My love for photography and the outdoors came in around 2015/2016 when I bought a second hand Canon 1100D. I needed to find something to occupy myself with at the weekends, as my friends went off to university and I remained working in the town.
Initially I spent my time solely focussing on nature - mainly flowers and birds. I think this tends to be a starting point for most beginners, as I was getting used to the equipment and seeing what it would do and the results I could achieve.
I took myself away for some time in the Dartmoor National Park and a month later to the Lake District for four days to get whatever pictures I could. I enjoyed this as it was a nice escape, some time to myself and time to focus on what I wanted to see. I drove hundreds of miles and saw the most extraordinary landscapes from areas that I’d never been to. I saw birds of prey; buzzards, red kites, kestrels, peregrine falcons and sparrowhawks. I saw many different species of deer and lots of other recognisable British wildlife. I became very familiar and quickly learnt to identify most of the English garden birds.
The first target that I set myself was to get a kingfisher. - It’s a very meaningful bird to me and my family, hence why I was determined to photograph one. I travelled around a lot of Sussex and Kent for months and months but to no avail. I sat through sun, rain, hail and even ice and snow without even a glimpse of the target. Until 1st July 2018 - peak summer time. I took a trip to a nature reserve in West Sussex that I adore, and that I’d spent a long time searching at. I arrived and sat down in the hide. It was a scorching day with the sun beaming down on to the millpond. Within no more than five minutes, I suddenly heard the chirp of a kingfisher, and she landed on the perch in front of me and my camera. I focussed and grabbed a series of shots before she flew off after just seven seconds. That was my first glimpse and it was a special moment. - In the picture below, you can see I’ve sat through rain and sun with the rainbow, but if you look closely you can see a kingfisher on the perch in the middle. What you can’t see however, is that it was -2 degrees!
Over time, I’ve upgraded kit, bought new lenses and visited every corner of the UK in search for “the shot”. I brought out my first calendar in 2018 and called it ‘Embracing Nature’ and I’ve produced calendars every year since then, showcasing my best work from throughout the year.
In 2020, I started taking photography a lot more seriously, getting out whenever I could. Invested more in kit, trips and teaching myself different techniques, and how to read different weather conditions to give me the best possible results.
The more I understood what I was seeing and reading in terms of weather conditions, the more I could plan the type of picture I wanted. Whether that be fog, rainbows, wind, frost, sunrises or sunsets, the more I read and put plans in place, the more I learnt. It needs to be said however, that there came a huge amount of failed camera trips and failed weather trips in the time learning, and this still happens now, so it’s absolutely not all perfect all of the time!
I’ve spent a lot of time in North Wales and the Eryri National Park (Snowdonia) and I frequently refer to that as my ‘favourite place in the world’. - I have explored some of the area in Northern Scotland including the Isle of Skye, Fort William, Glenfinnan, Inverness & Loch Ness.
I have been fortunate over the last few years to have a selection of images published online and on the television by the BBC. I also was published in 2023 and came second in the Reader’s Digest ‘Beautiful Britain’ awards, projecting my images and my name to a global audience of magazine readers and online.
I was also shortlisted for UK Landscape Photographer of the Year and The British Wildlife Photography Awards in 2023. - The latter of the two winner haven’t yet been announced.
I was also a 2023 finalist of the whole British Photography Awards with my stag picture ‘Morning Breath’. I was invited to and attended a glitzy event at the Dorchester Hotel in London’s Park Lane. - It was an incredible evening and to come in the top 20 in the country is a dream.
