Daddy

​This is the first blog that I have done for my website.  Wasn’t sure what to write, but then I thought it might be good to let you know a bit about me and the reason I became a photographer.   Simple two words: My Dad. I was given my first camera when I think I was about 7.  It was a Kodak and on the lens there was a picture of a sun and a cloud, so you could move the lens to which ever conditions the weather was.  It had a lens cover and my dad wrote my name in it, so that I wouldn’t lose it. My dad, Brian Case, was always a photographer, for as long as I can remember.  He started his working life as an apprentice at the commercial & industrial photographers ‘Layland-Ross. In 1970 he was appointed as a photographic technician in the department of Botany at the University of Nottingham (now the School of Botany).  He worked there for 40 years and worked up to Chief Experimental officer, and then course director for a unique MSc in Biological Imaging & Photography.  When he died in 2010 he had been promoted to Associate Professor, which is something that he worked so hard for and he was very proud of getting this.  He inspired all of his students that enrolled on his course, he always had time for them, and was a fountain of knowledge.  When he died they set up a facebook page for him, and there was lots of Brianisms things that he would say, and those that always sticks with me are ‘Never be afraid to up your ISO’ and ‘look at the bigger picture’.  Even now when I am shooting a wedding I always think of this. My dad was the one who taught me how to take pictures, photograph weddings and portraits, how to light people.  We used to work together on weddings, and photograph graduations together going to universities all around the country, and I loved it this was my time with Dad, and bit of daddy/daughter bonding time.  I first got interested in photography when I had to go to Dad’s work on an inset day.  I went into the dark room with Dad and he showed me how to do a contact strip on a Black & White enlarger (old school now!!!!!).  The picture was the Theatre Royal frontage in Nottingham with cars in front of it.  I managed to print a 10x8 black and white photograph, from that day I was hooked on photography and my love of black and white photography started, which is something that hasn’t faded in the 22 years I have been lucky to have this as a career. My biggest regret is that my dad isn’t here to see what I have achieved, but I know that he was proud of me and always thought of me as his equal. He was also my biggest critic too.  My mum has told me too of how proud he was.  Some of the kit that I use when photographing in the studio and on weddings is what mum gave me that belonged to my dad, so there is a part of him always with me when I take a photograph.  In 1995 I worked in Peterborough as a colour printer and graduation photographer.   Although the photographic set up was simple, it gave me grounding that I needed to be able to talk to people, interact with families & children, learn about posing in front of the camera and I got to meet a lot of other photographers within the field of wedding and portrait photography, learning from them how they photographed people, interesting stories and ideas.    I became a Medical photographer in 2003 at Kings Mill Hospital.  I loved this job, it opened my eyes to a completely different way of photographing.  At college you are taught to focus the lens on the subject, but in medical photography, you set the lens on the ratio, and you physically move your body backwards and forwards until the area that you are photographing is in focus.  You meet a wide variety of people, both patients and professionals.  I worked in theatre, A&E, in the studio, on wards covering two other hospitals.  There was a lot of variety in the job, and a lot of fulfilment in it too.  It taught me how to be more confident, learnt more about studio work, lighting – not just general lighting but how to light indents in the skin, show moles that are protruding from the skin.   I love what I do and I enjoy every minute of being a photographer.  I love the expression on people’s faces when they see the photographs that I have taken for them, and the buzz that it gives me is something that I will never tire of.