I shoot almost exclusively on adapted vintage film camera lenses - Helios, Takumar, even projector lenses, mounted on modern digital cameras. It's an unconventional approach that produces images which I feel add a distinctive character. Softer rendering, gentle swirl, painterly bokeh. Combined with Dartmoor's inherently moody atmosphere, it produces photographs that people often describe as feeling handmade rather than manufactured.

I'm not about chasing technical perfection. I'm looking to capture the feeling of actually being on the moor. It might sound a little romantic and fanciful, but the smell of rain on peat, the sudden break of light through cloud, the quiet weirdness of an abandoned ruin appearing through the mist.

If my images make you want to pull your boots on and explore, then I've done my job.

Publications, Collaborations & Community

Every so often someone asks where my photographs have actually ended up, and I do that very British thing of mumbling something and changing the subject. So, for once, here's the honest answer.

The work I'm proudest of is the people. I never set out to be a portrait photographer, however Dartmoor attracts wonderfully interesting people, and I kept wanting to point my camera at them. Over the years that's included the poet Susan Taylor, writer Simon Williams, conservationist Adrian Colston, storyteller The Travelling Talesman, author and witch Rebecca Beattie, archaeologist Alan Endacott, among many others.

Author and Tor Bagger Max Piper wrote a generous account of a day we spent shooting in the West Okement Valley, and lists me on his resources page in some properly good company. I’m proud to call Max a friend and we’ve been on several adventures together.

I've worked closely with the Dartmoor Preservation Association: my portrait of their Communications Lead, Helen Bruce, has appeared in several Moorlander articles, and I supplied the images for their Gudula's Gathering announcement, a community ritual closing the Dartmoor Tors Festival. I also collaborate regularly with other Dartmoor guides and creatives; historian and guide Paul Rendell and the team at Moorland Guides among them; to offer walks that combine photography with a deeper knowledge of the moor's history, folklore, and landscape.

Once an image leaves my hard drive it tends to live its own life — turning up in print magazines no search engine will find, on book jackets and festival programmes I never hear about. This list is nowhere near complete. But it's a start. I also run an infrequent Facebook photography meetup group and host occasional group walks open to all abilities and camera types, from smartphones to full professional kits.