I first picked up a camera in earnest in 2008.
Immediately prior to this I had spent much of the previous 5 years scrambling up mountains and walking miles over the length and breadth of Britain, usually alone. My wife, Jan, was/is very understanding!
During this period I set myself the goal of climbing all of the 214 Lake District ‘Wainwrights’ inside 12 months. I completed this during 2007-2008 and in addition, innumerable solo long-distance trails such as the West Highland Way, Coast To Coast and the Pennine Way (aka ‘the unguided tour of the bogs and peat hags of merry England’). I also covered pretty much every square inch of my homeland - The Cleveland Hills and Yorkshire Moors.
When doing this, I had many experiences that could only be described as ‘transcendant’ - I was regularly overwhelmed and moved to tears by the sheer intensity and majesty of what I was witnessing/part of.
My ‘snaps’ from these expeditions were uniformly lousy and totally failed to capture the experience that I was endeavouring to share with friends upon my return. So I just ended up attempting florid and unconvincing expositions instead. I am no poet - and this merely confirmed the fact.
However, I became aware of the work of Joe Cornish, who lived and worked locally and the more I looked, the more I realised that he could capture that magic. In fact, he did it all the time. I decided to see if I could do that too.
I was given a Canon 400D for my 50th birthday and met Joe on one of his courses. We subsequently became good friends. Watching him work was and continues to be a revelation - such skill, such care and diligence, such passion and respect for the subject.
Inspired by his example I set out to try and emulate him - and failed pretty miserably, for obvious reasons - he’s a master craftsman and an artist of rare brilliance; and I am not.
However, I did stick my neck out and got involved in producing work for scrutiny, culminating in being commended and included in the ‘Landscape Photographer Of the Year’ book and exhibition in 2011. I was subsequently shortlisted again a number of times in that and other competitions.
However, I swiftly became disenchanted with the committee nature of such events (and LPOTY is so absurd a misnomer as to be pretty much redundant) and with having no interest in selling my stuff, I have subsequently been ploughing my own idiosyncratic furrow and producing images primarily for my own pleasure and that of my family and friends. The Royal Photographic Society have been kind enough to recognise my progress with the LRPS and ARPS distinctions.
I’ve graduated to a Sony A7iii and Sony/Sigma lenses. My iPhone 11 Pro is also increasingly utilised, especially for ‘recce’ shots.
And now I am thinking that ‘perhaps it’s time to make my images available to a wider audience’? Hence this website.
I hope you find something here to enjoy, and that some of the magic I experience in the places I love rubs off on you. If not, thanks, at least, for visiting!
‘We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting’ Kahlil Gibran