Thebusiness

wedding but absolutely loved it all the same.

She said: “I would have had to be an idiot not to take good pictures because Emma was beautiful, Scott was gorgeous. Everyone there was gorgeous.

“It was in a marquee in the family home in Kemney and it was just made for a photographer. The wedding magazines lapped it up, they put Emma on the front of the magazines because she was gorgeous and off I went. People wanted to be like her so they asked her who her photographer was and my business really took off from there.”

And despite generating enough business to work solely as a photographer Susan continued to work within education until two years ago.

She had always been used to a steady salary and the thought of giving it all up to be completely self sufficient was scary. However, she said that because of her creative and unique style she is now managing to generate enough business which allows her to earn just as much as she was while working as a QIO.

Now, alongside her wedding photography business Susan uses her studio at Kingswells to run another company, Kingshill Studios, where she takes portraits of families, babies, toddlers and even dogs.

And driving her in her ambitions is knowing she is able to be the main provider for her two boys.But Susan feels her teaching experience is responsible for making her the photographer she is today.

She said: “There is a lot of transferable skills because I have learned the camera craft but it is all about working with people. Working with families, working with children, when I am at a wedding I am putting groups together, it’s made for me.

“Organising people in my teacher voice and getting people to do something they maybe don’t want to do or don’t know how to do and I can hopefully put them at their ease whilst hopefully making them feel good about themselves, which is what teaching is all about. My degree isn’t wasted.”

Susan believes it’s not just an eye for photography or a creative mind that makes a picture, she says it’s all about the training and learning you do along the way.

“I have invested in training a lot,” she said. “It’s a big responsibility taking people’s pictures. If people are investing a morning for their family portraits it’s got to be right. I was determined I wasn’t leaving a great career in education to do a half baked job in photography. I am a bit of a perfectionist and training is key.”

And one thing Susan is determined to do is to keep challenging herself as she builds her business along the way. As well as family portraits, Susan has now started to shoot “fine art children’s photos” in her studio. These are created to portray a piece of art work rather than your traditional family snap and is something she believes she can offer as a unique selling point.

And despite having loved her career in education Susan is convinced leaving her job to focus her attentions on building her businesses was the right thing to do.

She added: “I feel so lucky to be able to do this and I will do it as long as I need to for my boys, and then take it from there.

“Loads of people thought I was off my head to lose that security. I resigned from Aberdeenshire Council, two years ago, almost to the day, and I have not looked back. I probably missed a steady salary to start with as when you are working completely on your own you really are standing on your own two feet. The business side to it has been the most challenging because I have always worked for an employer but now I am everyone. I am the person that answers the phone, the person that deals with the deliveries, the person that does the orders, takes the pictures and finds my next client.

“But I get to be creative and I get to make beautiful pictures. One of the things that is really important to me is people. All of that is still part and parcel of what I am doing and that’s how I got to be where I am today.”