I am originally from Yorkshire and moved down to Christchurch in Dorset over 20 years ago after many years working at British Steel.
I have always been interested in photography and my first SLR was a Fujica ST605. After many more film cameras I moved to digital in 2005.
I have realised that to get good pictures, planning is essential. You can get lucky with the light but planning always gets better results in the end. I plan my shoots, but as the weather does not always play ball I try to have a back up plan. I love walking and the Jurassic coast and the New Forest are right on my doorstep. This gives me plenty of photo opportunities without going too far.
I started to take photography much more seriously with the coming of digital. I originally did all my processing in Photoshop and have learnt a lot over the years. Since 2011 I have used Lightroom, and now seldom go into Photoshop, preferring to keep my pictures more as seen.
I did a part time college course on photography for three years. I have also learnt a lot through magazines and websites, though I have learnt most through spending hours out with my camera and I find I need to do less in Photoshop.
In 2015 and 2017 I had images commended in Landscape Photographer Of The Year
The best equipment will not make you a better photographer, but it certainly helps. I want my pictures to be as good as possible and so I use a full frame camera from Nikon.

Equipement
Currently I use:
Camera - Nikon z7
Lenses - Nikon z14-30 f4
Nikon z 24-70 f4
Nikon z 50mm f1.8
Nikon z 24-200 f4-6.3
Camera Nikon z50
Lenses Nikon 16-50mm
Nikon 50-250mm
Nikon SB700 Flash
Mindshift first light 30 camera bag.
Tripod Novo T20 Novo CBH 46 Head
Tripod Novo T5 Novo CBH 34 Head
The excellent Kase Filter System
To keep my feet dry and warm Muck Boots a real essential
For processing, I use a 27inch iMac pro with Lightroom and Photoshop for editing.