Emily Endean -Seascape Photographer, Female Photographer Educator and Van Dweller.

Nick and Steve's guest for this episode is Emily Endean. Emily is a freelancer photographer specialising in seascapes, ocean photography and lifestyle/brand photography. Emily is also a photography educator and specialises in female only photography trips and workshops. Emily is based in the South of the UK and travels from location to location with her wife and pets aboard her classic Hymer van, which is also their home. 

Emily uses Fujifilm X series cameras and lenses, and has a very close relationship with Fujifilm UK, and has previously been a brand ambassador for Fujifilm. 

This is the second of our podcasts as part of a prelude to International Women's Day on March 8th. Emily is also speaking at this year's Photography Show at the ExCel, London. 

Nick Church and Steve Vaughan are professional wedding photographers based in the UK. They both use Sony Alpha cameras and lenses.

Nick's website : https://www.nickchurchphotography.co.uk/
Nick's Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/nickchurchphotography/

Steve's website : https://www.samandstevephotography.com/
Steve's Wedding Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/samandstevephotography/
Steve's personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevevaughanphotography

Any technical information given by the presenters is based on their understanding and opinion at the time of recording

Transcript

Steve: [00:00:00] Hello again, and welcome to the photography pod, a photography podcast for both working professionals and enthusiast photographers alike. My name is Steve Vaughn. Once again, I'm joined here with my good mate and fantastic wedding photographer and also wonderful educator. Is that a big enough build up for your neck?

I like it. 

Nick: I like it. Thanks Steve. 


Steve: Don't get too big headed. Yeah. How's your, how's things mate? ~Very ~

Nick: ~good. Yeah. ~Yeah. Talking about the education stuff. That's still occupying a lot of my time. The new Nick Church creative Academy, but I've been looking at, Communities because one of the things I've, as I said before, I want to have these online courses.

Digital products as well, but also a community. And it's because I've become increasingly, I don't know if you've noticed this, my Facebook feed has become increasingly clogged with fake news, right wing posts, adverts, and it's just almost unmanageable to try and get through anything. What I find is that the Facebook groups for professionals, I know we're in a few of the same groups where that counts, I think that's fine because everyone's qualified to offer advice and, [00:01:00] give good, correct information for a beginner, but I'm in a few beginner groups as well, and it's almost impossible because every question that is asked for a start, the same question gets asked multiple times a day.

Everybody seems to want to answer regardless of their qualification to do so they're getting loads of incorrect advice. I might chip in with an answer, but there's nothing in my comment that looks at any depth, that tells the original question asker that mine's the correct answer and there's isn't, and you get some trolls in there and people are really unpleasant and rude.

And so anyway, the ideas I'm thinking about Craig, so what I'm gonna do is create a community as part of this training platform, where it's like free from distractions or social media. For more of a sort of, community based aspect. But for learning, I think there are areas, especially for beginners where that, just does not work as a platform, but going into platforms for these training platforms, they're really complicated.

It's like website builders, but with specific community areas. And if they ask, it's just an area that I've not looked up I've looked at Squarespace and WordPress and things, but this is totally different. 

Steve: These are [00:02:00] dedicated apps or. Providers for dedicated. Yeah, exactly. For training. ~Yeah.~

~Yeah. Yeah.~ 

Nick: So you build your website. So in one sense that their website builders, like any of our photography websites might be, but with loads of functionality, like gated communities and memberships and all these other things, which the other ones just don't, they've got a sprinkling of some of these features, but not the sort of things you would need to run a professional training course.

~I've been feeling completely at sea because it's stuff you don't know. And I thought this must be what it's like for beginners. Buying a camera. So you don't know what one to get because you don't know what you don't know. And so you don't, you have to make a choice on something that could end up being the wrong one.~

~So just watching~ 

Steve: YouTube channels is what I normally do. So just watch a load of YouTube. 

Nick: That's what I would normally do. The problem with that is that they tend to come from educators who are talking about, articles and it's things that they've got collaborations with.

So they're always, I've even seen the same person completely, talking about. Different platforms, like it's the only one you should go for. I thought that's the same person that said the other one. How the hell am I supposed to choose? 

Steve: How about you? What have you been up to? I totally agree about the Facebook groups and things.

And then, it used to be that there were great communities many years ago and we'll come onto this with our guests in a little while, but I used to be very involved in a Fujifilm wedding group that Kevin [00:03:00] Mullins ran, and it was a great community and made a lot of friends.

People like, Dennis Lee and. Murray McMillan and Emily Renier, all people that were in our group, or will hopefully be on the podcast at some stage, but now it's just like people just seem to just show off or be passive aggressive or, what's the thing that comes up whenever you read the manual, and he just, he thinks what's the point, people just don't have anything else in their life just to be snotty on, on social media and that's for Twitter or X, whatever it's called.

I've long since left that world. 

Nick: Yeah, I finding. The same kind of traits happening in Facebook these days. Yeah, I think you're right. Is it me? Is it just my feed or is it, is everybody finding that? I don't know. 

Steve: I wonder if it's deliberate and it's all coming from a certain orange president of the States.

