Between notebook and camera

My return to the creative field after seven years on the police force was always going to be a difficult one. The need for a stable income—something I could step back into quickly while still giving me the space I needed—led me to begin again through freelance photography as my first step.

It was a hard slog and required investing a lot of time, especially in disciplining myself to follow current affairs—and I mean quite literally following it.

That effort eventually led not only to my first solo photographic exhibition, but also to getting my foot in the door of the local media. From there, the path continued until I became the full-time sports reporter for the Gibraltar Chronicle.

There was a compromise, however. Photography gradually led to reporting, and eventually the DSLR took on a secondary role. After all, you cannot write and capture images at the same time. That old saying about not being the master of two crafts proved quite a challenge. Coupled with the fact that the economics of photography did not quite meet my budget, photography slowly became more of a functional element within my work.

As the DSLR aged and the shutter clicks began to take their toll, the capabilities of the iPhone started to replace its role—again with its own compromises in what you could capture.

Yet it was never the end of the photography side of my work. Recently the DSLR has been given a final breath of life, squeezing the last moments out of it before it eventually gives up on me.

The amazing thing is how quickly you can slip back into that mindset: thinking about image libraries, future stock, relevant stock for current affairs, updating archives, and so on. It all returns almost instinctively, filling time you might otherwise spend having a coffee between matches or chatting.

This weekend alone, across two sporting events, I ended up producing five albums—and with them came the chance to look back at the many types of images I used to take.

Opening the shutter and truly seeing what is in front of you also comes into play, and at a perfect moment when you begin to reconsider how you cover events.

As a reporter I have learned that it is easy to fall into routine, following a storyline that can sometimes become narrow and linear. Looking through a lens helps. Seeing further sometimes helps change that perspective.

Becoming the observer rather than searching for the story can be important—because the story might already be happening right in front of you. You just need to see it.

And sometimes, no matter how many words you use, an image tells the story far better than you will ever be able to describe it.