Why can’t I just say I did the thing?

Here’s something that’s been bugging me about myself.

I cannot, for the life of me, talk about my work in a social setting without immediately deflecting. Someone asks what I do, and I’ll say “oh, I’m a photographer”, and then if they ask anything follow-up — anything at all — I go oh, you don’t want to hear about that.

I do. I literally do this. Out loud. To real humans.

And the thing is, I HAVE done things worth talking about. I’m not making it up. I shot KT Tunstall’s debut album cover. Eye to the Telescope. In a house in north London in 2005. That record went on to do… You know, the thing records do when they go big.

My first-ever job in the UK was with Esquire — an advertorial for Barbour jackets. Barbour. The Barbour. I’ve shot for Bonds, Samsung, Griffin Theatre, and Jacobs Creek. I get to make properly fun, personality-driven portraits for SJB on the regular, and it’s some of the work I’m most proud of.

So why, when someone at a barbecue asks what I’ve been up to, do I go, "Oh, nothing much, just photos"?

What IS that?

I keep trying to work out if it’s a woman thing. If it’s an Australian thing — that whole tall poppy reflex where the second you sound like you might be proud of yourself, you have to undercut it before someone else does immediately. If it’s just a me thing.

Probably all three.

But here’s what I’m sitting with: I tell my clients — women in their 40s, business owners, people who’ve built actual lives and skills and careers — that they need to own their face on camera. That confidence isn’t a feeling; it’s a practice. That you can’t be guided into being seen if you’re spending the whole shoot apologising for taking up space.

And I’m doing the verbal version of exactly that. Oh, you don’t want to hear about it. That’s me, hiding behind my camera at my own dinner party.

I don’t know what the fix is yet. I don’t have a tidy little reframe for you. I’m not going to pretend I woke up one morning and suddenly started leading with “hi, I shot a globally successful album cover, want to hear about it?” because that’s not how this works, and also I would rather die.

But I’m done with the deflecting. I’m done pretending the work isn’t the work. 22 years of it. London. New York. Pier 59. Calvin Klein with Steven Klein. Vogue Nippon. Vogue China. i-D. NME. Marie Claire. The Sia portrait from before anyone knew who Sia was, which I destroyed because she hated the photo.

Why am I embarrassed about that? Genuinely — what is the embarrassment FOR? Who is it serving?

If you do this too, please tell me. I want to know I’m not alone in it. And if you’ve worked out how to talk about your own life without immediately apologising for having one, please — for the love of god — tell me how.

I’ll keep you posted.

Kx