Let's talk about the politics, but I just wonder if that sort of, deregulating or not the right word, going away from this sort of policing of the social media that they've all announced they're doing. ~That's a move to it really. I think. Yeah. But then any kind ~

Nick: ~of. ~If political change like that has the unfortunate side effect of [00:04:00] validating opinions that people have got, they think that they've previously just talked back to their mates in the pub in the back of the pub quietly.

Now they think it's fine to broadcast on social media. Anyway, as you say, that's probably off topic, to some extent, our guest today, let's talk about, I'll talk about our guest today, introduce 

Steve: our guest. Yeah. ~Yes. ~Today we've 

Nick: got, Emily and Dean, Emily's a freelance photographer. Based on, ~in ~the South coast, ~generally ~of the UK ~now that is intentionally vague because ~she is going to be joining us from her van where she lives.

She's never probably in one place for very long. ~So that is intentionally vague her photography. So ~if, people go on to, Emily's website. There'll be a link to that in the show notes. ~And ~we're going to show some photos in a moment too. Her photography is, really connected to the elements.

So you can see, and we've had a brief chat with Emily already. And from what I know about Emily, her photography is probably the best example of reflecting someone's personality, her love for the elements, the sea, natural, organic. People and communities and places. And it's just really lovely work, really beautifully, and carefully edited in [00:05:00] tone and contrast and all that, which I love, we love the use of light and everything else.

Emily's a writer, for among lots of other things, amateur photographer, magazine, digital camera, and very involved in future film, as well, and as judge on the landscape talk for the year as well. So Emily, welcome to the show and thank you so much for giving up a bit of your morning today.

Emily: Hello. Thanks for having me. ~And what an intro. So we~ 

Nick: always ask, hello. ~I just~ 

Emily: sat there smiling, wow. ~Yeah. Yeah. ~I'll 

Nick: send you ~my I'll put ~my PayPal link in the show notes and ~you can like, ~you can send the agreed fee over afterwards. So we ask all our guests the same question initially, which is, do you mind just giving us a potted history of in your photography life, how you've got to where you are today?

Emily: Yeah. Yeah, sure. It's been a long process. So I'll shorten it for you, but going back to probably about 15 years ago, I would get up every morning for sunrise because I'd been gifted a DSLR camera and I just I don't know, for a while I just didn't know what I was doing with it. ~So I was shooting in auto, ~and we're out and about, and [00:06:00] I discovered sunrise.

And I was like I'm going to focus this, I'm going to learn one thing. Because it was all overwhelming, like all the buttons, all the technical stuff, just blew my mind, couldn't get my head around it. I'm not a manual reader, so I just got stuck in. Shot my first sunrise, understood how I could photograph that, and get the best out of that.

And as soon as I'd done that, I was hooked. ~So it's gone from that to ~Just when I was working in my day job in the office, I do sunrise every single day or sunset, whichever one worked out for me. And, yeah, I think just over time I just really honed my craft and that just evolves from like landscapes, seascapes, going out in the water, photographing the people out in the water and just evolving really organically into what I do today.

Yeah, that's probably been a process of about 10, 15 years of learning what I loved and just. Yeah, following my passion projects, which then evolved into work. And at 

Nick: what point did these passion projects, at what point these passion projects, as you've talked about, turn into a career and you start to be a way to, that you generated income?[00:07:00] 

Emily: Yeah. I was working, my day job was an insurance broker. So totally the opposite of any kind of creative craft. And, my boss was amazing. She knew what I wanted to do. She let me go part time so that I could grow this photography business on the side, whether that was just taking families down the beach to photograph them and the environment that I loved, or whether it was doing lifestyle photography for beachwear brands or anything that I could do in that environment that I could make a little bit of money from and start building a portfolio was where it began.

~And then ~it got to a point where I was like, Oh my God, the balance is so stretched. I had no time for myself and it was that time to take the plunge. But yeah, this is the ~long ~years of process where it wasn't like suddenly I'm going to be a freelance photographer, I'm going to make money out of this.

There was never that overnight, let's jump into it. It was such a long process, but yeah, it was like that balance of going part time in my day job, dropping my days, dropping my hours and letting [00:08:00] the photography grow. And that's where it went from there. 

Steve: And did the fan life. Evolve at the same time, or did it come separately or even before, what was the sequence of becoming a full time freelance photographer and deciding to live the van life that you live, which I'm dead jealous of, by the way.

Emily: Yeah, they went naturally hand in hand. And I think it was just, we all, me and my wife, we always said, wouldn't it be really cool one day to get a van and just go off and travel the UK and beyond and not really have a plan to see where that goes. ~But. Everybody has these pipe dreams of, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we did that one day?~

~And ~It just got to a point where we were like, should we actually do this? Should we actually get a van and give it a go? And I thought, because I was at that point at the same time in my day job and the photography work that I was thinking about taking the plunge, that, yeah, I just thought it would tie in really nicely, go hand in hand.

And the great thing is to have no firm expectation from it. If you have an amazing year, if you have an [00:09:00] amazing five years, and actually you need to go back to the house, or you need to go back to finding some other form of employment, then fine. But I just wanted to give it a go, and literally live in the moment, and just see where I could take it.

