London Photographer : Keeping hold of the hobby

I'm in a very enviable position ... I get to make my hobby in to a living ... when you get to do that work is no longer work it's fun.  But on the flip side I've also lost the thing I do for fun, the thing I do to distract me from work.

So how do you make sure that the very thing you love to do remains that ...  the best way I've found is to add variety, mix things up.  I'm maionly a portrait and event photographer, and one of the reasons for that is because I like working with people, I like building the relationship and trust that is required to get the connected shot.  I've never really got into reportage, street, still life or landscapes, I can appreciate the effort but it's not for me.  

That said now I have to find photos to take for fun aswell as for work so I'm doing more and more of the things I never used to.  It's a great exercise, makes you think differently, slows me down and makes me find features of the camera and aspects of photography I don't normally explore.

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So with all of that in mind I went on a photowalk with a friend one evening whilst the sunset was early and the lights were about to go on.  I live in London so there are no shortage of beautiful things to shoot.  We went up and down the area close to Tower Bridge, onto the river bank before getting wash away by the incoming tide, up onto the bridge and then onto the South Bank.  What I couldn't believe was how quickly the time went and relative to my portraiture how few shots I'd taken.  What did I learn ... I'm going to slow down when I'm taking portraits, take longer to pose the people and make sure the pose is right or close to it before I press the Shutter release.

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