About us
You’re never too old to decide what you’d like to be when you grow up. BREATHE has been breathing now for the best part of five years and it’s been a real explorative journey. If this ride were a car, it would be an Aston DB9 on an open Autobahn at 3 in the morning with the ocassional need for 4WD traction on the off slips. We love Clarkson.
It’s a family business and we’re dead proud of that fact. It’s what fuels us to work til stupid o’ clock in the early hours post processing our shots. It’s what makes us rubbish dinner guests ‘cos there’s always one more shot to edit before we can get in a car. It’s what drives our enthusiasm to shoot a wedding on those days when the rain’s coming down in sheets and seeping through our polyester undies.
BREATHE was two; me (Neale) and my wife, Sam. We got married at 1 o’ clock, Saturday 14th October, 2006 at St Mary’s. Pete was our vicar. Steve was our best man. We had lots of laughs, lots of speeches and lots of wine. And now we’re three, enter stage right, Jack. Suffice to say at 14 months old, he can’t yet lift a Canon, but he certainly knows how to pose in front of one.
Our backgrounds? I’m a former Radio 1 presenter and documentary maker from a time when Mr Angry and Our Tune were the nation’s favourite wireless features, music sounded better on vinyl squashed across the medium wave and it was fashionable to dislike Radio 2. These days I throw an icy stare at the sound gear if there’s even the slightest crackle or skip and I’m a big fan of Wossy. Oh how times change.
Sam’s a marketing graduate, a creative (but not a lovey) and has worked with the kind of trademarks brand guardians sharpen their protective scimitars for on a daily basis. She’s pushed BOGOF scampi supermarket meals on the same day as creating the first ever infomercials for a sale in the world’s local bank. I’ve never heard her suggest we think outside any boxes, thank heavens. She’s a former Corneteer and won last year’s family sunflower growing competition.
Our newgrounds? When life on Planet Corporate started running out of pleasant oxygen a couple of years after the turn of a new millenium, I lifted a Nikon and started indiscriminately firing off frames. Then it happened. Suddenly we were both in a new romance. With each other and with pictures, it’s no more complex than that.
And so here we are now in 2009. I spend most weekends listening to couples say “I do” and work with Sam to make even more people aware of our existence. We have a studio and a wedding showroom. There are suddenly hundreds of thousands of image files on various backups spread across Berkshire. I’ve witnessed more nuptials than ever I had dreamt I would the day I donned a pair of headphones in the late 80s. We’re business people, but more importantly, we’re creative again. We’re both Canon fans, Mac converts and realise the beauty of heavy glass in a 1.2 lens.
I thank our former boss for unleashing our real potential that day in 2005 when he offered the ultimatum; “Your job, or the photography. What’s it to be?”
That evening as I sat with Sam in a local Indian restaurant we both agreed, pretty much in unison…
“You know, it’s funny, but now I feel I can BREATHE again.”
