Biography

I have always had a passionate interest in all aspects of the natural world, although, as you have probably guessed by looking through the photos on this website, I am ever so slightly biased towards birds!

My interest in photography started in the early 90's when I decided I would like to keep a pictorial record of all the rare birds I encountered on my travels around Britain. I still have the first photo I took: a pathetically tiny Red-breasted Goose among a huge flock of Barnacle Geese at Caerlaverock in October 1992 with my dad's old Practika MTL3 and cheap Russian-made 400mm lens on severely out-of-date film that I had found in a kitchen drawer...

Thankfully the quality of my photos improved quite rapidly from that rather inauspicious start, and have since had my work published in several hundred books and magazines from all 6 inhabited continents.

When not out taking photographs, I earn my living as a research scientist. Since obtaining a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wales in 1997, I have worked in various laboratories around the world mostly studying the molecular interactions between insect vectors and the parasites that cause tropical diseases such as malaria, African Sleeping Sickness and Leishmaniasis.  Currently, I am based at the University of Nottingham where I help to run the Next Generation Sequencing Facility.