Reasons to be cheerful ...

There ya go! 34 years done! Bring on the rest!...

Pretty sure I've blogged this picture before but what the heck!...
This is the letter - dated 11th October 1978 - that changed my life!
It was the letter that said I'd got the job as Junior Photographer with Messenger Group Newspapers. Starting salary £45 a week! And Junior? You betcha! I'd only just turned 18, but within a week of this letter I was photographing the captain of Manchester United, the Lord Mayor of Manchester and Princess Anne! I was a Press Photographer! My ambition was fulfilled and it felt fantastic! 34 years on and it still feels fantastic. Only the other day I was at a networking event and I can't tell you the pride it gave me to tell people that I was a photographer! Ok, I kinda get sympathetic looks these days but hey, it's too late to change now!...

But, man, the changes I've seen in those years! Newspapers have come and gone, many photographers have come and gone, camera shops have come and gone, cameras have come and gone, film's definitely gone .. but I'm still here, making a living by taking photographs!

I don't work as a photographer, I am a photographer! I live photography, breathe it, think about it all the time. I am so lucky to be 'living' my dream! Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three...