So yeah, they went hand in hand at the same time. I handed in my notice, we got another hand and then yeah, just embarked on all of this all at once. So it was really exciting, but really scary all at the same time because it's all these life changes all at once. ~But yeah, I can say it's nearly been three years and.~

~Yeah, I'm loving it. ~So however long I can drag this out for and call this work, I'm going to keep doing it. 

Nick: So you were firmly in what I've talked about in the photography show on previous visits there speaking the death zone, as I call it, where you've got this commitment to a job. You want to do photography.

You can't build both up together because there's just not enough time and you can't put enough creative energy or physical energy into each. And so something has to give him an offer that can be, you need to get more bookings. What you've done is reduce your financial [00:10:00] commitment and had a van is a hefty investment, but then after that you are quite lean as a couple in terms of what you need and ~that ~then you can really focus on building your brand and your photography.

Emily: ~Yeah, exactly. ~I think it gave me that opportunity in that space. ~Yeah, ~to do that. ~Yeah. ~

Nick: So ~you, ~you seem, really passionate about your, looking through your website, your commercial work, your personal projects and your training and your courses and all of those really interleave well in terms of the feel, the look of the images and the way that you approach them.

How'd you split your time in terms of like rough percentages between the personal projects, commercial and the training? 

Emily: ~Yeah, ~I think ~it's. ~It evolves all the time. ~So ~I throw myself into personal projects because I feel really grateful that I've got this space, ~like you say ~with ~kind of ~lower expenses that I don't have to pick up work that I don't want to do, or I don't have to pick up work constantly.

It can be that space where I've got a few days where I can head out down the beach for [00:11:00] sunrise or in the summer in the warmer months maybe I can get in the water and ~I can ~focus on shooting portraits of surfers or whatever it might be that I really want to focus on in that moment. I've got that time and space.

~So I've I don't know, maybe about, it's really hard to balance actually, because going into it in the first year. ~So as soon as we were in the van, I'm suddenly like, Oh my God, I need to get some work in. I probably had about four brand clients that I'd done lifestyle photography for that were repeat clients.

So I had those as my basis of my structure. I had all this time that I could do my personal projects and see where I could interlink them as well and get more work off the back of that. And then also there's this fear of. Okay, what else have I got? Like, how else am I going to make some money? So, I'm farming out maybe a hundred emails to all these brands, try and connect with them, show them my work and see how we can work together, how I could represent what they do in the spaces that I love to be down at the beach or in the ocean.

Yeah, the first year was a lot of farming out emails, waiting to see what came back. ~Probably so~ 

Nick: many 

Emily: [00:12:00] photographers doing the same thing. So it's firstly getting seen, getting a response, following up with actually getting some paid work out of it. So yeah, the first year was majorly a lot of admin. And the second year became a little bit easier.

Now I'm in a space where my focus is majorly on workshops. And I think we'll go into that a bit more, but, it's gone from this. It's trying to make money out of what I can produce to then helping others and trying to teach a little bit and share the things I've learned and you know what I do and I'd never say I know everything about photography in no way because there's always something to learn but that's the most exciting thing isn't it like I always think there's new techniques absolutely ways of doing things and I could bring a group of people together and everyone approaches something differently and I love that so yeah, it's this I 

Nick: think a lot of people that say ~people that say That or they feel that ~they have got nothing left to learn photography are usually just talking about the technical And the theoretical bits and they're forgetting about [00:13:00] technique And style and new compositions and new ways of looking at a scene.

And there's always something else to learn. And it's not necessarily getting better, but it's always changing what you're doing and making us move forward. 

Steve: That's the fun part as well. I'm older, a lot older than both of you, but if you think you've learned everything and there's nothing new to learn, then what's the point really?

There's always something new to learn in life, isn't there? ~And, ~ 

Nick: we're going to 

Steve: keep pushing ourselves to push new things. I just want to go back to what you were saying a minute ago about the emails really. ~And I think it's come out and a number of these interviews that we've done, really that. ~The life of a professional photographer, particularly a freelance photographer, there's a lot of hustling you have to do.

~Isn't there really, a sales trading business is my other life and, ~you're not just sitting there waiting for the phone to ring and all the emails to pour in. You've got to go out and find customers, haven't you? And, and you've obviously had to do that at the start. 

Emily: ~Yeah, definitely.~

There's so much more. Like when you go from being like, as I was a hobbyist where I was doing sunrise every day, you're suddenly in this place where you're not creating images all the time. You're actually. Trying to find a way that you can get paid for doing that. And yeah, there's so much more like building a website, being an accountant, keeping track of all your income and expenses.

It was this whole world of new [00:14:00] things that I hadn't realized I'd need to learn. And I'm not very techie. So I'd rather just be out on the beach taking a photo, but yeah, I've had to learn all 

Steve: these other 

Emily: things. Yes. ~And I know you ~

Steve: ~cover this in your training, Nick, but it. Sorry, we've got a slight delay on the line.~

~Apologies. ~I know you cover this in your training, but being a professional photographer is like 80 percent business, 20 percent photography, Nick, I think. ~Yeah. I know you~ 

Nick: cover it. The photography is the bit you probably do least of, unless you do throw yourself into these passion projects like Emily, Emily's doing.

