Not many people get to live and work in one of the most beautiful parts of the world and to earn their living doing—and teaching others to do—what they really enjoy.

Photography roots and experience

At the age of eight, my first camera was one of those boxy Kodak 126-format Instamatics, which, I’ve convinced myself, I remember finding very limiting. It was soon replaced with the first of a long succession of second-hand SLRs—Minoltas and a few prime lenses to begin with. I shot in manual mode—fastidiously scribbling notes next to each frame number so I could complete the feedback loop when my images came back from the lab—sufficient reason to cherish the immediate LCD-display feedback on modern digital cameras.

Today, most of my camera gear is professional-grade Nikon. Currently a pair of D700 bodies, the usual f2.8 lens suspects, a few prime lenses to keep me moving my feet, and neutral density filters to help deliver on the “get it right in camera” mantra.

When did I become a professional photographer? When people began paying me to take photographs and teach them about their cameras, composition and creativity. I began teaching adult education photography classes in 2007. I began developing and leading photography holidays for HF Holidays the following year. Inspired by the Landscape was a natural progression prompted by demand from students and workshop guests.

Getty Images likes my photographs. Click here to see some of my work that they have selected for sale.

Relevant non-photography experience

For a few years I spent time in spectacular, remote and more or less unstable parts of Africa and Asia as an overland expedition leader for Exodus. You know the kind of thing: pre-GPS, pre-satellite phone adventures in an ex-army truck across deserts, through rainforests and in the thin air of high-altitude plateaux. All of which makes my more recent exploits, as a mountain walking leader, photographer, photography teacher, and sometime marketing communications manager, seem a little tame.

Qualifications and references

I’d like to think you can see real-world qualifications in amongst my portfolio and the positive things people say in testimonials.

If you are looking for certificates and letters after my name, I have a conversation piece 2:1 degree in Politics. I hold post-graduate (PGCE) Qualified Teacher Status registered with the General Teaching Council. I am member of the adult education-orientated Institute for Learning, which means I regularly have to provide evidence of continuing professional development. I teach adult education photography classes for Cumbria County Council. Government funding for the latter means my teaching is regularly inspected to ensure quality learning and value for money. My latest report was rather good. You can read it here if you are interested. (largish PDF file)

My filing cabinet (remember those?) contains the five Enhanced CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks I had in the last seven years. Readers connected with education will know that schools—and now adult education institutions—require these before one is allowed to teach. Every time you teach somewhere new, they do a new one! Oh, and in case you drop a heavy lens on your foot, I have a current, HSE recognised, regularly renewed Remote Outdoor Areas First Aid qualification—and public liability insurance.

Philosophical approach to photography and the landscape genre

With a sub-heading like that there’s a danger descent into artsy pretentiousness. But I have to say, that despite my workshop guests and students often commenting on the humour I can’t help but bring along, I do take this art form seriously.

My landscape work is informed by my conviction that that the best photographic subjects and successful images are those that provoke an emotional response in the photographer and the viewer of the final output. It can be disappointing when our photography-savvy peers, family and friends talk first about sharpness or subject positioning on imaginary “rules of thirds” lines, rather than how a photograph makes them feel or think.

Most “serious” photographers are always going on about The Light. “It’s about the light.” “It’s the light!” Me too. But there’s more, much more.

“Look for interesting light before you look for interesting or popular subject matter,” I insist to my students and workshop guests. But let’s not get overly reductionist.

Landscape photography is about story telling, too. It’s about trusting your gut reaction to the subject matter and combining that with consistent technical ability to capture, interpret (in post production) and communicate the end result in a believable way. It’s about experience, which is just as much about making mistakes and learning from them as it is about success.

In my workshop and classes I do talk about compositional conventions—rule of thirds, balance, tension, leading lines, recession and etc—but only so we can make intelligent choices about using or avoiding their helpful but often “by the numbers” results.