Vital stats:
Age 59; born in the UK - Coventry, Warwickshire (well it was in Warwickshire when I was born, now forms part of the West Midlands – just doesn’t sound so classy does it?); now resident of Padiham, which is close to Burnley, Lancashire.
I have been married to my gorgeous wife Sara for 18 years. I have a son Alex and a step-daughter Charlotte, both of whom are at university.

Occupation:
Trained as a mechanical engineer, moved into sales, now achieved the position of Managing Director. Still a salesman at heart though!

Photographic experience:
I started taking photographs back in the early 1980's (using a Fuji ST605 SLR). Then upgraded to a Canon AE1 and finally to the superb Canon A1. I loved developing and printing black & white, and gained some local recognition by winning a few competitions. I also had many images printed in motorbike racing magazines (my preferred subject in those days). I then drifted away from photography when I lost the use of a darkroom. However, through a love of technology, I started to get back into picture taking at the start of the digital camera era (a Ricoh with 64k pixels!!). After the Ricoh I moved on to a series of better compacts, and then my wife bought me a Canon 300D DSLR. The 300D and Photoshop CS2 massively renewed my enthusiasm for photography, and once again I am seeing the world through a viewfinder. And in January 2010 I upgraded to a Canon 500D.
What do I aspire to? A Canon 5D with EF 24-70 and 70-200 zooms, well, doesn’t everyone?
I still have a lot to discover and learn about photography. Still, joy and pleasure is in the journey.

Preferred subject matter:
One of the things I find most enjoyable and satisfying about photography is trying my hand at different subjects and techniques. However, I mainly think of myself as a travel photographer. I especially enjoy wandering around new locations, finding the little details and local people that are the essence of the place I am visiting. There are many images of popular tourist attractions on my website, but I try to see and to compose these images in a different way to the common "postcard" scenes. It is often the details that reveal more of a location's character than the classic view - for instance the sleeping gondolier image, bottom right.
Hopefully you will spend a little time clicking through some of my galleries and I hope the varied mix of scenes, people and details will give you some degree of pleasure.

Camera gear:
Canon 500D DSLR, Canon EF-S 18-200mm 3.5/5.6 IS, Canon EF-S 60mm f2.8 Macro, Canon 430EX Speedlite, Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod with 496RC2 head, Cokin polarizing and graduated ND filters, Lowepro backpack, Canon IXUS 800 IS compact, Adobe Photoshop CS5

Latest photographic projects:
Shooting a photo profile on a local village ready for submission to a regional magazine.
Also putting together a framework for a photographic book – not disclosing the exact subject just yet!
Putting together my ARPS submission.

Latest books read:
Non fiction: 100 Years of Twickenham, The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry
Fiction: Mort by Terry Pratchett, Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill

Favourite films:
The Dark Knight, Local Hero, Falling in Love, Prince of Thieves, Eat Pray Love, Top Gun (particularly the opening sequence), Shawshank Redemption, most things with Morgan Freeman in and just about any good romantic comedy.

Favourite bands/musicians:
Mark Knopfler (particularly in his Dire Straits days), Pink Floyd, Michael Bublé, John Mayer, Madame Butterfly (The opera), early U2, Linda Ronstadt (especially her ‘For Sentimental Reasons’ album), techno music when I’m in the gym, some country music, lots of Phil Collins/Genesis and bits of most types of music.

Interests/Hobbies:
Business, photography, cooking, walking, travel

Favourite places:
Prague Czech Republic, Sorrento Italy, Venice Italy, Dubai UAE, San Diego California, Lake District England, Singapore, anywhere in India and China

Favourite TV Shows:
House, 24, Mad Men, The West Wing, plus anything with Stephen Fry in it.

Favourite magazines:
The Economist, National Geographic, Outdoor Photography.

Computer setup:
20inch iMac running 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Snow Leopard, Kodak ESP 7 All-in-One-Printer

Favourite web sites:
Twitter, Ebay, Amazon, BBC News, YouTube, Google Earth, Pbase, Photo.net

Blogs I follow:
Scott Kelby, Glyn Dewis, Guy Martin Racing, The Pioneer Woman

Favourite software programs:
Adobe Photoshop CS5, iTunes.

Biggest thrill:
The 20 years of waking up next to my wife each morning.