I was born in Bridgend Wales, May 18th, 1939, and my father deserted my mother soon after I was born. My older brother and me were classified as orphans, and were kept in state homes until we were ten years old. We saw our mother at intermittent intervals during that time. After that period we both came home as my mother was in a stable relationship.

Life at home was far from normal and there were long periods of unhappiness. In fact, it was a very difficult domestic situation. We lived in government housing in Crawley, Sussex. It was here I developed my strong "cockney" accent, as Crawley was home to many "cockneys". When it came time for me to leave school at sixteen, my mother thought it would be a god idea for me to contribute to the household finances, so she found a job for me at Lloyd's Register of Shipping as an apprentice letterpress pressman. It was a six year apprenticeship, and I had to go to night school. My first pay check was One Pound seventeen and six.  I asked my mother how much she wanted, and she told me 1 pound 12 shillings. 

Then, when I was eighteen I purchased a 35mm camera. I thought I would use it to take picxtures of my European vacations.  I went to at least ten countries in Europe, and used to get so excited to see me images. There were other people at Lloyd's interested in photography, so I picked up quite a few pointers.

Me in 1979

I also saw different parts of the North American continent. In 1969 there was a strike for over eight months. So I hitchiked across Canada and back, it was quite an eye opener to say the least. I was on shift work in those early years. Also there was an extreme shortage of women in Sudbury at that time. So I started to get more interested in photography. In 1982 I joined the Camera Club in Sudbury. It was quite a shock as many of what I considered good images, were in fact considered very ordinary at the club. I had to virtually start over again, but there were good teachers at the club.

It was also at that time I sustained a very severe back injury at work, and went through a lot of pain. I decided to be very aggressive and positive in my approach to this problem. I set myself up a swimming regimen, and was eventually swimming three hours after work. Some weeks I would six hours a week, sometimes twelve hours. It was a long drawn out process, but after six years I was pain free. I also invented my own swimming stroke to develop myback muscles. It was a cross between a back stroke and a breast stroke. It worked for me, but I must say it looked odd, but it worked.

It was during this period of time, late seventies and early eighties that things were happening which would lead me to positive changes in my life. I got involved with a female who was an alcoholic, and it increased my drinking to the point where I had a serious problem.

I just had to quit or lose total control of my life. I got involved with some born again Christians, and things really began to turn around for the better. I decided to make big lifestyle changes. So then I decided that seeing I was a giving sort of person I would do some volunteer work. I had made a call one night to the distress centre previously when I was drunk. The counsellor encouraged me to change my lifestyle and come and work for Telecare. So when I quit drinking I became a crisis counsellor. I worked as a crisis counsellor for seventeen years, and was really enjoying the work. It fast tracked my personal growth, to a point where my self esteem was so high I never really felt depressed. I was convinced in my heart I spoke to an angel the night I called Telecare. I tried to trace the counsellor but failed in my efforts.

Other things started to change as well as my confidence and positive attitude. I started to paint and set myself goals. For the first time in my life I had periods of creative insanity. Some of the paintings I had done were simply outrageous. But it made me feel good doing them at the time. I suppose it was a way of expressing myself. I was pretty obsessed again with photography and my mission statement was "to get the best possible result of any given subject."

I knew if I was going to get anywhere I would have to work hard and be creative. In the winter months I would do table top photography in the basement. I would try to create "wallbangers", a term I use for high impact images. I would constantly brainstorm to get unique high impact images. I noiticed my marks were going up at the camera club as well. In 1981 I had a near death experience while swimming. I was being pushed under the water by a Dark Angel. I can e-mail anyone the story if they want.

In 1982 I met Toddy Cormack and after a short time got married, she had four kids. We ran into major problems again after four years. Soon a divorce followed unfortunately. In 1989 I met Lyla, my present life partner.

It was in 1992 that I learned about the friendly foxes at Killarney. I pursued this subject for four years until I had a whole portfolio, of different scenarios. The I sent in eighteen images to Photo Life, a national magazine. They decided to publish about ten months later. I was informed at the time. by them, that there would be no financial rewards at all if they just published images. I enquired what if I wrote a story to go with the images. I was informed that I would be paid $350 for an 1100 word story. I wrote about me experiences and it was published in July 1998.

I also atarted to enter national photography contests, and in no time I was picking up top ten finishes against Canada's best photographers. In 1994 I entered the Canada Camera slide competition, and come Best of Show in Wildlife and Best Habitiat. It was a really special moment for me in the company of Canada's best photographers to collect these awards. In the meantime I had given up painting. Now the photography had become an obsession and some great result were starting to appear regularly. Lyla and I would criss cross ocross Ontario at weekends for this express purpose. For example we went to the Canadian Water Skiing championships in Bala. We I got the weather forecast in advance because I wanted sunny conditions, so we camped. We went for the weekend, it was glorious weather. I didn't have a motor drive in those days.   I knew what image I wanted: a skier in the slalom event with lots of spray. With action shots I usually shoot wide open so I can get a high shutter speed. I took lots of film that weekend. It's not easy to produce high impact images.

It was in 1992 that I bought a house in Sudbury, it was an older type house, small, about 800 sq ft yet well made.

In 1996 I got published in Popular Photography with a shot of "Frost Feathers". To look throught the view finder and see a kaliedescope of colour of the frost feathers. These moments are very memorable indeed. I have really been blessed so much by the good Lord so much in so many ways. I wish to thank all people who have visited my web site. And especially the ones who have signed my guest book. I have met some very nice people on the internet, who h ave helped and supported me. But there are too many to mention, again thanks for your love and support.