Why Photographers Are Odd: 1 – Photography Doesn’t End at 5pm

Photography Doesn’t End at 5pm

(And that’s why the results are better)

Before photography, I spent 13 years as a software engineer.

And here’s the honest truth: the second I left the office, software ceased to exist. No coding at weekends. No books about programming. No tinkering “for fun”. Work was work. Life was life. The two barely touched.

Photography is the complete opposite.

When a paid shoot finishes, the camera doesn’t get switched off. It just changes context.

Most of the time when I’m not working, I’m still out with the same camera I use on client jobs.

• Street photography in Leeds.
• Landscapes in the Dales.
• Architectural shots when I spot a building that catches my eye.

None of it is commissioned.

None of it is invoiced.

But all of it feeds directly back into the work I do for clients.

Architectural photography didn’t come from a job brief

It came from curiosity.

Early on, I became fascinated with architecture. Not because a client asked for it (I wasn’t professional back then), but because I wanted to understand how to photograph buildings well.

Getting verticals straight. Making lines behave. Making structures look solid, intentional, and calm rather than like they’re falling over backwards..

Low viewpoints, boring pavements, and why they matter

One of the things I started doing early on was shooting from very low viewpoints. Not for drama, but for structure.

From ground level you suddenly get foregrounds that matter. Yellow road lines become lead-in lines. Drain covers point your eye toward the building. Cracks in pavements, kerbs, road markings — all boring things individually, but incredibly useful compositionally.

None of that was learned on a job. That was learned by going out, failing, adjusting, and trying again when no one was paying me.

The tilt-shift lens I bought “just because”

Tilt-shift lenses are a good example of how this spills into paid work.

I originally bought mine for my own landscape and architectural experiments. They’re not cheap. And no client had ever asked for one.

But once I’d spent time learning how to use it properly — how to control perspective, how to keep verticals vertical, how to make buildings look square-on and rectilinear — it became an obvious tool for professional work.

I now use that lens on railway engineering projects, including station work for companies like Amco Giffen. Projects where accuracy matters. Where buildings need to look engineered, not “arty”.

The images look clean. Square. Intentional. Calm. Exactly what infrastructure clients want.

And the key point is this:
the client didn’t pay for the learning curve. They just got the benefit of it.

This is the bit most people don’t see

Clients see the shoot day. They see the delivery. They see the finished images.

What they don’t see is the hundreds of hours spent practising when no one’s watching. Testing ideas. Learning tools. Refining techniques. Buying kit out of curiosity, not necessity.

That’s the real difference between a day job and my photography as a profession built from a hobby.

I’m not “doing extra work”. I’m doing the thing I enjoy as my hobby. It just happens to make the paid work better.

And that’s why photography doesn’t end at 5pm.