts. So I worked with the likes of Oasis, David Grey, and Pete Gabriel.I worked on a few festivals like T in the Park, Smash Hits, and many more. This was really, really good, enjoyed every minute of it, but working hours and everything was out of this world, it was hard.

From there I started at Swinton Park, again a little bit further away, but with this job, was a job that I did that was a living job so although it was about 45 minutes to an hour, it was a living job so my first time moving away. And I loved it, absolutely loved it.

The food was the next level from what I had been doing and working with it was fine dining and was amazing. This lead into me running a cookery school with Rosemary Shragger, which was part of the Swinton Park Estate. I was mainly employed to be her head chef and helped her open her first cookery school and run it too.

So at this point I in my mid-twenties me and my very, very good friend, Sam, when to Leeds for a day out and out the blue we decided to book the world trip.So we got a five-stop flight which started in Asia, Thailand to be exact, travelled all over, did white water rafting and exhibitions, I did cookery schools and tried to learn their culture.

We learned and did a lot of scuba diving. That's where I got my open paddy and my advanced paddy, absolutely loved it. Went around the Irlands, swam with some sharks, like leopard sharks, which was amazing. After that we went through Malaysia and after Malaysia, we went to Singapore, then straight to Australia.

We went to Alice Springs, yes, right bang in the middle of Australia, then we spent a few days there looking around like ayes rock. And then we got a relocation campervan, where you are doing them a favour really so it was really cost-effective that we drove a camper van up to the east coast, north of the east course of Australia. So we spent three or four days travelling from Alice Springs towards Cairns or just a bit north of Cairns to drop off this vehicle after about four days.

The drive we spent a lot of time listening to music, just looking outside at the dark skies, of all the stars, absolutely amazing, loved every minute of it.

Then we decided to go a bit further south and it was on our birthday, so we had to work to pay for the next bit, the job was watermelon picking and that is a lot harder than it sounds. Absolutely agony on our backs, but after working on a watermelon farm and in agony, it was good pay we saved a bit of money up to skydiving, and that was for my birthday, again absolutely loved it.

It was a minute free fall, so that's one minute of nothingness, just falling before we pulled the parachute and had a little video of this taken and still got it and loved watching it now and then, and to show my kids who never believe me.

What else would we do on my birthday? We also did a parabungy off the back of a boat, so the boat was attached to a parachute, and on that parachute was attached to a chair end when the chair was high enough of the parachute from the boat approximately 150 metres, then I jumped off the chair that was attached to the parachute, of course, and bungee jumped off it and then a second boat would come and collect me it was the best feeling. Apart from it was the day after my birthday, and although I was still celebrating, being slightly hung over wasn't the easiest thing to do.

But we carried on and partied again. We continue travelling and seeing some amazing parts of Australia.I could honestly go on and on and on, so I'll skip to the part where I went to Brisbane.I found a job as a head chef and a restaurant called The Edge absolutely amazing place that helped them as it was a new restaurant.I worked in Brisbane for about six months I got to know Brisbane really well so Brisbane's one of my favourite places but I knew it like I was a local.

I decided to get a little flight to Melbourne and spent a week there befoe I went to Sydney, I did a bit of scuba diving then went to New Zealand and oh, it was brilliant.

I started with swimming with dolphins, I hiked up a glacier which had blown me away.

And then after New Zealan I went to LA, but I didn't have a lot of money, didn't do a lot so spent a week on Mussel Beach, they filmed, white men can't jump and baywatch here.

Time to go home!

Back from my trip to visit family and friends to catch up, I found a job at the Durham Ox at Crake just outside of York. This is where my life changed and was put on a new path because that's where I met my wife.

Now, Libby came in after a few months of me working there, and looking for the bar staff because it was her first shift I directed her to the bar where she would see the other staff to get started, and when she walked through, I turned round to Rich, and I said, I like her!

Fast forward a few years we have three children. But before the children came or as the children came really, I was changing my career to a driving instructor.Yes, from chef to driving instructor so it was all about the balance of life for me at this point. It turns out I was pretty good at that as well.

Libby's best friend was getting married in the Lake District and their wedding photographer, turned out to be local to me and wanted driving lessons, so I gave him some driving lessons, but in the lessons we used to talk about all sorts of things a lot on photography because I was dead into my photography, I can't remember ever having had a camera in my hand whether it was me as a young lad going and holiday to Cyprus, whether it was me in the touristy areas of Bangkok. So after telling Paul I was into photography, he saw my photos as well because that was the time Facebook was becoming quite popular and every time I took a photo I published them online, and everyone used to say how good they were and just nice things.

So I decided, to look in to being a photographer, I've never thought about a wedding photographer as a career, but now I the seed was planted thats all I could think about.

I thought I'd give it a go so I started doing that on the side, just slowly building my experience and my portfolio and yeah, I've never looked back since as soon as I could take the big leap to become a full-time wedding photographer, that was it.

I Was Hooked

That's all I wanted to do, it all changed really in 2013, this is when I bought my professional camera and it wasn't until 2016, that I started the business and never stopped taking photos of anything and everything, family, newborns, weddings. I did a lot of second shooting for free to find out how the day would work and the things you need to know the timings ect... to help me be prepared.

So I did a lot of free stuff to get the experience, a lot of courses to learn a bit more about the trade and YouTube was an amazing tool to help me lean, it taught me so much.

The biggest thing I think that helped me is the fact that the moment I got my camera, it went into manual mode and I forced myself to understand what happens when I turn this dial and what happens if this happens and I just learned by making mistakes and learned through YouTube every time I got stuck, YouTube was my teacher. So quick Google search on YouTube and I was away. And look at me now.

Sometimes I think, I just can't believe what I've gone through what I've been through to get here. This is not an autobiography.

I'm not going to tell you every single little detail about my life and the things that have happened in detail. I wouldn't change a thing because I love life where I am, love what I've got, and love my kids, and my beautiful wife.