Emily, your commercial clients seem very well in with your brand. They seem very well curated. And I wonder, is that, it sounds like that's a result of. They're the ones that you've reached out to, like they tend to be ethical, green in quotes, those sorts of brands that have got more ethical kind of businesses and more natural, smaller, business.

Is that because that's who you reached out to or have they identified bits of their brand in your work? Which way around was it? 

Emily: So I think initially it was coming from my side of things. ~So ~Back when I had no lifestyle brand kind of work at all and I wanted to build a [00:15:00] portfolio, I remember emailing or Instagram messaging even just a handful of brands and ~just ~saying I really connect with what you do, I'd really love to create some photos for you.

~And it's a controversial, but I ~the first four or five jobs I did for free because I wanted this set of images, I didn't promise much in exchange for a product, whether I gave them five photos, but actually I took 20, 30 that I could use in my portfolio. 

Nick: So 

Emily: I did that, just to build some kind of portfolio that then I could send out to future brands.

And so I think that came from me because I was just reaching out to those people that I resonated with. And then that grew from there. So out of that, when I did some free work, those clients then came back to me. Once I was doing it as a job. And I'd say to them, I've loved working with you. This is what I do as a profession now.

So these are my rates. I was really worried about that because once you've done something for free, how do you go back from that? But actually they really connected with me and said, we appreciate [00:16:00] that. We appreciate that you need to make an income. We're really happy with your work, really happy with these rates.

So we're going to send you this if you want to photograph it. And, a lot of free reign as well, because a lot of them will say with ~no, ~no direction will leave the creative kind of producing of it to you. So I go out and do what I feel off the back of how I see their products and where that resonates with me out in nature.

Become this part of my brand, that I've curated, which is really lovely that I can have that creative freedom with it as well. 

Nick: As if people are watching this on YouTube, they'll see there's a selection of your photos on screen. Yeah, really gorgeous work and a really lovely variety as well.

And I really love ~the. ~The more urban shots you've got as well. I think that's just really nicely done and a real contrast to ~the other, ~your other work that I thought, wow, that's, she's not a one trick pony. Yeah, I think you're right. ~The ~the working with [00:17:00] a brand for free initially is.

Can be frowned upon because, how do you then move from free to charging? Because then whatever you charge is infinitely more expensive for them because they were getting it free. But on the plus side, often, oftentimes you're not, it's not actually free because you are having. Content, especially commercial content, you can then use to market for other work.

It has a value. So you have got value out of that. And ~often ~if it's, I don't know, let's say surfboard or wetsuit company, ~that ~there are opportunities to have a wetsuit or something like that in lieu of payment. And that ~again ~isn't necessarily free. And as long as you've got, in any case, as long as you've got a strong.

View on how you're going to get from free work into paid work, whether it's through dialogue, like you've had with your clients to move them up to a paid engagement. I think as long as you, you're on that, I think it's absolutely fine. I didn't see there's any downside at all. Yeah. Yeah. We'd like to move on to your, yeah, no, indeed.

Yeah. Onto your, courses. I know you run a selection of, [00:18:00] workshops, Emily. So your work is. As I said before, it's full of the nature and elements and water of the workshops aimed at people that are into the same, that those same things that feel passionate about the same things. 

Emily: ~Yeah, ~so the workshops that I run are mainly just based around nature.

I've been doing it for a number of years, but even when I was doing my day job, quite often on a summer's evening, I would do a workshop and take people out down my local beach. It was all centred around, again, just being in the places that I love, so whether that was in the forest or down at the water's edge.

It was people that just wanted to be outside, either explore somewhere new or play around with the techniques that I love, like playing with shutter speeds and things like that. If there's water involved, I'm there, whether it's a river or a waterfall or whether it's down at the ocean. Those are the places that I just love to get experimental and I really find my creativity really flows with that.

And I think other people resonated with that too and wanted to come along and see how I created it. And [00:19:00] then we can all play around with that together and it's just fun. So that kind of grew from there. And I really, over probably the last two years, really seriously started getting into it and running small groups and I've done stuff all around the country and we've had some really fun times.

The last big one I did was, in Wales, we had a nice group down at the Gower and we just all spent the day there experimenting with. The different light and the different water and the conditions just change massively. So I think it's just being ready for anything and being able to adapt to that and people just tend to have a lot of fun with it.

So yeah, that's evolved over the last year or so. And I found over that time there was this thing where I'd have mixed groups and the female photographers would not be so technically driven, and perhaps be more of the creative approach of, Oh, I can see what I want to photograph.

~I'm not really sure how to do it or how to get the best out of that. So ~I decided to go down the route of trying to support female photographers and just having more confidence to find their own creativity. Because for me, I [00:20:00] think, looking back, Those years of early experimentation and trying to find what I loved about photography, I felt like when something went really well, was it a fluke?

Did I just get lucky with a great sunrise? Or, people would say to me, that's an amazing photo. And I'd be like that's just what nature gave me. I wouldn't see that I'd done anything. I've just been there to photograph it. So I think it's having that confidence to be actually, yeah, I've done really well with that.

