About Ally
About Ally
In January 2018 I found myself sitting on the floor of a kebab shop.
Not eating. Working. I was a wedding photographer with a cash flow problem — something every wedding photographer knows well — and a friend had told me about a company paying photographers to shoot food for Deliveroo and JustEats. So there I was, on a freezing day, sitting in the doorway of the cheapest kebab shop in town because the light was better there, photographing a portion of chips and kebab that was then handed directly to a customer as their order.
I got £40. I had to pay for parking. I had just come from shooting weddings at The Old Course Hotel, St Andrews, the previous summer. I don't even like kebabs.
It was on that floor that I decided I needed to learn to photograph babies.
The Moment it Became Personal
In 2019 my daughter told me she was pregnant. I started looking locally for newborn photographers and didn't find what I wanted. The babies looked posed. Sometimes in buckets. Sometimes propped against giant teddies. I had to look twice at some images just to find the baby.
That wasn't what I wanted for my daughter. So I decided I would be the one to photograph her baby.
I spent that spring and summer teaching myself — in between weddings, editing, and everything else — until I knew I was ready.
He was two days old when they came to the studio. Except they were late. I'd waved them off the night before thinking there is no way she is appearing tomorrow at the time we agreed — she will be exhausted. And sure enough, the phone call came. Sorry Mum, we're running late. We're in a café having lunch.
Of course they were. She was full of adrenaline and hormones and felt like she could conquer the world.
When they arrived I had to go into professional mode and photograph this tiny wee scrap exactly as I would any other newborn. Which was a very strange feeling, because he wasn't any other newborn. He was my first grandchild.
The second I took the last shot I flipped straight into Grandma mode.
That was the moment I knew this was what I was meant to do.
From Weddings to Newborns
I had been a professional photographer since I left school. Weddings and commercial work for over 26 years. I was good at it — good enough to judge for The Wedding Industry Awards. I understood light in a way that only comes from years of working with it — running across a venue lawn to get a shot, changing lenses without looking, smiling at the bride's mum while internally recalculating everything because a cloud just came over.
Wedding photography teaches you to think fast, work with what you have, and never miss the moment. It is genuinely difficult. It takes years to do well.
Newborn photography requires a completely different set of skills. Yes, you need to know how to set up your camera — and I'll walk you through that. Once it's done, it's done. You're not whirring through changing lighting situations or making split second technical decisions. You just need to get lost in the baby and these lovely new parents who trust you and love your work.
The skills you actually need are patience, calm, and the ability to read a room. What to do when a baby won't settle. When dad has brought entirely the wrong clothes. When a very excited sibling is doing laps of your studio.
These are learnable. Quickly. Because they're human skills, not technical ones.
And I can teach you all of it.
Building Mabel & Møøse
Then the world stopped.
The pandemic hit and we all know what happened to weddings. I took it as my chance. I handed my bookings to photographer friends and spent lockdown building Mabel & Møøse. New website, new branding, hours of practice, months of editing, training from every photographer I could find who was worth learning from.
I opened in 2020 from my garage. I'm still in my garage. It's a calm, warm, white space — more like a living room than a studio — and I wouldn't change it for anything. Clients pull up on my driveway, walk straight in without coming through my house, and immediately feel at ease. Students see a space that looks achievable. Because it is.
I am the most expensive newborn photographer in my area. I have a waiting list.
Why I Teach
When I made the decision to pivot I already knew I wanted to teach within five years. Even while I was still learning myself.
Because this is genuinely the best way a woman can earn well and still have a life with her family. It took me years to become a great wedding photographer. I can teach someone to photograph newborns beautifully in a weekend.
Not because it requires no skill. But because I now know exactly what works and what doesn't. I've done the years of trial and error so you don't have to.
I spoke at the Gather to Grow newborn photography conference in Bristol in 2024. It was my first time on a stage. I talked about selling — not the sleazy kind, the kind where your clients leave having spent exactly what's right for them. The room was full of talented photographers who weren't making enough money. That's the problem I want to solve.
The photography is the straightforward part. I can teach you that in a weekend.
The rest — how to run a session, how to make parents feel safe, how to build a business that actually pays you — that takes a little longer. But not as long as you think.
