I think one of the major emotions any new photographer has is self-doubt about their work and I was not an exception.

It was amazing getting ‘likes’ for photographs posted on Facebook but often in the back of my mind I was wondering if people were just been polite so as not to hurt my feelings.

It takes a lot of self-belief and developing a mind set over time that you must take photographs for yourself first and foremost. If you are happy with your work and you have created the image as you wanted it then photography has worked.

However one of the greatest boosts to my confidence as a fledgling photographer was when other visual artists drew inspiration from my work and asked to us one of my images as a subject for their paintings.

This has happened on a number of occasions and each time I am approached by an artist for permission to use one of my images I am as humbled and appreciative as the very first time it happened.