And I've created something great. ~And. ~The technique that I've used actually, yeah, I had fun with that. I really enjoyed it. So I'm trying to go down that route of building this community. And I guess that's what you touched on. Nick, that community feel, and that can be hard on social media. So yeah, I've created like a female photography community page on 

Nick: Facebook 

Emily: because I want to be able to channel everything into one page where everyone can connect with each other so it's not just me sending messages and telling people stuff it's others engaging and you know if someone asks a question everyone can jump in if they know the answer and everyone support each other ~but yeah the field of Facebook my feed is just full of rubbish it's Sponsored ads and they don't really care about at all.~

~So I think they don't really have the algorithm quite half the time either. So yeah, pretty community based. I think~ 

Nick: often [00:21:00] they're actually. ~They're often ~targeting you with posts that aren't related to you and that make you react ~because they're ill positioned and ~they're intentionally know that this is not only not really what you're into, it's the opposite of what you're into to make you comment.

And it's all this engagement farming anyway, to say that these tools that are specifically for female photographers, you talked ~about, about, ~about confidence there. What else do women value most about these groups that are women only groups? 

Emily: Yeah like I said, I started the community. I've run three kind of photo walk type workshops, so I want to structure it.

If it's a really small group, there's more intensive learning. If it's a bigger group, say 10 people, it's more of a social kind of thing. So I'm finding from putting these on, Like the female photographer community is really enjoying meeting like minded people because quite often you might go out for a walk with your family and you feel this pressure of hanging around taking photos like you've got to hurry up, you've got to quickly keep up with everyone else or [00:22:00] there's not the pressure to spend that time on yourself if you come out in one of these community based groups because I'll take the 10 people out and we'll do a walk to, I don't know, we did recently Hengistbury Head or Bournemouth Beach where you're going along the beach and you're noticing things and you've got this real time to slow down and that's what I love personally about landscape photography or seascape photography is having that space to slow down in the moment and how good that is for all of us but a lot of people don't have that time and space so These female photographer groups kind of meeting up, we're all going for a coffee.

We're all talking photography. We're all chatting about what everyone uses, what everyone's got. And then we're heading out for this photo walk where everyone can notice what they want to notice, photograph what they see. Cause we're all different, aren't we? We all see different things. We're all drawn to something different.

And then we'll arrange to come back together and enjoy a sunset or something.

Nick: Do you [00:23:00] think ~these, that ~the attendees of these groups have avoided mixed groups for any reason that ~they're, ~they feel like their voice isn't heard or there's just something that they find much better, much more collaborative about a female only group? 

Emily: Yeah, I think it is just the element of it, like she being much more collaborative.

I think there's a lot of, Maybe there's a lot of feelings of not wanting to ask silly questions or, Oh, I don't understand my camera fully, but I don't want to highlight that. I don't want to feel silly. So in these groups, it's like we can collaborate because everyone's lifting each other up and Oh yeah, I do it like that.

Oh wow. What are you using? Oh, I've never used filters before. Oh, how? How are you doing that? Like it's just this, everyone coming together. So it's not that mixed groups don't have that, don't get me wrong at all. But I do feel like men and women do learn a little differently sometimes and it's nice just embracing.

Yeah, I think that's right. That side of it where I can fully resonate with. How they're feeling or what they might be thinking because I've been there and I just want to create a [00:24:00] space where no one feels silly and especially ~I'm going to a bit more, but ~I'm putting on a couple of trips abroad this year because I want to create this space where I can take a woman who loves photography, but she doesn't have the space or confidence to travel by herself to these places to create this group where we're going to have a community feel of.

Heading to a place where you can make friends, we can spend every day together, or you can have a day out on your own and go and grab a coffee and go for a walk with your camera. But actually, we can all come together and enjoy this time, go to an epic place, take loads of great photos because I'll be there to guide them every single day.

If they don't want guidance and they're just there to take photos, that's fine too. ~You got that mixture of both elements. 
~ 

Steve: ~Fantastic. ~Yeah. Talk to us about, so you're a Fujifilm, user, and ~we have been, and ~we still use, we still have a Fujifilm camera. And I know it's a very great community, that the brand has built in the UK.

Talk to us a bit about your relationship with Amazon and how that works for you and your business. 

Emily: Yeah, [00:25:00] so I've got an amazing relationship with Fujifilm. It's something I'm super grateful for in my career because going back years ago, I started chatting with them, doing the odd bit of work here and there, ~like when they had a new 10 20 lens that was coming out they let me borrow it for a few months.~

~This was ages before I became really working with them at all and ~They sent a videographer down to film me for the day ~and ~on the Jurassic Coast, creating everything with this lens. And that was my first kind of snippet of working with Buddhafilm. And I just thought, wow, this feels incredible to be working with such an amazing brand that they've even noticed me.

~It's one of those kind of, I don't ~know, it's imposter syndrome, isn't it? Like why me? Why have you chosen me? But, that was my first snippet of working with them. And then following that, we started chatting, building a relationship and they asked me to be a brand ambassador. So for two years, 2022 and 2023, I was working with them as a brand ambassador, which was amazing.

