For the whole of my life I have been interested in nature and enjoyed walks in the countryside. At the end of the 1970s I decided I needed to learn more about the wildlife I was seeing so I joined a class where the teacher taught about wildflowers, trees & birds. She illustrated her lectures with projected slide photographs.

 

Seeing her photos of wildflowers really interested me. I decided to start taking photos purchasing a Contax 139 SLR (Single Lens Reflex) 35mm camera + a 55mm macro lens in 1982. Many of the reviews said this was the best medium priced SLR at the time.

 

Soon photographing wildflowers became a passion & I was making my own collection of photos of both common & rare flowers. There were day trips & short holidays with friends that I got to know through the class to see & photograph wildflowers. Information of special & rare flowers was shared by a network of friends & contacts.

 

Around 1986 I was asked to give Talks & I assembled a number of Talks with titles such as ‘Wild Flowers through the Year”, “Wild Flowers in Danger”, “Surrey’s Wild Flowers & their Stories” & “Wild Orchids of Britain”.

 

Towards the end of the 1980s I came to the conclusion that I needed to improve on the quality of my wildflower photography. The purchase of a tripod (a Benbo Trekker) meant there was time to check that the photo was correctly framed & sharp, only pressing a cable release when the subject was still. Now there was time to think about the background & depth of field etc. before taking photos. At this point my photography greatly improved.

 

In 1989 I thought it would be good to expand my range of subjects from flowers to butterflies & I purchased a 100mm macro lens to be used with my cameras. Being rather reticent about this new venture it wasn’t until a day in July 1992 that I went to Ashtead Common in Surrey to use the macro lens together with a flash gun attached by a cable to the hot shoe of the camera. I was rather pleased with the results & in 1994 I won the first prize of £50 in a butterfly photography competition. In 1997 in Butterfly Conservation’s ‘Butterfly of the Year Competition’ my photograph of a High Brown Fritillary was acclaimed as best UK butterfly with an award of £100 presented at a National Members Day at Crewe.

 

Soon I turned my attention to other insects, especially dragonflies. I had photographed all British species of butterfly & wildlife holidays abroad to the Pyrenees, Turkey & Pindos Mountains added to my collection of wildlife photos.

 

By now I had 5 Contax SLR bodies (2 139s, a 167 & 2 Arias one of these being a 30 years’ service award being given by my employer).

 

In 1998 I was invited to display my photographs at the Butterfly Garden Festival, an event that was held at Juniper Hall, Surrey every two years & attended by 1000 - 1500 people. Every two years my photo exhibition got larger with eventually over 70 mounted photos - a mix of butterflies & moths & all other aspects of wildlife.

 

I was encouraged by other photographers to apply for an Associateship of the Royal Photographic Society (Nature Group). I attended a number of photographic workshops before making a portfolio of Butterflies, Dragonflies & Flowering Plants for my submission for an Associateship. My wife & I attended the daylong meeting where the portfolios were judged. I was pleased that my portfolio was one of 8 out of 19 that was successful.

 

Days off not spent with the family were given over to photographing flowers & insects. Often, I would take my bicycle on the train to Kent, Sussex, Hampshire & other counties to cycle 10 - 15 miles to a nature reserve for a day’s photography.

 

It was on one of these trips in May 2000 to Noar Hill Nature Reserve, near Selborne, Hampshire that I met a fellow photographer who lived in Guildford. We had by chance met several times before at various nature reserves & decided to start going on trips together. This was the start of a long friendship with what soon became trips on a weekly basis.

 

Later that year I went on a group holiday to Venezuela with seven other men, led by Andrew Neild who is writing the Butterflies of Venezuela. It was an 18 day trip with 7 internal flights within Venezuela. A super trip to a country with a wonderful butterfly fauna.

 

I retired in 2002 so with the freedom this gave me I was able to give more time to the wildlife photography on top of the time spent on trips with my Guildford friend. He very generously collected me from home & returned me there after these trips. We went as far as Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Lancashire & Devon to photograph particular species. This often required an early start before a long journey. We also had trips abroad to the Spanish Pyrenees (3 times), Bulgaria, Lesbos, Mallorca & the USA (2 times).

 

In 2003 I was commissioned to take photographs at a small zoo in Ealing & these photographs were used for information signs on the cages & enclosures. With the £950 paid for the commission I purchased a second hand f4 400mm lens. This telephoto lens opened a new world to subjects previously not considered. Now I was photographing all aspects of wildlife, birds, mammals, reptiles, fungi as well as insects & plants.

 

Most years I was entering photographs in the National competition ‘Butterfly Photographer of the Year’ & in 2003 I was delighted to be the overall winner of the competition with a photo of Dark Green Fritillary butterfly as well as being runner-up in 2 categories.

 

By now I was mainly taking my butterfly, dragonfly & other invertebrate photos using natural light & without flash, having my camera set up on the tripod. Although this made photography more difficult the quality of the images generally improved.

 

I was enjoying a fantastic hobby watching & photographing wildlife, giving Talks to wildlife groups, camera clubs & general interest groups. Sometimes my photos were used in books & at that time images on photographic film were still of better quality than those produced on digital cameras.

 

However soon digital cameras improved & most photographers moved away from the old technology. I was getting older, less mobile, with a few health issues. I only wanted to improve on the thousands of images I had taken & I seemed to be at a crossroads of what to do - either invest in the new technology or relax & enjoy watching wildlife. I decided on the latter & although sometimes I miss the challenges of wildlife photography, I believe I made the right decision. In 30 years, I think I took some good images & I am enjoying reminiscing while adding photos to Flickr.

 

In 2012 - 2013 I offered to be the Photo Editor of a book called “Butterflies of Surrey Revisited”. I would receive photographs offered by photographers emailed digitally plus a number of slide transparencies. I would then assemble the best 10 - 12 for each species or topic to be covered in the book. From these photos the book’s editor would make the final choices for inclusion in the book.

 

So here my involvement in photographing wildlife ended although I still enjoy looking at photos as well as watching wildlife.