Biography

My introduction to photography came at an early age when I attended our local annual audio-visual slideshows with my parents. My first camera was the SLR Yashica FX-D, which I still have today. I found that the technique of using the camera came naturally to me, I just needed to be visually shown what to do and I was away.

At the first wedding I photographed I was just 17 years old. Wedding and portrait jobs would come my way and I would bring my courage and skills together to produce great wedding and portrait photography.

In 1993 I was offered the assistant photographer role at Madame Tussauds. I enjoyed two fantastic years there meeting many celebrities such as The Dalai Lama, Joanna Lumley, Tony Blair, Linford Christie, Hugh Grant, Pierce Brosnan and Lenny Kravitz.

Due to the increased success of my own portrait and wedding photography, I made the decision to leave Madame Tussauds and progress to building my own photography business. I used a medium format camera, a Bronica SQA with lenses and a Metz flash gun. I loved using it, the square image gives a fantastic and unique composition.

One thing that I found a challenge was being a young female photographer! Some wedding and portrait customers found it hard to accept that I could produce such quality. Their view quickly changed after seeing the outcome.

I was commissioned to photograph Wes Baker working as a Pastor in Cape Town. This was where I first experienced my own creative photography. Wow, what a life changing experience! I came back with many 35mm and 120 medium format black & white and colour films of outstanding images, a year later I hand-printed the best images onto fibre-base paper, which were exhibited locally.