And then when that finished, I still work with them on a freelance basis. So we're still doing talks like at the photography show. I joined them on their food from school workshops. And likewise they're supporting me on my workshop. So we really work [00:26:00] together and it's such a nice feel and that's such a nice relationship with such a big brand that actually it feels much smaller.

It feels like a family. It just feels really connected. They're very good at that. 

Steve: Yeah. 

Emily: Yeah. They're amazing. 

Steve: Yeah. 

Emily: And the film is a massive company, 

Steve: isn't it? ~And, ~

Emily: ~yeah. ~So it's somehow managed to get 

Steve: that sort of balance right between. ~Yeah. ~Yeah. Completely. ~Yeah. ~Being that super big brand, which they are, but having that sort of community niche sort of specialty brands, which they do really.

~Yeah.~ 

Emily: Quite a small team that I work with. So having that. That is my basis, my small relationship with a small number of people. I think that's why it feels so, so good. But yeah, they're even supporting, like I touched on, we're doing a workshop taking a female photographer community abroad. So we're going to do Madeira in June and, yeah, Fujifilm, they want to support me and they're going to send a specialist and they're going to let everybody borrow GFX cameras for free.

It's amazing the fact that they want to support me with that and I just feel like it's such a good [00:27:00] place to be where I can offer this really unique experience because Fujifilm being involved just to add that next level of, difference to a workshop than any other that you can find out there on the internet.

So yeah, I'm really looking forward to embracing that collaboration with them ~as well.~

Nick: You talked a bit about on your website, I was looking through the courses and you do a course on underwater photography. ~Now I'm off to Vietnam next week. ~So you've, in five minutes, you need to tell me how to take underwater photos. Cause I've tried before and they were deadly. They were awful. 

Emily: What kit are 

Nick: you using for underwater?

Emily: Yeah. So underwater, I've got my Fujifilm X T5 AquaTech housing. So any housing you get needs to be spoke for your camera because then you can access all the buttons I tell you what on my website There's a link to a free webinar that I did where I talked through my five favorite underwater photos So i'll go into each one and there's techniques on them So if you want to watch that for free just ~yeah, so watch that before you go but ~yeah, once you've [00:28:00] got the dedicated 

Nick: We'll put the link to that on the show notes ~so that other people can have a look as well.~

Emily: Yeah, ~that's cool. ~That's cool. Yeah, it's completely free. And I just love talking about my underwater photography because ~it's such a, ~it became such a passion project that evolved into something a little bit more. ~Yeah, I think just getting out there, ~if you told us you've got the right kit, you can really get experimental.

~So ~I think, ~yeah, you're going to, ~you'll have a great time. If you do even a GoPro, if you haven't got the money to invest in expensive housing, just grab a GoPro and ~just ~play around in the water ~because. Yeah, I've got a GoPro. ~

Nick: ~But I was, ~I think that the problem I found and it is probably because it was in Madeira.

I used it ~and also ~in ~just ~other parts, but I think. What I found with the GoPro is that ~if, ~unless the water is crystal clear at ~any distance between what you're, especially with the wide angle lens, ~any distance between me and fish or anything else, it's just like a foggy kind of mess, really.

If you get nice and close, it's fine, but obviously being ~so wide, ~such a wide angle, you can't often get close enough to any wildlife. ~To take anything housing for Mike. 
~ 

Emily: ~Yeah. ~It's once you've got that separation, that distance, and there's any kind of unclarity [00:29:00] and clarity, whatever, if there's any it's not visible.

~It's ~ 

Nick: yeah, 

Emily: it creates this I don't know this, you can't focus. So there's a real lack of sharpness to your image. So it's like getting really clear water. Quite wide, or a macro lens, you can get really close. So yeah, you have to have clear water to get a really quality image under the water.

Yeah. 

Steve: Not in the canal then? In the canals in Birmingham. What's the future going to hold for you, and your wife and your van and your business? How'd you see, where you see things in sort of five years time, if you had a crystal ball? 

Emily: Five years is really hard to predict. I think over winter, I kind of plan for what's coming this year.

So at the moment, I've been setting up these workshops. So we've got one in June. I've got a new one that's about to come out. It's not quite released yet for October, November time. And that's something I want to build upon. So I think in five years [00:30:00] time, I'd like to be doing say four beautiful trips a year.

Smaller workshops in the middle and then brand lifestyle work tackled in between where I can. ~And also ~I've got the photography show, so we'll be chatting about, what I've got coming up at the show. I'm going to be talking about my landscapes, I'm going to be talking about my seascapes, I'm going to be teaching, the fundamentals stage, which is for beginners, talking about how to get the best photos and how I went from hobby to pro as well.

~That's another thing I love talking about because there's not a one box fits all with that. Like I said earlier, ~it's not suddenly, Oh, I'm going to be a freelance photographer. No, it's navigating how you get into that world. So yeah, the photography show, I'm going to be doing lots of talks about different areas and I find every day, 

Steve: So I'll 

Emily: be there for Saturday and the Sunday, so I've got five talks on today, Sunday, so I'll be doing the behind the lens stage, the food from school stage and the fundamental stage as well.

