The Secret Rocker Confession
I don’t talk about this much, but my happy place in my twenties was down at the front of rock gigs. Elbows on the barrier. Hair full of other people’s beer. Lungs full of dry ice. Ears ringing for three days afterwards. Absolute bliss.
The highlight of this current decade for me was seeing AC/DC at Murrayfield in August. The noise, the power, the sheer giddy thrill of it. I’d forgotten how collectively unhinged thousands of middle-aged fans can be when the first chords hit.
But the greatest live moment of any decade in my life so far has to be Guns 'n’ Roses at Milton Keynes in the 90s. Axl Rose arrived by helicopter. Onto the stage. It was rock ’n’ roll at its most gloriously, ridiculously unnecessary, and my twenty-something self has never quite recovered. (I did, eventually, move on from my Duff McKagan fixation. Eventually.)
These things don’t come up often in conversations about brand photography, strategy, and personal branding - I mean, there’s rarely a natural segue from “visibility mindset” to “Slash’s best guitar solo” (Paradise City, obviously!). And, apparently, there’s an unspoken age limit on telling people you once fainted from excitement at a concert.
Still, it turns out that side of me – the one who lived for feedback-screeching speakers and minor hearing loss – was merely dormant. Because a few years ago, I made a decision that would haul her, minus the leather biker jacket and Doc Martens this time, back into the light.
The unexpected next chapter – picking up a bass
For reasons that made sense at the time, a couple of years ago I put my name down for a rock bass guitar class here in Edinburgh. I can’t remember exactly what prompted it – possibly an ill-advised moment of optimism or a wee Glenmorangie too many – but I thought it sounded fun.
The class was, apparently, wildly popular. Which meant I had years to forget I’d signed up for it. Then, last month, the email arrived: Your place has come up. Excellent. Present me had just been stitched up by past me.
Last night was the first session.
I was terrified. The raging introvert in me spent the entire journey there building an increasingly persuasive case for turning around and going home. My internal monologue was a mix of: What the hell were you thinking of? and You’ll make a fool of yourself, you utter numpty.
Usually, when I walk into a room of strangers, it’s for business. I know my stuff, I know who I am, and I know I’m good at what I do. But this was different. I had absolutely no idea what I was walking into – or which end of the instrument was even relevant.
The last time I’d held anything resembling a musical instrument was years ago, and it had either a bow or a blowpipe attached to it. I’d spent most of my life in the melody section: fiddle at school, bagpipes for years. A bass line was completely alien territory. The musical equivalent of me trying to explain TikTok to my dad.
The class itself was small – six of us, all looking equally alarmed – and the teacher (is “teacher” even the right term when you're a grown-up?) was cheerful, patient, and mercifully unjudgmental. Within half an hour we were plucking along to a simple rock track. Not well, but loudly.
Three notes. That’s all we played. Three. Notes.
And yet there I was, grinning like a fool, doing my best to keep up, and feeling absurdly pleased with myself.
It wasn’t instant gratification, exactly, but it came pretty close. Very different from the intensity and decades-long slog that bagpipes require. There’s a lot to be said for a hobby that lets you feel triumphant after 45 minutes and a couple of sore fingers.
By the end of the hour, I wasn’t thinking about how out of my depth I felt. I was too busy concentrating on not missing my cue and trying not to hit the wrong string. Which I did. Often. And loudly.
But it was glorious.
The joy of being terrible (and why it matters)
I’d completely forgotten how good it feels to be new at something – awkward, uncertain, and mildly ridiculous, yet completely absorbed.
For a whole blessed hour there was no inbox, no supermarket queue, no news cycle of doom. Just music, concentration, and a group of strangers all pretending not to panic. We weren’t competing, networking, or producing anything of measurable value. We were just trying to find the same three notes at the same time.
It felt blissfully unproductive. And FUN!
Somewhere between the first hesitant pluck and the final, vaguely in-time attempt, a small but significant shift happened. The nerves melted into something that felt suspiciously like chuffedness. The kind of chuffedness that only appears when you’ve pushed yourself through the bit you really didn’t want to do.
There’s a specific relief that comes from being terrible at something and doing it anyway. It’s liberating. Expectations evaporate. Nobody cares if you’re good – ha, not even you! There’s only the doing, the noise, the fun.
