I was never any good at school.
I’m not the academic type and my best subject was football.
I played centre half but peaked too early and lost my touch in my late teens.
I left education with poor grades and nothing but an interest in photography.
I started when I was 10 with a Kodak Instamatic.
I took it on my first solo trip abroad which was a school cruise to Morocco, Spain and Portugal.
When we got to Lisbon I remember walking the entire length of the Benefica football stadium just to get a composition of this image I had in my head.
When I got back my mum met me at the quayside and made me steak and chips for tea.
I got an album and stuck all my photos in it.
I guess that’s what I do today.
Travel, take photos and stick them in albums. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Photography is what defines me - it's what I do, what I am, where I've been and where I'm going.
It's my strength and my weakness, my memories, my everyday thought and my future.
Pure and simple - it's my life and I love it.
I've been lucky. I've achieved a level of success I could only have dreamed possible.
I've worked on global advertising campaigns and international publications such as Coca Cola, Speedo, Piz Buin, Elle, GQ, Men's Vogue and The Sunday Times.
Digital Photographer recently nominated me one of the top names in editorial and advertising photography and 2009 saw me honoured with inclusion in the prestigious Creative Review Annual.
I like living in New York – I like the mad crazy energy of that adrenaline fuelled city where there’s so much to see and shoot. I like the small cramped spaces and the wide open mindset of a big city mentality.
I like the 24 hour visual stimulation hit and I like the photography bookstores where I lose myself for hours and think back to my school years when I never wanted to learn anything.
I like in at my home in Lanzarote on the Canary Islands where I swim before breakfast, catch fish for supper and wait patiently for the magic hour before dusk when the play of backlight on water never fails to seduce me.
I like the stark natural beauty of a landscape stripped bare and exposed by a lack of rain and vegetation. I like the huge panoramic views of the sky - which are constantly changing and better than any TV station and I could sit happily for hours – just watching the light fade.
I like to shoot energy and movement and I’m inspired by graphics, light, location and high colour. I like to shoot in a cinematic way and I want my images to have a mood and a feeling if not a story to tell.
Photography is the only thing I’m any good at and it’s instinctive in me. I’m always searching to improve because photography fascinates, inspires and motivates me and I’m still as enthusiastic about it as the day I first started.