Turns out, a lot,  if you’re not careful.

I spent a lot of time working as a portrait photographer in a studio and don’t get me wrong, it taught me a lot. It taught me how to work fast, how to communicate with clients, how to deal with every lighting and posing challenge you could imagine. There’s real value in that. But somewhere along the way, I realized something was missing. Actually, a lot was missing.

The studio felt like a machine, same poses, same setups, same polished smiles, day after day.
The moments weren’t genuine. They were manufactured, forced and even when the final images were technically beautiful, they didn’t feel real to me. That’s when the cracks started showing. I wasn’t excited to pick up my camera anymore. I wasn’t inspired. I started wondering if maybe… I just didn’t love photography like I thought I did.

Before the studio days, I had been lucky enough to experience a different side of photography, weddings.

Wedding photography was where I first truly fell in love with capturing real, raw moments. Nothing staged. Nothing forced. Just life unfolding in all its messy, emotional, unpredictable glory.

You couldn’t script a wedding day if you tried and that was exactly what made it so magical to photograph. The stolen glances, the bursts of laughter, the tears that slipped out when no one thought anyone was watching. Those were the moments I lived for. That was the photography that made my heart race in the best way. Working in the studio later on, I felt that spark slipping away. The authenticity I had fallen for wasn’t there anymore, and it took a real toll on how I saw myself as a photographer and even whether I wanted to be one at all.

What made it worse was how working in the studio changed the way I saw photography. I became more obsessed with technical perfection than real connection. More focused on posing than feeling. More worried about "getting the shot" than capturing a story. I stopped trusting my instincts. I stopped seeing the beauty in the unexpected and honestly, after a while, I wasn’t sure if I could even get that back.

Stepping away from the studio work and getting back to documenting life the way I had with weddings and my personal projects saved me. Even though it took a while to get back to that place. I remembered how good it felt to witness moments instead of creating them. To let things be imperfect, unpredictable, and full of life. To pick up my camera because I was moved, not because it was my job. And slowly but surely, that love came back. Not the surface-level love but the deep, steady kind that survives even when the road gets tough.

Becoming a full-time photographer didn’t ruin my love for photography, it just tested it.

It stripped away the easy version of passion and forced me to dig deeper. It taught me that what really matters isn’t a perfect portfolio or a flawless pose. It’s the real moments. The real feelings. The tiny, imperfect stories that no one else sees unless you’re there, paying attention. That’s the kind of photographer I’ll always want to be.

Thanks for reading

Arran.