I bought my first SLR camera back in about 1990. I was 17 years old and it was saved up for and bought with my earnings from working as as Lifeguard at Perth Leisure Pool. My parents were horrified - I think it cost about £100 and given I was earning about £2 per hour and working about 10 hours a week outside school it constituted quite a sizeable investment. 

An investment it was not, however I never got over the first few images I was able to create - their purity and clarity. It totally captivated me.  However buying a camera in those days was only part of the cost. With film the other part of the cost was getting the pictures developed and that was an ongoing cost. You took one photo on a spool of (i think 24) and you then paid £2 to get them developed either by going to Boots (yes the chemist) or other High street shops. There was a big market in those days for postal development, so my parents used to use Trueprint for their holiday snaps.  You would send away your spool of 24 pictures and get them back as a pack of pictures - usually 4x6 inches or, if you were feeling flush, 5x7 images. 

After that I went on to Medical School and work as a doctor (I am still a GMC registered and working GP but I dont use my work Surname for photography. There is nothing to hide here. but as an employee of NHS Scotland, I like to keep my main job and this separate.

So, I here you ask, why am I here proffering my services as a Wedding Photographer when I could be doing good work for the NHS.  There is a simple answer to this; as a GP, it is fair to say, people do not come to me when life is going well (apart from new babies). They come to see me when life is bad for whatever reason.  Day in and day out that has quite an effect on my mood and it makes me view the world in a quite negative and depressing way.  I deal with life events, yes, but the life events I deal with tend to be around illness. disease and loss.  In my dealings with those I would life to believe that I am fair, compassionate and pragmatic. I have lost count of the times I have cried on my way home from work or after a patient left the room.

Wedding photography gives me balance. I lets me see the joy and hope as a couple start their lives together. It lets me experience the joy or their special day. That joy is not lost on this Wedding photographer.