Society1 People is a regular feature where we catch up with one of our members about what they have been up to lately and spotlight them and their business. It’s a great way to get to know who works at Society1 too.
Tell us a bit about you and your business?
I’m Anna and I’m a photographer and videographer. I stumbled on photography almost 20 years ago when I was looking for a creative night class to relieve the boredom of my admin day job, which mainly consisted of filming. I haven’t looked back since! My initial plan was to become a forensic photographer, but my plans changed after photographing my first wedding in 2010. I absolutely love the challenges that come with photographing a wedding day and love that I get to do something SO creative as a job. My style is very much documentary with as little posing as possible. I am very much inspired by photo documentary photographers such as Martin Parr and Alex Webb.
In 2020 when weddings hardly happened, I decided I needed to add another sector to my work and set up doing marketing photography/videography for educational settings, such as schools and nurseries. I really enjoy working with children and young people. I have recently extended this to working with drama and dance schools locally in Preston and I loved photographing and videoing the Players Drama School production of Annie last summer.
What was your driver to go freelance?
My biggest driver was wanting to be my own boss, and achieve this before my son started in Reception in 2017 so I could take/pick up from school. I had a target of how many weddings I needed to have booked in the diary before I could hand my notice in and managed to do it three months earlier than planned. At the time I said ‘I’ll give it six months’ and I still follow that mantra now.
What’s your go to place / activity / interest when you want to switch off from work?
I LOVE stories (I am a storyteller afterall) so I am always reading, listening to books or watching films/theatre shows. My favourite place is the beach. I’m also getting back into running following some time off whilst I was waiting for some medical results. I’m really pleased I can start doing this again as I find it really helps me switch off from work.
Be sure to say hi when you see Anna at S1 next time you are in. In the meantime connect with Anna on socials:
Instagram: annawoodphotography
Website: www.annawoodphotography.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-wood/
Thank you Anna for sharing about yourself and what you do.
If you are interested in joining our community at Society1 we have really affordable plans to choose from. You can see the all on our website: wwwsociety1.co.uk/plans
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