Following your Dreams

So 2020 was all set to be a big year for me. A year of change.

My desire to pursue a career in photography had been in my thoughts for some time.

Time to trust my instincts, follow the dream and live life to its fullest. One life...live it. My time as a diagnostic radiographer has taught me the importance of this.

I have always been passionate about radiography but over the last ten years photography has become a big part of who I am and I have now reached a point where I want to make it work for me on a professional basis.

From images of the human body on the inside to images of humans on the outside. With radiography, part of the skill is understanding and reacting to the emotions of those we scan, the anxieties, fears and concerns surrounding the purpose of their scan. With photography, the skill is understanding the personality of the subject and portraying this through the lens of the camera.

Thursday 19th December 2019 was the day that I took a leap of faith in my career path. After 19 years at West Suffolk Hospital, I sat down with my boss and handed him a short and succinct letter of resignation, which seemed surprisingly easy to do despite months, if not years, of deliberation. 

Thursday 12th March 2020 was another defining day as I assessed my career situation. The world as we know it had changed dramatically.

Coronavirus was having a devastating effect on the world population and like many other NHS professionals, radiographers are heavily involved in imaging of both suspected and confirmed cases.

At the same time as my profession has become heavily involved in this pandemic, photography has also been affected by the coronavirus.

With social distancing rules in place, weddings are being cancelled or postponed and so this is far from an ideal time to become a self-employed wedding photographer!

A combination of my moral responsibility as a radiographer and not wanting to make radical changes at uncertain times has led me to decide that now is not the time to be leaving my colleagues and career at West Suffolk Hospital.

Radiography has certainly been kind to me over the years. Possibly, you could call it my first proper grown-up job! Entering the profession as a mature student, aged 36, was certainly a leap of faith in my life.

Why radiography? I had always respected the work of NHS professionals and was intrigued by the imaging and insight into the human body. Perhaps the photographer in me was already starting to develop with this fascination of imaging.

Having not done any formal study since the age of 16, and not even an O-Level in Science, surely hoping to achieve the requisite A-Level in less than 5 months was asking too much. Such was my determination to start the Diagnostic Radiography course in September 2001 that I successfully passed A-Level Human Biology in 17 weeks, through self-study at home.

Nineteen years later I can look back with pride at my time as a radiographer. I knew even as a student that Computed Tomography (CT ) scanning was where I wanted to be.

CT is fast-paced and at the sharp end of diagnostic imaging. Trauma, cancer detection and surveillance utilizing high-quality imaging including some pretty cool 3D reconstructions.

Over the years my work has evolved to include MRI imaging and the two modalities have certainly given me many interesting experiences. 

So studying images has played a big part in my life for a number of years.

A lot of CT and MRI images have been really tough to look at, capturing moments in time that will change a person’s life forever.

Unfortunately, we are often the first person to identify that a patient may have a life-defining pathology.

Maybe that’s why I am so passionate about wedding photography, where we are given a unique opportunity to capture some of the happiest life-defining moments. 

Radiography and photography have a connection that goes beyond creating images. A good radiographer needs to be in tune with a patient’s emotions, both for optimizing image quality and improving the patient experience. These emotions are often difficult to read within a split second of meeting a patient. Picking up on verbal and non-verbal communication is key. 

For a photographer, it is all about recognizing these emotions and capturing the moment in order to create a permanent memory for those involved.

These moments are literally that and are gone in a flash. A good photographer’s senses are in tune with the emotions around them and ready for that split second moment as it happens.

The photographer in me has seen so many moments in my radiography career that would make for powerful images.

As this pandemic unfolds around us I appreciate the importance of documenting this period in our history.

Of course, this is not something that should be done freely in the hospital setting or even outside in these times of social distancing and restricted movements.

When this is all over the world will not be the same. All that come out the other side will likely reassess their priorities and values.

For me, the enforced delay to my photography career will fuel my passion for capturing memories and documenting our lives. In the meantime, I will continue to give my all to radiography and it’s role in this awful pandemic. 

That said I am more determined than ever to make a success of photography once this history-defining time has passed.