A bit about me
I've always been one for getting out and exploring the world around me and spent much of my youth outdoors or camping under the stars. A bunch of us would regularly head out laden down with sandwiches, spare socks and a flask of tea to explore new places and find new adventures. I was arty and creative as a youngster, but left photography to my older brother who has the black and white archive of these trips.
In my 20’s I embarked upon a slightly larger adventure living and working in the Pacific. I was lucky enough to travel to many remote islands over the years and live amongst the people who had made these places their home over the centuries.
It was a colossal change from the rolling hills of Yorkshire and craggy mountains of Cumbria to the volcanic peaks of Tahiti, faraway atolls of the Cook Islands or endless white sandy beaches of Fiji and Samoa. Here, the journey was as spectacular as the destination.
I eventually returned home penniless, but with a full bank of memories. I realised I was relying upon my ability to verbally recall each memory when chatting about my adventures and as much as I could still get excited about them, it was near impossible to convey the sights, the sounds and more importantly the emotion of the moment.
I continued to travel, but this time I had swapped the Pacific Isles for the British Isles and now carried a camera with me.
Photographs were great, and they captured the ooh’s and the ahh’s as I travelled to new locations. But during the next decade of my life there was a gradual change from photography being an incidental occurrence of a trip, to being the reason for the trip. This brought on a major [excuse the pun] change in focus and I began planning journeys to capture images rather than the image capturing something I found.
I’m now at an age where you don’t mention your age, but things haven't changed much except perhaps swapping canvas for a camper van, and not getting lost quite so often. My style of photography has changed, and I feel continues to evolve and develop, but I still explore the British Isles and after over twenty years of doing so still have many places on my list yet to visit.
These days I plan a trip to the nth degree, taking into account the sun, the moon, the tide and of course the weather. I try to bring all these elements together and drop them onto a location or viewpoint and bring out the best of what I see to convey the emotion of that moment in time. I like to create a memory of the journey and capture the emotion I felt when I arrived in a single image.
I class myself as a landscape photographer, so my subjects are often mountains, seas, lakes, rivers and trees. Bring one or more of these elements together with good light and you have a magical vista to capture. But sometimes I like to take an ordinary location or a snapshot of a larger viewpoint and try to bring out something extraordinary through the use of long exposure and movement. This is my creative, artistic side coming through and I am slightly obsessed with the movement of water.
My Labrador Max was always along with me for company, and he learned that once that camera comes out it was time for his siesta.
Unfortunately, Max passed away recently whilst we were together on a trip to the Outer Hebrides. Photography will never be the same without him.
Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy my photographs.