‘A stranger gave me a camera when I was a teenager. It changed the course of my life’

When Emmanuel Hammond’s church youth group announced that they were organising a trip to a Christian festival, the teenager knew he couldn’t go. 

“I think it was around £100,” he explains, “and my parents just couldn’t afford it at the time”. But on the day they were due to leave Manchester for Creation Fest in Cornwall, the pastor’s wife noticed Emmanuel was not there. 

“I got a call from my church to say: ‘Come anyway.’” It was a divine intervention, he says. “God knew the end from the beginning.”

A few days later, the 14-year-old stumbled across a photography workshop taking place on site. A professional photographer, Andrew Williams, was handing out cameras to the young people present and encouraging them to take shots of the festival. When Emmanuel returned and showed Williams his images, the expert was impressed. “He looked at the photos and said: ‘Oh, you have an eye.’ I appreciated that, but I didn’t really understand what he meant.”

Williams invited Emmanuel to shadow him the following day, taking him behind the scenes and even allowing him to shoot bands on the main stage with him. “I was so excited that night, I almost couldn’t sleep,” he remembers.

Then at the end of the week, there was an even bigger surprise. As Emmanuel and his youth group prepared for the long journey home, Williams came to find him. He said: “I don’t know why, but God told me to give you this camera.” 

Many years later, Emmanuel discovered the backstory. The photographer had initially been reluctant to give away his expensive Nikon SLR – especially to a teenage boy he hardly knew. “He had a dream the night before,” Emmanuel says. “He didn’t want to do it, but he felt like God was speaking and he had to be obedient.”

Small beginnings

It was a life-changing moment for the 14-year-old boy. “I remember feeling God’s presence, like it was a Kairos moment,” says Emmanuel. But it was also a little overwhelming. Although Emmanuel didn’t know the camera was worth £3,000, he did know that it was expensive – and struggled to understand why a stranger would give away such a thing. 

“I think I was a little bit afraid as well,” he says. “I remember getting back on the coach and everybody was talking about how Emmanuel had been given this big camera…you can imagine all the other 14 and 15-year-olds! 

God knew the end from the beginning

“So, there was comparison, and I felt imposter syndrome, but I realised very quickly that God had instilled in me a very strong passion for the craft that was unnatural. It didn’t come from me.”

Back in Manchester, Emmanuel put his new camera to use. “The first things I took photos of were apples and teddy bears in my house…and shoes!” he laughs. “Then, I got really confident about four days later and took photos of my mum.” 

It would be many years before he saw photography as a serious career option. 

While studying for a degree in sound design, he continued to take photographs – but it was only ever a hobby. “I couldn’t see a way to make money from it.” To work on his editing skills, he would practise on people’s Facebook photos. He’d spend his spare time in Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre, offering to take people’s profile photo for them. “I don’t think anyone ever said yes!” he laughs. 

Learning the lessons

Trying to make a living was frustrating. “For a long time, I struggled with: God, if you’ve given me this gift, why am I not making money with it?” he says. “I realised He didn’t want money to become an idol to me. 

“I believe He nurtured me until eventually I got to a place where He said: ‘OK, I can now bless you financially in this area, because your heart is in the right place.’”

The breakthrough came when a friend from church offered him £60 to shoot their wedding. Fast forward to today and Emmanuel now manages a team of 80 photographers, teaches photography and travelled to 18 countries around the world. He has worked for Vogue, ITV, the BBC, the MOBO awards and Universal Studios, and even photographed the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. He still loves photographing weddings, although his rates have now increased ever so slightly…

Looking back, Emmanuel sees his story as a beautiful illustration of God’s all-encompassing love. “The Bible says that, before He put us in our mother’s womb, He knew us [Psalm 139]. I did not know all that would happen in the beginning but, sometimes, God gives little hints,” he says.

One of these hints was a newspaper cutting Emmanuel found many years later. A few months before his trip to Cornwall, he was at the local library when a photography workshop was taking place. Emmanuel didn’t attend but, for some reason, one of the organisers asked if he’d like to have his photo taken. The following week, a picture of Emmanuel holding a digital camera appeared in the local paper, captioned: “Emmanuel Hammond, 14, during a digital photography workshop at North City Library”. 

“I still have that photo,” Emmanuel says (see above image). “It makes me a little emotional.” While he never actually attended that workshop, perhaps it was prophetic of the one he would attend a few months later – and all that would follow on from it.