Clique

“My journey into photography began back in the 80’s. I picked up and old Russian Zenith SLR camera that my brother’s ex-girlfriend left him and out of curiosity, shot a couple of rolls of film. Bang! I was hooked. It became my absolute obsession – I had finally found my calling! I set up a darkroom in the loft and began shooting rolls and rolls of black and white film. I completely immersed myself in photography and slowly started to believe that I could actually make a living out of this. I left my relatively secure job in the Motor Trade and against all sound advice, recklessly decided to become a Milkman in Putney, South West London. I did say I was obsessed. The theory being that this job would pay the mortgage but more importantly, free up time to learn my craft. I was back home some mornings by 10.00am! I was now shooting weddings, Pets, Portraits, Kids, Football and anything that gave me experience…and money! By the mid 80’s I became a first-time father and had to return to a more stable and better paid job, so with my old motor trade connections, managed to blag a job selling BMW cars. It was there I met an amazing guy who introduced me into the world of Design. He ran a successful design consultancy and I asked him if he could connect me with any photographers. The conversation ultimately led me to work for him as an account manager which was my entry into the creative world and a step closer to my dream. The design business was good to me and to cut a long story short, led me into senior director level positions to finally running my own design consultancy in Richmond with my now wife, Alex. Tragically, the events September 11 happened and our biggest client pulled all the work which led to the collapse of my business. After re-marrying and by now, a father to 4 boys and 1 stepdaughter, I had a lot of mouths to feed!