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Stephen Walton
Author: Martin Forrest
This is my personal insight into a photographer’s life after a major injury and my road to physical and mental recovery.
Firstly, choosing to become a professional wedding photographer is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Not only do I get to use my creativity and passion as a profession, but I work for myself which means you can choose to carve your own path.
Secondly, 2019 was a very important year for me and it felt very much like a ‘levelling up’ year. Things were about to change in a big way!
I had no idea it was going to turn out the way it eventually did…
It all began in July 2019, weeks before some of the biggest weddings of the season. I was involved in a serious motorcycle accident and my life was turned upside down.
I woke up on the pavement at the side of a busy high street, unable to see and disoriented when I heard the gasps of a woman saying ‘he’s still alive!’. It was at that point that I realised everything was not OK.
Then it turned out a delivery driver, in a hurry to meet his schedule, had turned his van into the path of my motorcycle causing me to crash at high speed.
I suffered neck and head injuries, alongside several breaks to my right hand and wrist. A photographer’s life…at the peak of wedding season – this was less than ideal.
Finally, once the dust settled and I had spent extensive treatment at the hospital, it was time to take stock and decide exactly how I was going to carry on.
Making the first call was the toughest. It was to my business partner to explain the situation and to try and formulate a plan. In a nervous and shaky voice, I said “I’ve been involved in a motorcycle accident and I’ve broken my hand and wrist”, there was a long pause and they responded “which hand?!”. This is still something that makes us laugh to this day.
The process of recovering from an injury as severe as I had was difficult enough. However being trusted to document a bride and groom’s most important day, and being unable to, adds a whole new level of stress. This situation needed to be handled with care and felt as fragile as treading on thin ice.
Logistically the season was a success, but this left me with the challenge of having a long process of recovery and dealing with the unknown.
I had taken extensive damage to my right hand which left me with limited movement, strength and coupled with that a significant amount of pain.
A photographer’s life, in the wedding market, has always been the goal for me, starting long before I went a professional. This motivation to push my skills has never left me.
The thought of not being able to hold a camera again was something I wasn’t prepared to accept, and this was the drive that empowered me.
I underwent a series of intense physiotherapy sessions that had me constantly in pain. The exercises were relentless and had to be performed frequently, some every 15 minutes throughout the day.
The hospital visits seemed never-ending, and I was constantly overshadowed with the prospect of major surgery if the treatment didn’t go well.
My sleep was disturbed and the strain on my mental health was significant. The one prevailing thought that kept me focused through the pain and anguish, was being able to pick up my camera and be creative again. Without this passion, I’m not sure I would have had the strength to get through.
One of the best parts of being a wedding photographer is selling your skills and personality as a product. There is nothing quite like the feeling of elation when a client trusts you that much that they want to include you in their wedding day.
Planning a wedding is like spinning a series of very expensive crystal plates if one falls it can be very upsetting to a couple and I had just wobbled one of those plates. This is where forward planning is crucial and thankfully, as we have worked in the wedding industry for a very long time, we had a list of photographers we could use if anything like this was to occur.
Eventually, after many phone calls, we managed to navigate through the season despite my absence. That said it was not without a significant strain on our relationship, both business and personal.
Thankfully, today we still work together, and by overcoming these challenges we have become closer than ever. She is even best man at MY wedding next year.
A photographer’s life, a freelance one anyway, means that situations like mine not only adds mental pressures but financial ones too. It’s important to be aware of the impact lack of work means self-employed photographers.
Gradually as time went on I started to see improvements. My strength improved daily and receiving glowing reports from the specialists slowly restored my confidence. I was, however, still concerned about my endurance and ability to perform for a whole wedding day.
5 months after the accident, I decided to get the camera out and joined my business partner on a wedding pre-shoot. It was terrifying and I felt like the new kid at school, but afterwards, I saw the results, and my confidence was restored. It was exhilarating.
I was BACK!
In a photographer’s life, I feel like I have now faced the biggest challenges on offer and I came out on top. I want to tell you that challenges like this can build us up and give us confidence and strength we didn’t know we had.
“Everything will be OK in the end. If it’s not OK then it’s not the end”
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