Now that the website is live, I suppose I'm fully pot committed. I'm a self-employed photographer, Darth Marty Media is a real business, and I've given myself a relatively small window of around 8–12 months to find out whether I can actually make this work.

So, it feels like a good time to explain why this slightly strangely named photography business exists in the first place, and bizarrely that story starts about 30 years ago.

Darth Marty was an online nickname, still is.

Back in the days of chat rooms, dial-up internet and computers making noises that anyone under 30 would assume meant they were about to explode, 21-year-old me needed an online moniker and, being the enormous Star Wars fan I was (and still am), I chose Darth Marty. Who knew that three decades later I'd be registering it as a business?

Actually, there's something quite fitting about keeping the name, because over the past 20 years or so I've become increasingly comfortable with who I am, good bits, bad bits and all, and I genuinely think that at Level 51 I'm probably as good a version of myself as I've ever been. A huge part of that for me is authenticity.

I've learned to accept the things I can't control, try my best with the things I can, and wherever possible do it with kindness and empathy. I genuinely believe human kindness matters, and I've seen enough in both my professional and personal life to know the damage that cruelty, selfishness and simply being bloody horrible to other people can cause. I don't want any part of that. I'd much rather bring a little bit of sunshine into whatever room I happen to walk into.

Perhaps without initially realising it, that's become exactly how I approach photography too.

I LOVE the genuine moments. The off-script laughter, the look between two people when they think nobody is watching, the split second when the plan goes completely out of the window and real life takes over. That's the magic for me, and being trusted to capture those tiny moments, moments that would otherwise disappear forever, is something I don't think I'll ever get bored of.

Anyway, huge tangent there. 

What I was actually going to say was that Darth Marty Media eventually evolved from that slightly childish online nickname into a fully-fledged, HMRC-registered business in 2025, initially with a view to using Before it Fades as the trading name for what was, and remains, a huge passion project of mine.

Unfortunately, work commitments meant I simply couldn't give Before it Fades the time it deserved, and my then boss also felt there was a potential conflict of interest. So eventually the decision was made to remove any conflict entirely and do photography full time.

Being someone who clearly considers enormous, potentially life-changing decisions very carefully and over a sensible period of time, I made that decision in about 30 seconds. 

The plan after that was fairly straightforward. Have some downtime, take a few weeks off, work on Before it Fades, build the Darth Marty Media website, do some marketing, put some proper processes in place and generally work out how the hell you actually run a photography business.

But you know that isn't remotely what happened

Someone asked me to photograph a wedding. I said no approximately 100 times because weddings weren't, and still aren't, what I intend to build the business around. They're generally far too structured for me. I eventually said yes, then came football, golf, concerts, businesses, events, the coastline and pretty much everything else in between.

Within my first three weeks I'd somehow worked with 21 clients and built a portfolio I'm enormously proud of (if I do say so myself). I've photographed everything from 2,000-year-old Roman pottery to puppies, incredible food to footballers, businesses to celebrity concerts and a ridiculous amount of other stuff in between.

To say it's been a weird and wonderful few weeks would be a dramatic understatement. To say it's quite possibly been one of the best months of my life would be entirely accurate.

I have absolutely no idea where this goes next, but I really hope the demand continues and that people keep trusting me with their businesses, families, events, celebrations, achievements and stories. If you do, I'll keep putting everything I've got into delivering something you're proud of, hopefully with a little bit of that Darth Marty character thrown in for good measure.

And if you don't, well, keep an eye out for the inevitable LinkedIn "What I learned from my year as a self-employed photographer" post sometime in 2027.

Thank you to every single person who's trusted me so far, recommended me, shared something I've created, encouraged me or simply watched this slightly ridiculous adventure unfold. I genuinely appreciate every bit of it.

And if you've got something that needs photographing, whatever it might be, get in touch.

Let's do it the Darth Marty way.

Diolch,

Mart