Your Love Deserves More Than An iPhone Selfie

Mar 31

We've all got them: selfies of you and your partner, grinning at the camera. Maybe you were heading out on a date night, and you wanted to take advantage of the fact that you both looked really nice. Maybe you were out on a walk on a sunny day, and wanted to capture the memory of that moment.

Don't get me wrong; there's nothing wrong with iPhone selfies. I take them too, and they're some of my favourite images, especially those of my boyfriend and I! They mean so much, and bring me back to those happy moments.

However, when was the last time you and your partner had a photo taken that wasn't on a smartphone? Think about it. I bet you you can't quite remember. I'll put my hand right up in embarrassment and say that my boyfriend and I have very, very few photos of us together that weren't taken on a iPhone. Technically speaking, that isn't all that bad... but lately it has begun to bother me more and more.

I'm a photographer (duh!), and my focus revolves around commercial, editorial, couple and wedding photography. These are all genre's that I love, and I really, really love my job. This past year, I've been lucky enough to do more photos of couples, and they've become some of my favourite shoots!

But it began to hit me that so few people invest in professional images of one another. Of course people invest a lot on weddings; they're some of the most important days of anybodies lives! But what about all the other days? The days when you've been together a couple of years, the love is still really new, and exciting. Don't you want that captured too? Or what about the few years after you've been married? You know each other better than ever, you've been through some crap (everyone has it) and you've come out on the other side. Don't you want that love captured too? Or what about when you're old and celebrate 40 years of marriage? That's a huge milestone! It's an incredible thing to have found someone that you love SO much that you've spent 40 years with them by your side! Don't you want that capture too?

I know that I do.

I'm not wanting this post to sound like a sales pitch, because that's really not the point. I don't care if you book me as your photographer; what I care about is that you have your photos taken. If not for you, for your families, your future children, your future grandchildren. Think about how cool it will be to be able to drag those photos out when you're 75 and show your grandkids how cool grandad and grandma were when they were young and in love. Sounds nice, right?

Yes, it really does! It's something that I want! I want to be able to look back at those moments, remember how happy I was, and how good my hair looked (*side note* One of my biggest fears is that my hair loses its thickness as I age!), and how in love we were. Much to my shame, I haven't yet had any photos taken of Tom and I; partly because it just hadn't occurred to me yet, partly because I felt weird asking him to do it, and partly because it just didn't feel like something I needed to do. But that's all changed now, and I can definitely say that soon, we'll have some photos taken (whether he likes it or not).

These won't be for Instagram. They won't be for Facebook. They won't be for anyone but us.

So let me ask you, when was the last time you had a photo taken that wasn't on an iPhone? Has this made you rethink things a bit? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

I am desperate to photograph love. Real love. All love. If you're in love and this article has made an impact on you, please let me know. I'd love to photograph you and your love.

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These images were all taken during the Farmshop17 Photography Farm workshop in Brighton this week. I hadn't attended a workshop in years, and when I stumbled on Photography Farm around Christmas time, I knew it sounded like something I'd love to do. One of the biggest attractions was how business focused the whole thing was (10h of business talks on the first day!) and a day of shoots with photographers I've admired for ages. I was lucky enough to attend shoots alongside Phil Chester and Sara K Byrne, two wonderful photographers based in Portland, Oregon, USA.

It was amazing to watch how they worked, how they got their couples comfortable, and how they went about business as a photographer. I learnt more than I could have possibly imagined, and as I write this, it's the morning after the last day, and my head is buzzing with ideas and tasks to put into action.