Hi! I’m Jane Allan, professional portrait photographer and founder of The Lens Lounge.
Sole content creator of the 300+ photography tutorials, Lightroom editing tutorials and online photography courses published on The Lens Lounge.
And just in case that didn’t keep me busy enough in between client shoots, I also write for Professional Image Maker, speak on portrait photography and Lightroom editing at the annual Societies of Photographers convention and am training as a photography judge.
But if you came here to find out about Jane the person…
I’ve been obsessed with photography since I was seven, but the big love started when I got my first SLR camera in 1993. I was backpacking around Australia and the compact camera I took with me had an accident. The “fancy new” camera was a very old, fully manual Pentax, already 9 years out production. Three years later when I returned home to South Africa with my first Nikon SLR, I freelanced as an assistant photographer to commercial and fashion photographers. It was incredibly hard work, not at all glamorous and so much fun! I learned a huge amount, but mostly that photography was the only thing for me.
I started photographing weddings in 1999 to earn extra income to pay for my own wedding and continued when I moved to the UK in 2001. Then came digital!
It really threw me and I felt that I was starting all over again. Digital cameras are so much more complicated than film cameras. They’re great and I wouldn’t go back, but it felt like suddenly I was trying to drive a Ferrari after I’d been happily tootling along on my donkey cart!
I got the hang of digital before opening my first photographic studio in 2009, concentrating on portraiture and commercial work. Along the way I found myself concentrating more and more on photographing women. I love how a great photo can make a woman feel so good about herself. So now I specialize in boudoir, maternity and personal brand photography (if you’re curious, here’s my work).
In 2015 the importance of what I do hit me full force. We lost my Mom to cancer. If it weren’t for all the photos we have of her, starting from long before I was even thought of (thanks to my Dad’s interest in photography), I would’ve been even more devastated than I was.
And that’s when I realised that I needed to teach others how to capture their own life and loves in awesome photos. Photos you’d be proud to put on your walls, instead of hiding fuzzy, over or under exposed memories away on a phone or computer hard drive that might one day be lost.
And secondly, I want to help amateur photographers become confident professional portrait photographers and raise the standard of professional photography.
Photographs are our history. They deserve to be great!
So, I’m packing all my knowledge and experience into photography training for all levels of expertise.
And if you really want to know more about what drives me to teach others… here’s my very personal reason why photography matters.