Few Words About Myself Thanks for visiting
Born in Bishop Auckland in 1963, as a child I had a fascination for wildlife and in particular, African wildlife. I remember being glued to the tv watching programmes such as Tarzan and Daktari and spending my pocket money on animal books and plastic animal figures.
In 1980 after leaving school I joined the RAF as a technician and in 1981, having qualified from my training and receiving my first decent pay cheque, I walked past a chemist and seeing a number of SLR cameras in the window, in I went and came out with a Pentax ME super. This was the start of my photography journey.
I left the RAF in 1989 and became a Police officer in Durham constabulary and soon specialised as a firearms officer and then a firearms instructor. While serving as a Police officer I studied photography at my local college over a 4 year period of evening courses and achieved a City & Guilds qualification and later I achieved a certificate of education.
In 2007 I went on my first trip to Africa, to the Masai Mara in Kenya during the Wildebeest migration. People said to me ‘once you taste the water of Africa you will have an un resistible desire to return’. For me that is so true. Since then I have been returning at every opportunity. When I retired from the police in 2013 I went to South Africa for 3 months, at first working on a game reserve as a volunteer and then travelling the garden route before flying up to Livingstone in Zambia to witness the incredible Victoria falls.
Since then I’ve been to Tanzania, Rwanda and Namibia as well as South Africa several times teaching photography on Photo Safaris.
After leaving the Police service I became a qualified drone operator and have operated drones in some exciting locations including the south serengeti and in Morocco for BBC’s Top Gear.
Operating drones fuelled my interest in video and video editing and I have set up a partnership with my son, iMedia360, where we provide a commercial video service. We have been involved in some exciting productions including being the official photographers for Kynren, an outdoor show in Bishop Auckland. In 2017 we filmed and produced a TV and cinema advert for Kynren. From 2015-2018 I spent most weekends sat on the touchline of premiership football grounds shooting for a London based Sports Photography agency however I found this got in the way of my true passion of returning to Africa so had to give it up.
In 2019 One of my photographs was ‘Highly Commended’ and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards, run by the Natural History Museum in London. This being one of 100 photographs receiving recognition from the 48,000 entries. It was also selected from this exhibition to be 1 of 18 to be displayed in the State room in Number 10 Downing Street.
I currently have an exhibition of my photography in Hermanus, South Africa at the Jones & Co. art gallery.
In March 2023 the Natural History Museum in Paris are hosting an exhibition called ‘Felines’. A short piece of video that I filmed in South Africa of lions at a water hole at night will be played at the entrance to that exhibition.
In July 2022 I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise money for the charity LionAid