So yeah, Saturday and Sunday, I'm really excited for it. [00:31:00] Yeah, it's always a good event getting to share your perspective and your rhythm with everyone, but also seeing others and getting to connect with other photographers and other people. ~And yeah, just seeing how other people do things too. Yeah. 
~ 

Steve: ~We ~we had the organizers of ~the ~the event on last week, recording time.

I didn't necessarily go live time. ~And ~it was fascinating to find out more about, how the whole event takes place. I feel very left out. You two are both giving talks and I'm not. So I'm going to see if I can change that next year. 

Nick: You can just go there and start talking. You might gain a crowd, like Speaker's Corner or Hyde Park.

~You might gain a crowd. You can just ~

Emily: Get in the cafe and just, yeah, get everyone's attention and just start talking. 

Steve: Get on a soapbox. Yeah. Blessed are the cheesemakers. That's a reference to a lot. Reference to the life of Brian. You're far too young to even know that, Emily. Fantastic. I believe it'd be great finding out more about.

One last thing I really want to know about it. You're joining us from your van. I guess you're using a wireless, wifi hotspot, a phone hotspot or something to join us. Do you have to plan your trips about where you can get a good phone signal to do these kinds of things?

Emily: Yeah, I didn't realize what a [00:32:00] nightmare that would be until I was in the situation where. In the UK, you can be one end of the car park and you've got 5G and you go to the other end of the car park and you've got 3G. ~And I just don't understand that at all. ~So yeah, if I've got a Zoom or if I've got something like this, if I'm on a podcast and I really need some signal that's maintained, I need to plan ahead for that.

I've had horrible situations where I've been somewhere for work and I've been shooting in the daytime. And the evening I might have a camera to have a talk or something. So I've had no control over where I am. And I'm like, Oh my God, this signal is awful. How am I going to get through this? And you just have to plow on and hope that everyone forgives you when you go really buffery and stuttery.

But yeah, you do have to plan ahead. So today I chose somewhere in the New Forest that has good signal because it's not good signal everywhere. ~So yeah, I've had to plan ahead. No, not~ 

Steve: at all. ~No.~ 

Emily: Yeah. 

Steve: I went to a music festival in November, called Planet Rockstock. It's for old so and so's like me who are into rock music.

And, it was down in South Wales, ~but ~one of the radio presenters, a guy called Mark Jeeves has been on the ~radio station. This is a professional ~radio station. [00:33:00] He lives on a narrow boat and, he has to go and we live on a narrow boat. You've got to move on every two weeks. So he knows every sort of part of the canal network where he can.

More up and broadcast live from his narrow boat, otherwise he wouldn't be able to do his job. You don't think about these things, do you? ~You could get~ 

Nick: a 

Steve: Starlink ~or, ~ 

Nick: the Starlink mobile. 

Steve: That's what he has to do, yeah. Starlink, I've got a friend who uses that, Nick, but I don't think it's cheap, is it?

~It's not cheap,~ 

Nick: and it is best effort only as well. So if there's businesses nearby that have got Starlink that pay the premium, then you get whatever's left of the bandwidth. So it's probably Less plannable than going somewhere, you're going to get decent 5g. 

Steve: Yeah. Wow. Okay. Stick to 5g.

~I think,~ 

Nick: yeah. 

Steve: Let's not give Elon 

Nick: Musk any money anyway. 

Steve: Exactly. Last question for me, Emily. Is there anything else that we haven't asked you that you'd like to tell the listener or ~anything, ~any important nuggets ~of ~information you'd like to share with the listeners? 

Emily: ~I don't know, ~I think we've covered most stuff.

The only other thing I guess I haven't touched on is, ~yeah, ~how I [00:34:00] love to write alongside my photography. I'm always updating my blog. ~That comes~ 

Steve: across, yeah. 

Emily: I love writing and I just feel like in school English was something I was really passionate about and I think having been able to connect that with my photography is something I feel A lot of joy for, because I can get to explain what I felt behind certain things or helping others again.

So I love to write blogs where I might be able to provide an insight to someone where it helps one person and then I've done my job properly. And yeah, so I do, I write regularly for AP magazine, but also just getting stuff out there on my blog. ~So that's something that I share really~ 

Steve: regularly.

Emily: Oh, thank you. I just have, yeah, this passion for it and I don't know where that comes from, but I get to connect both my loves of photography and writing. And, yeah, so if anybody wants to check out my blogs on my website, that's something I add to regularly and I'm always open to suggestions as well.

If, someone comes to me and they say, Oh, how do I do this? Quite often I'll go out on my way to help someone and I've spent all day writing this. [00:35:00] And I'll be like how can I just make this into a blog? So when the next person asks me, I can just direct them somewhere. So yeah, I spend a lot of my time doing that kind of stuff.

~So I was~ 

Steve: looking, 

Emily: yeah, 

Steve: I was looking at your last blog post, about how you edit your photos ~and ~and I find it interesting cause it's quite a minimalist approach you take to end editing, but also just the way you've written it, I think it's lovely. So yeah, so do check out that blog post on Emily's website.

Obviously linked to your website, but I guess you're on Instagram as well. 

