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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.
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