The man behind the stories behind the photos of Simon Bills of Old Street Photograhy

On Saturday my good friend and Old Street Photography running mate Danny whipped up his patented chilli con carne and had Yvonne and I round for dinner. As the light was so nice we decided to come round a bit earlier and head to a little park down the road where roles were reversed and I fulfilled a childhood fantasy of becoming a super model.

About a month ago I took Danny and his wife Bec out for a shoot around London, we both thought it was pretty important to experience what it feels like to be on the other side of the lens to improve how we relate to the couple we're shooting, at the end of the day once you've got your technical wings photographing people is ALL about building rapport with your models, making them feel comfortable and getting them laughing and smiling naturally and enjoying themselves. I'm notoriously rubbish at having my photo taken, I tend to get a bit camera shy, can't smile naturally and generally get a bit awkward - I'm the camera shy photographer - but NO MORE!!

It's a lot easier having your photo taken with someone else, the style that Danny and both shoot is basically getting the couple to relax and have fun with each other - we're just shooting a couple of hanging out (sort of, there's more to it than that but you get the idea). It's a not a structured "Stand here, look at the camera, smile, NEXT". After we'd done some couple shots it was time to go solo, but this was fine as I was used to the camera pointing at me by now and my smile was looking less like a grimace than ever before!

So, I present to you..... me!