After a career as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, including 5 years flying with and leading The Red Arrows, I worked for a few years for a national charity. Photography is now my main interest and, since giving up ‘the day job’ in 2001, I have been able to devote much more time to it.

     I have been interested in the natural world, and especially birds, since I was a small boy. However I did not consider trying to photograph subjects until a posting to the Falkland Islands in 1985 inspired me to buy a camera.

    Unfortunately, my 5-month tour there covered Autumn and Winter but I was still able to see and photograph some of the wonderful wildlife in the Islands. With only basic equipment and a rudimentary knowledge of photography, my pictures served merely as a record of my stay but were an important first step in my progress as a photographer.  I returned to the Falklands in 2004 and some of the images taken then are on display in the Galleries.

   A few years later, I decided to settle on Canon cameras and lenses, and I purchased my first digital camera at the beginning of 2003. After a short period of trying to take both slide and digital images, I now shoot exclusively in digital.

    I live in the Thames Valley where there are a number of opportunities for photographing wildlife, especially water birds. However, I also travel around the UK to take pictures, and I usually arrange a couple of overseas trips each year. In the last few years I have been to Florida, Australia, Lesbos, Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, Finland, the Falkland Islands, Spain, Norway, Tanzania, and Morocco.  In 2007, I visited Florida, Hungary, Finland, Ireland, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.

    2008 was a relatively quiet year, and my only distant trip was in May to the Outer Hebrides (The Uists), where I successfully photographed Corncrake.  Perhaps worthy of mention is that I was enrolled as a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS) in October.

    2009 got off to a good start with a 2-week trip to Japan to photograph Snow Monkeys on Honshu and Eagles and Cranes in the snow and ice on Hokkaido.  In May I visited the Danube Delta area of Romania and obtained some good images of Bee Eaters, Rollers and a number of water birds such as Herons. 

    I started 2010 with a week in February in the Highlands of Scotland where I photographed Red Squirrel, Crested Tit and Capercaillie in the abundant snow.  In May I spent 10 days in Bulgaria photographing Bee Eater, Rose-coloured Starling, and Stone Curlew and a number of other species.  The highpoint of the year was my trip to Botswana in December with Shem Compion (www.c4safaris.co.uk).  Some of my best images are now in the Gallery.

     The highlight of 2011 was my trip in July to Spitzbergen (Svalbard), an island in the Arctic about 400 miles north of Norway.  After 3 days photography based in Longyearbyen, the main town, I embarked on 'Polar Pioneer' for a 10 day trip around the island.  We were lucky to see 19 Polar Bears, which provided a variety of opportunities for photography from the ship, or from a Zodiac.  We also saw whales, seals and various seabirds.  Later in the year, in December, I travelled to Bosque del Apache, a national nature reserve in New Mexico (USA) where vast numbers of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes spend the winter months.