I fell in love with photography when I was fifteen. At seventeen I got my first ‘proper‘ camera and shortly after that my bedroom was blacked out with bin liners and converted into a darkroom.

For a long time it remained just a serious hobby, but after graduating from university I worked as a project worker with a local charity where I set up a darkroom and introduced young people to photography and black and white printing. I was learning as much about photography as they were and after a couple of years I realised I needed to pursue my own career as a photographer.

I moved to London and spent six years as a freelance photographers assistant working mostly with fashion, portrait and music photographers, and assisted on shoots with all manner of celebs and bands, from the Spice Girls to Pulp… Jarvis being one of the few people I’ve been totally starstruck in front of!

It was a great photographic education and eventually I started to pick up jobs of my own. There were a few music shoots and celebrity portraits, but I found myself increasingly taking on editorial lifestyle and food shoots. This wasn’t particularly the plan, but it was great, and I found myself working on numerous food books with lots of well known chefs, from Gary Rhodes to Marcus Wareing, as well as being sent all over the world shooting food and travel stories.