Born into a family of photographers, I didn't really stand a chance at
accountancy or bricklaying.

Cameras were all over the house. As a child I soon became curious enough
to pick one up and shoot a roll of film. The photos were awful but the
satisfaction of flicking through a fresh fingerprint-less pile of prints was
great. 
School and college came and went supplying various qualifications in the art,
and instead of following the trend to University I was offered my first job
as a printer for Kodak.

This required being stuck in the back of Supasnaps in Feltham merrily
bashing out holiday snap after blurry, underexposed holiday snap.
Those were back in the good old days when people took pictures and actually
had films processed. In the back of the shop you could see the excitement
and anticipation on the faces of people in the queue as they waited for their
prints. You'd then see them outside on a park bench pouring over prints and
enlargements. Nowadays it's all downloading from memory cards onto cd’s or
hard drives.

After moving on from Kodak I became a photographer at Thorpe Park. We'd stop
and accost people in the queue line at Thunder River, issue a yellow ticket
and sell the prints in a small shop as they left. When you're shooting, printing and selling, un-sharp or badly exposed images, this can be virtually impossible.

In the winter I'd go out to sea as a cruise ship photographer working on
some truly magnificent ships operated by Princess or Norwegian Cruise lines.
An absolute blast if you’re a single person!
We'd use the best equipment, Hasselblad, Leica and Nikon. The downside
was that we were still wet processing. This involved ripping open film
canisters in the darkroom, loading them on to metal spirals, then into cages
and hand dipping them through the chemicals, all in pitch black with nothing
but a luminous clock for company!

In 1998 the time came when my love of Italian cars interrupted the cruise
ship career.  I was offered the position of photographer and deputy editor on a new
monthly magazine based purely on Italian cars. It was called Auto Italia.

Eight years later I'm still on the magazine and am now the publishers
group photographer. Not just Italian cars any more. My weeks are now filled 
with horses, dogs, boats, wedding shows, in fact anything that requires a
show guide or programme I now supply images for.

If I have learnt anything in my career so far it's to be versatile. There's
also nothing quite as satisfying as looking through the lens at the perfect
shot whether in brogues at a wedding or knee deep in mud on a rally stage.

Please take a look at my galleries, if you like what you see, please get in touch.