Emily: Yeah. Instagram. I post pretty much daily because I have so many photos to share and I just want to share them all with the world. So I post really regularly. 



Emily: So yeah, if anybody wants to follow me on Instagram, and female photographers, if they want to join the Facebook community page, it's about sharing, it's about me being able to offer them workshops.

So it's about helping others as well. ~I just really want to What's that group~ 

Nick: called, Emily? 

Emily: ~It's really basic. ~It's called the female photographer community led by Emily Ending. ~It's really basic. ~I need to come up with better naming really. [00:36:00] It's out there. You can't change 

Nick: ~it now. ~You just said it.

Emily: Yeah. It's got to be that way forever now. But, yeah, it's a private page. They just want to join it. I'll accept them. And then once they're in, it's all the workshops, it's going to be, if I can offer products to people for free, if I can get in touch with them. With brands, which I have a few kind of sideline hustles with a few memory cards, straps, stuff like that.

If I can give people things and I will. So it's this whole community of, yeah. Workshops, product recommendations, people helping each other. I saw in a 

Nick: ~group ~There's another, there's groups specifically for, female wedding photographers as well. Cause she was like a girl that is, it's just a fantastic resource as well.

I remember it being talked about in a general Facebook group. A female photographer mentioned this group for other female photographers and, some. Fellow piped up in reply saying, Oh, where's the male only photography group then? And it was like, I think that's why it's needed. [00:37:00] And where is the male photography groups?

I think they're just called groups. Anyway, 

Okay. Thanks very much, Emily, for giving us your time today and talk about your work and the Facebook groups. We'll put the Facebook group and link to your website and your Instagram feeds and so on. On the show notes. And yeah, thanks very much. ~And we're just gonna have a quick sort of wrap up.~

~So if you'd like to hang on, that'd be great. Steve, have you got any book reviews or anything this week?~ 

Steve: No, in a word I have organized. ~Have you? Oh, good. ~Well done. I saw you disappear on one side of the room, actually. I thought we thought you were leaving us. 

Nick: Yeah. So I can't pretend to be that organized because as you saw, I didn't actually get the book before the call started, but it's, a book called street photography now.

Steve: Yeah, 

Nick: it's absolutely fantastic. I'm really enjoying looking through it. It's a really, not a genre that I am into necessarily. I do street photography workshops and things where we go into some of the techniques, but I've never really looked in depth about. It's so many other photographers work and it's just such a varied genre, much more so than, and actually you see some of this in Emily's work as well.

Very similar kind of structure and tones and [00:38:00] things like that. So yeah, that's a, it could just pick it up on a random page. Did we see that? So there's some bloke with the head is head down a, pothole, but just really interesting work. ~So yeah, so ~recommend that's street photography now by, Sophie Howarth and Steve McClary.

Steve: ~It's like a collection of different photographers. Yeah, ~it's like a curated collection of 

Nick: hundreds of, photographers work in that. Yeah. So recommend strong recommend on that one. 

Steve: I think I mentioned before, but I've got this nascent project idea with a mate of mine who's not a photographer, has a camera, and we're both passionate about the black country, which is where I'm from, the West Midlands.

And we were going to add this idea of photographing great black country pubs, because, there used to be, there was a pub on every second building almost, and they're all. Dying out now, but some of the fantastic buildings, and there's some real characters and of course, pretty good beer as well.

I think I've mentioned it before, but we haven't got started on it yet. So hopefully that's going to be something we're going to get working on. ~I look~ 

Nick: forward to seeing the results of that. 

Steve: Yeah. ~You'll see that, when we've been drinking the beer, cause the photos, it gets slightly more out of focus and wonky.~

That's all the rage 

Nick: ~now. Wonky out of focus photos. ~You'd be hitting a career out of it, hitting the trend. 

Steve: Once again, Emily, thank you ever so much. Just remind us where you're parked up [00:39:00] right now again. 

Emily: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Yeah, just in the forest right now. The new forest in Hampshire.

Yeah, that's where we are at the moment. But usually by the beach, anywhere around the coast of the UK. That's where you'll find me.

Steve: We'll look out for you. Yeah. Thanks very much to our listener for joining us this week on the photography part. This is one of a number of shows that we're doing around the time, partly for the photography show, but also with the upcoming international women's day, which I think is the first Saturday in.

March. The we've got some shows coming thick and fast. And as Nick has also announced, Nick's going to be away for a week. So we need to make sure it was a week or two weeks. You're going, it's a week and a half, a week and a half. Yeah. So we need to make sure we have plenty of episodes in the can.

So hope you've enjoyed this episode. ~Once you again, ~Emily, thank you so much for being with us. And we'll be back again with another guest in the meantime, happy shooting out there and we'll talk to you soon. 

Nick: And don't forget, of course, to subscribe to the Facebook group and also this will be on YouTube.

So do subscribe to the YouTube because there's, we don't post anything other than just these photography [00:40:00] pod episodes on YouTube. You're not gonna be bombarded with loads of stuff in it and there, you can, you get to then see the photos from the person we're talking to. Which is really nice.

Well remembered. 

Steve: Remembered. ~Bye everybody. We'll talk to you soon. ~Goodbye.