I have been involved in photography for over 30 years. I joined Ipswich and District Photographic Society in 1984 and joined the Royal Photographic Society the following year. I progressed through Licentiateship, Associateship, and gained a certain amount of notoriety in 1990 when I was awarded three Fellowships in the same year. These were in the Portrait, Applied and Pictorial categories. Not wishing to rest on my laurels, I gained a fourth Fellowship in 1998 in the Natural History category with a panel of prints on British Fungi.
During the last 20 years I have served on various RPS Assessment panels – initially the Licentiateship panel for 9 years, then the Nature Associateship / Fellowship panel for 10 years, and finally the Fellowship Board for 2 years.
Multi Award winning Photographer
I have received numerous awards in both National and International Exhibitions. I hold the AFIAP distinction for awards in exhibitions in both this country and abroad. I also have the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain's DPAGB award, as well as the BPE5* award for over 300 acceptance in exhibitions throughout the UK.
In 1990 I won the ‘Amateur Photographer of the Year’ award in AP magazine, which was judged by the late Lord Patrick Litchfield. It was after this that I was invited on the Royal Photographic assessment panels.
Although my main interest is now Natural History, I do not limit myself to one ‘genre’ of photography and I like to feel that I am accomplished in many other areas – landscape, portraits, sport and photojournalism.
Inspiring other Photographers
I have always enjoyed giving talks to Photographic clubs, and I have been doing so for over 25 years. I like the interaction that I can get from showing my images, particularly if you can help and inspire other photographers as well.
Although a lot of photographers are happy to post their images ‘online’, I still believe that the best way of seeing a photographer`s final work is a mounted A3 print. I believe that the mood or feeling of an image can be greatly improved by careful selection of the type of paper used for each image. In 2013 I was invited to become an ‘envoy’ for Permajet, and I uses their papers exclusively.
For virtually all my photographic career I was a confirmed Canon user, and I never thought I would change. But I was getting increasingly fed up carrying around heavy DSLRs and lenses. I noticed that several of the top natural history photographers were changing from Canon/Nikon to the Olympus micro four thirds system, so two years ago I decided to change to the Olympus system. I have been hugely impressed with the quality of images that I can obtain with Olympus, and my only regret now is that I did not change systems earlier. Shortly after changing, I was invited to become an Olympus ‘Mentor’.
I enjoy showing members of camera clubs the quality that you can obtain with Olympus equipment, - often to the surprise of full frame DSLR users. When I Initially changed to Olympus, I was slightly concerned that the smaller sensor size of a micro four-thirds camera would not yield the same print quality of a full-frame DSLR. Being an envoy for Permajet, it was essential that the prints I made from the Olympus system were ‘up to it ‘. When I started printing images taken with the Olympus, I was amazed by the quality of the finished prints. Even printing up as big as A2 size, every detail in the feathers of a bird can still be seen.
With the current Covid 19 situation, I have had to change from visiting clubs to giving talks on-line via the zoom platform. Whilst I much prefer to visit a club personally, I have found that zoom allows me to provide talks for clubs that are much further afield and where travelling distance would be prohibitive. All my talks have been adapted and can be given as a zoom presentation. Any clubs interested in booking me for a zoom talk can contact me via the contact page.