I picked up my mum's old film camera at thirteen and never really put it down.

Verra Photography is just me — one photographer, a couple of well-loved cameras, and a stubborn belief that the best pictures are the ones that look like nobody told you to smile.

I trained the long way round: weddings on weekends, headshots on weekdays, and far too many evenings teaching myself to print in a borrowed darkroom. Somewhere in there I figured out the work I actually love is the quiet stuff — families at home, couples who've been together for decades, the first foggy photos of a baby who's nine days old.

My job isn't to make you look like someone else. It's to make you look like you, on a good day, in good light.

How I work

Before a session I'll ask you a lot of questions — not about poses, but about you. What you're like together, what makes the kids laugh, the spot that feels like home. Then on the day we mostly just go for a walk and talk, and I make pictures while you forget I'm there.

Afterwards you get a private gallery, hand-edited frames, and absolutely no pressure to buy a giant framed canvas you didn't ask for. Prints are there if you want them, because a photo on the wall beats a photo in a folder you never open.

The kit, for the curious

Nothing fancy is required to take an honest picture, but people always ask: