The thing I love the most about wildlife and nature photography is sharing what I've seen with others - both back at home and on social media.

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I enjoy a good bimble around the garden, coffee in one hand, camera in the other, or strolling along country lanes or sitting in a field somewhere.

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Several years ago I packed up my London life,  left the rat-race and now live in a small village on the Jurassic Coast, very close to the sea. My camera walks are usually along the country lanes from right outside my house, and I enjoy just wandering about and watching the birds flit in and out of the hedgerows.  Often there is so much to see along the way that I don't get very far. 

 

I also do a lot of photography from my front porch and I use it as a kind of sheltered hide. There is a beautiful fir tree right in front and a variety of birds come in from the fields, landing on the branches en route to and from my very well stocked feeders. The soft seaside light outside is just beautiful, even in the drizzle and cold..

 

A short drive away is the seaside town of Dawlish, and along the river running through it live a colony of black swans that have become a symbol for the town centre. They were brought over from Australia, and are managed birds, so not wild, but I find them unusual and exotic. Since I moved here I have been photographing them as they patrol the stream and nibble grass on the town's green spaces and to my amusement, I have occasionally been asked if I'm ok and still alive as I lie on my belly on the ground very still with my camera amongst the ducks and swans that live there.

 

I was showing my black swan photography to our local camera club and this woman came up to me afterwards and said that she walked past the black swans every day on her way to and from work, but before seeing my photos she never really knew what they really looked like. She told me she looks at them with interest now. Comments like this make it all worthwhile - my photography has connected someone to nature in some way.

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I find the prospect of photographing people diffiult, but always open to trying new things I went to the Hospice in Exeter to take a few photos that they needed. It began with great reluctance and fear that I would mess up, but by the end of that morning I found that I could take photographs witth the sensitivity the hospice required, and so began that an unexpected journey to doucumentary photography. See my published Hospiscare work here.