I'm originally from Luton in the UK, a place that has consistently been voted the worst place to live in the UK or Britains' Worst Town (these are some of the more polite awards) but I'm now based in Ocean Grove, Victoria. Despite its notorious reputation, the surrounding Bedfordshire countryside is surprisingly picturesque and it was in these rolling hills, as well as on our annual family holidays to South Wales, that my appreciation for the beauty of the land and coast evolved. I have enjoyed taking photographs for as long as I can remember, although until recently, never having a sense of what type of photography I felt more comfortable in. Looking back at the shots I'd taken over the years on these family vacations and various other trips it was always the scenic images that were my favourites.
Life for me literally changed with the birth of my first son, as not only did I become a proud father, I also purchased my first DSLR (Nikon D3000) as I had wanted to record his development with quality images that not only my wife and I could look back at fondly but so could he, and they would be slightly better than the crumpled and faded prints that my parents generation had of my sister and I as children. Those good intentions lasted about a month, as it became clear that it was so much easier taking photographs and videos on an iphone, than it was with a dedicated camera. I did however always bring the camera and lenses with us wherever we went, and I began trying to photograph the environment and scenery around us. I remember being quite frustrated that I couldn't quite understand why some of the magnificent sunrises we had witnessed looked completely over exposed and featureless, when surely it was a matter of selecting the 'Auto' option on the dial and the camera should do it for you. It was then I began researching how to use the camera properly and how to create an image rather than just take a photograph. I was fortunate enough to have a one-day landscape photography workshop given to me as a 40th birthday present by my wife, and it was after this experience that I knew this genre of photography was for me and things really took off. I now have my images on the walls of homes around Australia and beyond, as well as in various local businesses and have a long held ambition of owning my own gallery at some point in the future.
For me, it's the unpredictability of photography that keeps me motivated. I love how an image can suddenly appear in front of you, when just a subtle change of light or a very slight change of angle provides a completely different composition to one that was there only minutes before. Its the volatility of nature that drives me, and like most other photographers, I've spent hours working on different compositions in order to achieve what I've seen in my minds eye, only for the light or the elements to be anything but co-operative. I've lost count of the miles I've driven only to sometimes not even take the camera out of the bag, let alone take an image. This frustration however, is overwhelmingly balanced out by the thrill and excitement when everything does come together as planned.
