My Photography career highlight

The Baby Photographer

Sympathy Pains

Published on Wednesday, 28 May 2014 11:00

Last Updated on 28 May 2014

Michael Shilling

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Last week I had a rather long conversation with a recent graduate from my old University. Although I knew that the call was going to end with “can you give us money” the conversation was actually very…..conversational. The student in question did seem genuinely interested in receiving advice about forging out a career path. One of the questions she asked was in the last 13 years since I graduated what has been my career highlight? I couldn’t really decide but I settled for opening our first studio. Since then that answer would be different. In the past 13 years since I graduated I’ve taken studio portraits of somewhere in the region of 100,000 people and event pictures of thousands more. I’ve shot a wedding on a Glacier in Alaska, numerous beach weddings in the Caribbean and photographed from the lock gates of the Panama Canal.

In my twenties my career took my all over the world but in my thirties it has been about creating important and treasured photos for families here in London. It’s reassuring to think that what you do with your life is important, that what you do for a living has a positive impact on some people. I’m not trying to change the world but I’m not saying that it isn’t an ambition. It’s strange to think that the photos I’ve taken are in thousands of homes (in drawers most likely) all over the world.

But I’ve never photographed my wife. I’ve taken a few snaps here and there but never had what I would constitute a portrait session, not even a 60 second portrait sitting.

We have wedding pictures on our walls but not a single picture I’ve taken. We’ve been together for 10 years and married for 7 and a half of those so you might be asking WHY?!?!

Resistance is the answer, she was happy to pose for our wedding photos so maybe she was just waiting for me to become a better photographer.

Or maybe she was waiting for all our planets to aline before she stepped in front of my lens. As a photographer the most important pictures you take are of your family. That made me slightly nervous as my wife stepped into my studio for the first time last weekend.

For me, photographing my wife at 33 and a half weeks pregnant in my own studio is the highlight of my photography career so far.

No prizes for guessing what the next one will be.