That one time my worst nightmare came true

For Photographers

4 Sep

Written By Elle Ward

There are only a few things that terrify me, when it comes to this job.

One - sleeping through my alarms and missing a session.

Two - having a car accident on the way to a wedding, and missing the whole day.

Three - losing an important event due to camera and/or memory card failure.

Four - Being robbed and losing all my gear and tech (and hard drives).

And today I wanted to share with you that one time when one of my worst nightmares came true, in a spectacular fashion.

It was about two-three years ago, and one of my favourite clients (who I met at their newborn session) contacted me and asked me if I would photograph her and her extended family down in Geelong over the summer, while they were all camping together. I jumped at the chance to photograph this beautiful family again (and meet more of them).

We decided to do a sunrise shoot, which made me a bit nervous because they were staying more than a 90 minute drive from my house - but I was determined to get there! And it’s only one early morning, not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, right?

So the night before I get into bed and set my usual four alarms to make sure I would wake up in time and be in Geelong for sunrise at 6am.

And the next morning, I woke up - not to my 4am alarm, but to my client calling me at 6am and asking me where I was.

I was beyond horrified [mortified, devestated, wanting the earth to swallow me whole etc] especially as the shoot had to be held that day because it was their last day camping. Let me tell you I have never hustled myself out the door so quickly as I did that morning. There might have been a few tears shed as I raced down the highway too…

But I was really lucky, because these clients are some of the kindest and loveliest people I’ve been lucky enough to meet. And thankfully it all worked out okay - because even though it was the height of summer and I was 2 hours late, the weather gods blessed me with cloud cover, which meant we were able to frolick on the beach to our hearts content and not be blinded by the sun.

And although we missed out on an epic sunrise, some of the photos from this session are still in the list of my all-time favourites - and these clients? Still my favourites, and they still keep coming back and referring me to their family ♥. But as if that wasn’t enough drama for one day, on the way there I got a huge screw in my tyre and one of my clients helped to change my spare tyre over. And then when I stopped in Geelong to get it changed, I forgot my wallet. And then I went to get some ice cream because I’d just had a day, I got a $150 parking fine for leaving my car in a loading zone (the sign was confusing okay).

It’s a day I’ll never, ever forget lol!

The biggest lessons I learned from this?

Set more alarms. Louder alarms. ALL THE ALARMS. And you’ll be happy to know I’ve never slept through another session since…
You can still create beautiful work, even when you’re stressed out of your brain.
All the hard work you do figuring out who your ideal client is, and then finding them, IS WORTH IT.

Here are some of my favourite photos from that day…