Doing the things you know ... People say you should "do the things you know" ... well yeah, that may be true to some degree, but if we don't have a go at the things we don't know, then we'll never really develop very much or go anywhere new, will we? I think this line of thinking is partly responsible for how I got to where I am today ... following my dreams, living with my amazing family in south west Portugal and building up a photography business after choosing to leave very successful but somewhat un-fulfilling careers in other industries. More than 20 years ago though I knew nothing of photography when I started my working life as an accountant. Why an accountant? I am not totally sure. It is not really something I ever aspired to be, I did not stick with it, and it couldn't possibly be a greater contrast to what makes me "tick" ... ie. pushing boundaries, excitement, thrills and seeming to need pressure to bring out my best. My decision was heavily influenced though by the UK recession around the time of me leaving college. It had the domino effect of companies going under and taking other companies out. My parents unfortunately had one such company, and rather than increase the pressure on them by pushing to go to university, I opted instead to find a job and start paying my way a bit more. Accountancy, maths and business studies at school and college came quite easily to me, so on taking the advice of others, and as I said not really wanting to put further strain on my parents, I decided to go for a career that I already knew something about and would probably always be in needed and quite a safe bet for the future - bean counting, or accountancy as its more commonly known. It has to be said, it was not themost exciting nor creative of lives, and I knew this straight away which I guess is what led to me quickly being persuaded by a friend to overcome my quite serious fear of heights and have a go at rock climbing. I think it was a yin yang thing combined with my personality ... the work was quite dull and uneventful, so I needed something to wake me up when I got out of the office each night and to help keep me feeling alive - there's nothing like hanging by your fingers 400 metre above the ground on overhanging rock face in the south of France to make you feel a tad more alert. I suddenly found myself in some of the most beautiful places on earth, and was seeing them from perspectives that not many other people had seen, but the little "Konica Pop" camera which I carried with me did nothing to do these amazingly beautiful and awe inspiring places justice. I quickly realised I needed something more capable, something that would help me capture some of the essence of the moment and enable me to really take some of those amazing scenes back home with me ... of course I also loved using the photographs to scare my mum with! I knew nothing then of apertures, shutter speeds, composition nor exposures, all I new was, I wanted to to better capture the scenes I was seeing. With that burning desire plus my first pay checks burning a hole in my pocket, my dad and I went off to Manchester to buy my first SLR camera. I was further inspired by one of Chris Bonnington's statements that went along the lines of, to be a great [mountaineering] photographer, the first thing you have to learn is to take your camera everywhere with you and make sure you take the time to stop and use it. Pretty sound advice I thought. After that, dragging a seemingly big SLR around on my rock climbing harness in its big padded case ("the boxing glove") was not the easiest of things to do, but my desire to capture the very essence of the moment had already got a hold of me. Many of the things I knew well then, I no longer do now, but what I didn't know is that my interest in photography would still be as strong now as it was then, and that it would all still be as exciting today as it was that day 20 years ago when I came home from the shop with my first "real" camera (which is still with me today and pictured here). | 
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