I'm three months into doing this full-time now, which somehow feels like about five minutes and several years at the same time, and one of the biggest things I've realised is something I probably wouldn't have understood ten years ago.

Being a professional photographer isn't really about knowing how to use a camera.

I should probably clarify that before everyone I've sent an invoice to starts asking for their money back. 😂 I do know how to use a camera, I've been taking photographs for decades and, having made the slightly bonkers decision at 51 to make this my living, I've also spent a frankly obscene amount of money making sure my equipment and I have the best possible chance of getting the photograph when it matters.

Yes, a world-class photographer could take an incredible photograph with a five-year-old iPhone, and the person holding the camera will always matter more than the name written on the front of it. But let's not pretend equipment doesn't matter either. When the light disappears, something starts moving ridiculously quickly or you've got one chance to capture something that isn't going to happen again, the equipment I now carry gives me capabilities and image quality that a phone simply can't.

It's also why I sincerely hope my insurance covers “51-year-old photographer falls off Pembrokeshire cliff walking backwards for a better angle”, although “slipped on the astroturf at the Meadow carrying two cameras” currently feels considerably more likely. 😂

But here's the thing I've realised.

I couldn't have done this ten years ago.

I could have taken a good photograph. I understood shutter speed, aperture and ISO and was technically proficient enough to produce work I was proud of, but what I didn't have was another ten years of life.

Another ten years of working with businesses and charities, selling things, managing people, volunteering, listening, making mistakes, sorting them out and discovering that when something goes spectacularly tits-up, panicking rarely improves matters.

At one particularly important gig recently, the rear screen on my camera simply decided it wasn't going to switch on. Ten-years-ago me might have had a small but mighty breakdown. Current me thought something considerably less printable, carried on shooting and sorted it when I could.

That's not really photography experience. That's just life experience, and I'm increasingly realising how valuable it is.

In three months I've photographed professional athletes, football clubs, businesses, charities, world-famous musicians, archaeology, community events and a historic service inside St Davids Cathedral. I've found myself chatting with groundsmen, cleaners, volunteers, chefs, Chief Executives, professional sportspeople, Bishops and members of the King's Guard, and every one of those people can potentially make my photographs better.

Someone might tell me what's about to happen, who I should be watching or why something apparently insignificant actually matters. So I ask questions, probably too many sometimes, because the more I understand about what's in front of me, the better chance I have of photographing it properly.

My camera settings are my responsibility. A client shouldn't need to care what shutter speed I'm using or which autofocus mode I've selected any more than I need to know which spanner my mechanic (Hi Justy) used on my car. That bit should be a given.

The job is everything else around it - figuring out what matters, being comfortable talking to whoever is in front of me, knowing when to have a laugh, when to ask a question and when to shut up and get out of the way, while remaining calm enough when something inevitably goes wrong that the client never needs to know there's a man inside my head currently running around screaming.

They just need the photographs.

And so far, touching an enormous piece of wood as I type this, it seems to be working.

The feedback has been extraordinarily kind, the photographs seem to be going down rather well, people are coming back, recommendations are bringing new people through the door and, perhaps most reassuringly for somebody who voluntarily gave up a salary at 51 to wander around Wales carrying cameras...

...the bills are getting paid.

Three months in, I'm certainly not pretending I've cracked it. I've got loads still to learn, things I haven't photographed yet and equipment I absolutely don't need but will undoubtedly continue looking at. (Hassleblad, I'm looking at you 💖)!

But I am starting to understand what all those years before Darth Marty Media were actually worth.

Ten years ago I could operate a camera very well.

Today I think I'm considerably better equipped to be a photographer, and while £££s worth of Canon equipment hanging from my shoulders certainly helps, it turns out the biggest difference might actually be the ten years that happened in between.

Which is quite reassuring really.

For once, getting older appears to have actually improved something. 😂📸

Mart