I Thought I Knew Very Little When I Started
Every so often, I find myself returning to my earliest work.
CP090
CP093
CP094
The numbers mean almost nothing to anyone else.
To me, they mark where it all began.
I look at those portraits with enormous affection.
Not because they're my best work.
They're not.
I smile because I recognise the woman who made them.
She thought she was honing her craft.
She actually found a language for something she already knew.
The surprising thing isn't how much I've changed.
It's how much was already there.
I already preferred simple backgrounds.
I already trusted light more than props.
I already found myself waiting for a child to stop performing instead of trying to make them smile.
I couldn't have explained any of those decisions then.
I simply knew they felt right.
I thought my work was to make beautiful portraits.
Looking back, I think it was something much quieter.
To notice.
What I didn't know...
...was everything that would happen after the shutter closed.
I didn't know those babies would become adults.
I didn't know some parents would return carrying years I hadn't witnessed.
I didn't know that time would quietly become part of every portrait I'd ever make.
People have always fascinated me.
Their lives.
The people who shaped them.
The places they've come from.
What they've survived.
What makes them laugh.
What they're carrying that nobody else can see.
When someone walks into my studio, my first thought isn't about the portrait.
It's much simpler than that.
Who are you?
Not...
Who do you think you should be?
Who are you?
The world asks us to perform often enough.
The studio doesn't.
Nobody has to become someone they're not.
My job isn't to change them.
It's to notice them.
People often thank me after a session.
The truth is...
I'm usually the grateful one.
Someone has trusted me with a small piece of their life.
That has never felt ordinary.
Perhaps that's why I still open those first folders.
Not to see how much better I've become.
But to thank the younger woman who was already noticing things she didn't yet have the words for.
JOHANNESBURG PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER
One Moment. One Portrait. Forever
© 2005–2026 Bridget Corke Photography
Blairgowrie · Johannesburg · South Africa
International Master's in Portrait Photography
One of only two in Africa.