Profile

I was born and raised on Guernsey and up until my late teens lived on the west coast, which still remains my favourite part of the island. My love of nature I'm sure stems from my childhood where I was allowed to play and explore in the fields, quarries and of course the beaches surrounding our home. I remember that almost everyday after school and in the holidays was spent making dens, catching newts, slow-worms, dragonflies and the like and exploring the rock pools over on the beach...happy memories! I clearly remember during those days that I used to tell my parents that when I grew up I wanted to be a zoologist or a zoo keeper, to be honest I don't think I even knew what a zoologist was but all I knew is that I loved being outdoors with nature. Alas a zoologist I wasn't to be and after leaving school I went into the printing trade, outside of work all of my free time was spent in smoke filled snooker halls - a classic misspent youth if ever there was one!

It wasn't until I fell ill in 2002 and had to give up snooker that my interest in photography took off. I bought myself a digital point and shoot camera and over the next couple of years proceeded to take photos of anything and everything! In 2004 me and my wife spent 7 months touring North America and for that trip I took along the newly released Canon 300D. Having never used an SLR camera before, having the 300D was a revelation and enjoying the flexibility an SLR brings I quickly built up a small collection of lenses. At this stage I still hadn't discovered the wonders of nature photography and most of my images consisted of general landscape and people snapshots. It wasn't until I'd been back in Guernsey for a while that it suddenly dawned on me that I could combine my love of nature with my new found interest in photography. I started buying every photography magazine I could find and joined a couple of online photography forums and started to slowly learn the basics. In 2006 we spent 8 months traveling throughout Australia and it was during this time that my love of nature and wildlife photography really took off and I made up my mind there and then that this was something I wanted to seriously pursue.

Because Guernsey's 'wildlife' consists mainly of birds, it was bird photography that was to become a natural choice for me to concentrate on once back on the island. Photographing the local bird-life has grown into a real passion (and sometimes a frustration!) and I hope over the coming years to try and capture to the best of my ability the beauty and diversity of Guernsey's and the UK's avifauna.

For those of you who may be interested in my choice of equipment please click here. Of course even the best equipment can't guarantee good photos but nevertheless, having the right tools helps a lot!

I hope you enjoy looking through my image collection just as much as I've enjoyed capturing them, please call back often as I add new images on a regular basis.

À la perchoine.