I’ve always thought of my work as more the product of a skilled craft than an art. Though I still try to push the boundaries of what I do from time to time I’ve been photographing nature for so long that I lose myself in the process of composing and capturing fleeting moments of time in the wilderness. My aim - however futile - is to avoid injecting my inner state into the images I take, as many artists strive to do. I try to select viewpoints which are aesthetic and compelling to the eye, ideally during moments of fleeting light and composition.

The overarching theme of most of my work however is remoteness. The popular and easy to reach vantage points do not hold much appeal for me. I spend lots of time scouring maps and aerial photographs, looking for locations few people are likely to have visited, let alone photographed, whether they be remote mountain summits, vantage points over deep valleys and mountain lakes/lochs or in more exotic settings such as deserts or tropical rainforests. As a result of this approach many of my images involve significant investments in time and effort and I’ve spent hundreds of nights alone in the wilderness in search of original views.

More sporadically I try to capture the miniature world of invertebrates using macro-photography, and underwater images, though these are skills that are very much in development, and the results will begin appearing on this website as I feel more confident in time.

On a technical note - I never use filters or manipulate scenes, though I do use minimal digital techniques to enhance areas of the frame or improve detail in highlighted/shadowed areas. It’s critically important to my work ethic to present the scene and the light as broadly as nature presented it.

I’ve been exploring wild places since I was a child growing up in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland. For almost as long as I’ve been looking over the top of hills, inside caves and crevices, and climbing to the treetops, I’ve been dragging a camera with me in order to try and capture and share the wonder I’ve felt when I found what was on the other side.

I began taking photography seriously and as more than a hobby in 1997, when I was nineteen, during a particularly difficult period of life when I was experiencing unexplained levels of fatigue. Slowly developing my photography passion at that time was a valuable way to focus and be mindful of the things around me which were inspiring, rather than my predicament at the time.

From 2000 to 2004 I studied for an undergraduate degree in documentary photography at the University of Wales, Newport, UK. Following the degree I spent a full calendar year traveling, and over subsequent years I undertook many other international trips as I honed both my travel and nature photography skills but also my filmmaking abilities. In 2008 I completed a two-month course in documentary filmmaking at Ealing Studios in north London, and my films have featured on National Geographic Television and I have produced several promotional videos for clients focusing on science and wildlife. My photography has been published and exhibited globally by many of the worlds most recognised publishers.

Between 2010 and 2022 my career goals went off on a tangent as I returned to studying as a mature student, completing in a second undergraduate degree in Conservation Biology and Ecology in 2014, and culminating in a PhD award in evolutionary biology in 2023. During most of that time I was also regularly lecturing in both photography and biosciences on Falmouth University’s ‘Marine and Natural History Photography’ undergraduate degree programme as an associate lecturer.

Today I’m a passionate advocate for evidence-based environmental policy - particularly with regards rewilding in the Scottish Highlands where I now live, but also globally. My enthusiasm for exploring and appreciating wilderness is undiminished wherever I find myself. In 2021 my wife and I made the pivotal move to the northwest Highlands of Scotland, an area which has been special to us for over 20-years since we first visited together. My latest challenge is as a father, and I endeavour to pass on a sense of stewardship of nature to my son as a core principle going into the future of this planet. Photography and filmmaking remain central to my own explorations, and since 2022 I have been documenting most of the more major wilderness journeys at home and abroad via my youtube channel.