I hope you had a lovely Christmas & New Year, I really did! I thought I'd share what I've been up to in the last few weeks.

At the end of November, Pete and I went to see Depeche Mode at the o2 in London, which was a very last minute decision but one I'm so glad we made. Obviously I didn't manage to get any half decent snaps of the gig (which was amazing by the way! I totally freaked out when Dave Gahan came out on stage!), but I managed to get a few around the city I love in the 24 hours we were there..

​Taro's is our go-to place in London for Japanese food.

All happy with his usual Tori Karaage!

We tried to look cool guys, we tried.

Lana has been my right hand lady this summer, and my tongue is nowhere near my cheek when I say that she is bloody fab and she has been an amazing help and support to me this wedding season. 

At my first wedding of this year (Jamie & Dani's), I thought for the first time how lovely it would be to have someone else on "my team". Little did I know that it would be a guest from that very wedding, and one of the people sitting around the same table as me eating dinner!

The two of us recently had a photo day together, as sometimes it can be a bit too busy on a wedding day to talk a great deal or to share wisdom!

​Feel free to follow Lana's progress and photographic journey here, and if you see me at a wedding next year, you'll probably see this lovely lady with me.

It might not be the coolest, biggest, most fantastically amazing swankiest office you ever did see, but damnit it's mine and I love it so much.

​I've been wanting to convert the spare room into my own office for months, but due to a very busy summer wedding season (not complaining in the slightest!) I had to really wait until it was over so we could sort the room out properly, I could buy everything I needed to buy and have the time to get everything set up. 

Pride of place is my brand new 2017 iMac 21.5" with Retina 4K Display. I can't tell you how many years I've seen Apple Macs in peoples homes and in department stores, and practically drooled over the cute little wireless key board, and wanted desperately to shove it in my no-where-near-large-enough handbag and take it home with me. Basically it hasn't disappointed me in the slightest since I unwrapped it and set it up and I don't know what I'd do without it now. (A huge thank you to my little Macbook Pro, which I've had since my last term at college back in 2011, and has now gone into semi retirement.)  ​​

One of my best friends Helen who runs Shiny Creations made me a cute little Niffler that's also a bowl, he now looks after the odd memory card or paper clip. Another dear friend of mine Sah bought me a coin eating No Face that sits right in the middle of the self along the top. ​Scampi's new favourite thing to do is look out the window and watch everyone pass by in our street.

Thank you to every single one of you for all the love and support that actually meant I could and should get this office in the first place, it does not go unnoticed and is very much appreciated! 

I really cannot thank Amanda enough for my random photo shoot with her this month. Amanda and I had been talking for a while about doing a shoot together, and it ended up being on my birthday, so it turned into actually quite a lovely gift to myself!

​I braved getting in front of the camera again and I am so glad that I did. It taught me a lot about what it's like to be the other side of the camera and about myself.

"Let's go away and have a little break, just you, me and Scampi!" Pete announced late one evening. He had been looking at unbeknownst to me at a four day get away at Hawkchurch Resort & Spa. Some time away with my little family sounded extremely appealing and so I didn't need a lot of convincing to be honest! 

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Our mini break really started though with seeing Ricky Gervais' new stand up show "Humanity" in Southampton. Obviously I didn't really get any photos of that, but I couldn't leave it out of this blog post. 

The Office, Extras and The Ricky Gervais Show are all very dear to me, and I honestly don't know how I would survive without them. Every now and then I re-listen to all The Ricky Gervais Show when I have a lot of editing to do (and the theme to "monkey news" is my text tone!). Pete, Steve (my brother-in-law) and I laughed the whole way though. Another thing ticked off my bucket list!

I'm not the best Photographer.
​No one is "the best" Photographer. It simply doesn't exist.

I work in an industry that is far too subjective and based on personal tastes to really classify anyone as such. I can only be the best version of myself that I can be, work hard and be good in my own way. So can you and it's important to remember.

People will either like what you do, or dislike what you do - both are completely valid and totally okay. As long as you work hard and try your best, that's all you can do in life. No one person can be everybody's cup of tea for a million different reasons, and that's okay too. One man's joy is another man's "What is that about?!?!??". 

I am always learning new things about my profession and I always will be. I will never reach a point in which I do not need to learn anything else and I become "The perfect Photographer". No one is. No matter how much they or others think they are, or how much they appear to be. Every single Photographer out there is on a never-ending journey of learning and discovery. We are all at different stages. It's wonderful it should be embraced, not shied away from or covered up. 

Maybe you're not quite where you want to be in life, but I'm sure you've come a long way, I know I have. So often we are consumed by day to day life, what we have to get done, how we can get better at whatever it is we do, how to be better people, where we are going in life and what our next steps should be. Every now and then it's just as valuable to look back and see how far you've come in the past year, five years, ten years or even six months. 

Please find your passions in life.
Stay humble, stay hungry and keen to learn.
​Learn to be proud of how far you've come and your achievements.
Embrace it all.