For someone who’s spent most of her adult life running a business, being productive, and appearing like a functioning professional, that hour of joyful incompetence felt like I was giving my inner perfectionist the night off. There’s nothing quite like being allowed to be utterly crap at something and finding that the world keeps turning!
It reminded me that confidence doesn’t start with mastery. It starts with motion. You don’t need to be good – you just need to begin.
The connection to brand photography – clients feel this too
That strange, fizzy happiness I left with after class felt familiar. I’ve seen it before, on the faces of my clients.
Every brand photoshoot begins with that same look – nerves barely hidden behind polite smiles, a touch of self-deprecation, a sense that this whole thing might be a terrible idea. (If that sounds familiar, you’ll find some genuinely useful tips in my post on how to feel confident in your brand photo shoot, because it’s far more common than most people think.) The same inner voice that told me to go home before bass class is whispering to them too: What if I make a fool of myself? What if I don’t know what I’m doing?
Then, halfway through, something changes. They loosen their shoulders. Their real laugh appears. They stop overthinking their hands. They forget that they were supposed to feel awkward.
By the end, they’re glowing with the very thing they thought they didn’t have – confidence. The genuine kind, not the forced smile variety.
That transformation never gets old. Watching someone shift from stiff, uncertain self-consciousness into relaxed, easy confidence is pure magic. It’s the same rush I got when I realised I’d just played three notes in vaguely the right order.
Nobody needs to be brilliant on the first attempt – not with music, and not in front of a camera. You just have to show up, try, and let yourself be a bit rubbish for a while because that’s usually the point where confidence clocks in late (and takes all the credit). If you’d like some practical ways to ease those first-time jitters for being photographed, here’s my guide on how to prepare for your brand photoshoot – all the small, sensible things that make a big difference.
Where confidence begins
Confidence isn’t something that appears once everything’s under control. (I wish!) It sneaks up while you’re still slightly panicking and pretending to know what you’re doing. That’s exactly the kind of confidence I see unfolding during my Elevate brand photography sessions – the real, slightly unexpected kind that grows in spite of nerves, not in the absence of them.
The bass class reminded me that growth doesn’t usually feel smooth or elegant. It feels awkward, sometimes humiliating, and usually accompanied by a lot of grimacing. But that’s the whole point, I suppose – the discomfort is the evidence that something’s shifting.
People love to talk about “stepping outside your comfort zone”, as if it’s a single, heroic, stratospheric leap. In reality, it’s more like crawling sideways in small, doubtful increments, muttering "oh FFS" under your breath the entire time.
Sometimes you do it on purpose. Sometimes life just pushes you. Either way, you get that little hit of pride that says, I did that thing I didn’t want to do – and it didn’t kill me. That’s the quiet foundation of confidence. Not the big, bold kind with motivational slogans, but the gentler version that says, I can probably handle the next scary thing too.
Of course, this isn't really about bass guitars ...
The night of my first bass class, I didn’t just step outside my comfort zone – I completely annihilated it. I smashed it to smithereens and left it for dust.
You don’t have to go quite that far, of course. Most people prefer their comfort zones gently expanded rather than set on fire. But the principle’s the same: guts look different for everyone, and the battle zone always feels unnerving when you’re in it.
If you’ve been putting off booking brand photos because you’re nervous about being in front of the camera, you’re not alone. Every single person who arrives for a shoot tells me some version of that same thing. The good news is, by the time we’ve finished, the nerves have evaporated, replaced by that same fizzy mix of pride and relief I felt walking out of that class. You might find it reassuring to read my ultimate guide to brand photography and business headshots in Scotland – it walks through exactly what to expect, and how my process supports you from the start.
Stepping outside your comfort zone doesn’t need to be grand or dramatic. It can be as small as picking up a bass guitar, or deciding to finally show up in your business photos as the real, unfiltered you.
And if I can play rock bass in public, you can absolutely have photos you love!
If you’re a service-based small business owner in Edinburgh or elsewhere in Scotland who’s ready to be seen as the expert you already are but secretly dreads being photographed, let’s chat about how we can create brand photos you’ll actually enjoy being in.
