About Sarah Offley | Portrait Photographer, The Wirral

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER · THE WIRRAL

My Story

A few years ago, a lovely lady wrote to me. Her father had recently passed away, and she wanted me to know something.

The only photograph she had of the two of them together was one my mother had taken, years earlier, on her wedding day. A quiet moment in the car, the two of them together, before they went into the church.

She had never had her picture taken with her dad before that day. She didn’t know why. It just never happened. And now that single photograph was the most precious thing she owned.

That photograph existed because my mum made sure of it. She always did.

Even when reportage came into fashion and everyone else was chasing candid moments, my mum still quietly made certain the important people were photographed together, knowing the elderly relatives were there, knowing who had travelled far, knowing what a day like that would come to mean. She still feels strongly about it to this day.

I think about that lady often, because that photograph is the whole reason my family does what it does.

I’m Sarah Offley, and I’m the third generation of my family to make a life behind a camera. My son Josh is the fourth.

the beginning

A family business since 1946

It began with my grandad, Roy Offley. Roy was a photographer in uniform. During the Second World War he served with the RAF, developing aerial reconnaissance film in blacked-out darkroom wagons that followed the front line through North Africa and Italy. It was difficult, dangerous work, done close to the fighting, turning rolls of film into the images that planners depended on. He came home safe, which not all of them did. And a short while after the war, he did something quietly hopeful. He opened a photography business, R. L. Offley, High Class Photography.

One of the oldest price lists I still have advertises "flashlight photography" and "photographs hand-coloured in oils," with the emphasis always on quality. I find that line about oils rather lovely, because the work I make today, with all its warmth and depth, still reaches for something painterly.

The love of it passed to my mum, Alison. She worked alongside Roy for years before taking the business on in the 1980s, and she became a wedding photographer of real reputation across the Wirral, Cheshire and Merseyside. Hundreds upon hundreds of weddings, decade after decade.

To this day I can’t go far without someone stopping to tell me my mum photographed their wedding. And sometimes the thread runs longer than that. One of my clients, Dawn, said to me recently: “Your grandad photographed my wedding, your mum photographed my daughter’s wedding, and you’ve photographed all my grandchildren.” Three generations of my family, photographing three generations of hers.

I grew up inside all of it. More than twenty-five years ago I started assisting Mum at weddings, back when a camera held a roll of film and you had just twenty-four frames to get a whole wedding right. We worked together for years, Mum photographing the important groups, me capturing the quiet candid moments. And slowly I found my own way of seeing, my own style, my own light, and portraiture became the work I love most of all.

Now I have come home. After some difficult years, I’ve moved back to the Wirral, back to my family, back to the part of the world where Roy first began. It feels right to be here, doing the work this family has always done, in the place it started.

The future

The Fourth Generation

And now there is Josh. My son, twenty-seven, the fourth generation. Creative, funny, and so like me that working together is simply a joy.

Watching him find his own eye for this craft makes my heart burst. Josh is building the next part of the family's story. He will be leading our nursery and pre-school photography under Little Sunshine Nursery Photography, while I grow the portrait studio.

Roy would be proud of him. I know my mum is.

There is one photograph I do not have, and it is my deepest regret. In all our years, a whole family of photographers, I do not have a single picture of the three of us together: me, my mum, and my grandad Roy. It just never happened. We were always the ones holding the camera.

I cannot go back and take that photograph. But I can make sure I never feel that way again, and I would love to help you make sure you never do either. Be in the photographs with the people you love. Don’t always be the one holding the camera.

Recently I sat down with my mum and my son, three generations together, and had our portrait made at last… this photograph means everything to me.

So much has changed since Roy first picked up a camera. Everything is digital now. We all carry thousands of photographs in our pockets, and look at almost none of them. For every hundred forgotten images on a phone, there is one printed photograph, on a wall, in a folio box, pressed into someone’s hands, that means absolutely everything.

That is the work. That is what four generations of my family have quietly been doing all along: making the photograph that, one day, will be the most precious thing someone owns.

I would love to make yours.

Sarah