I was born and brought up in Stornoway, in the Western Isles of Scotland, but for the past forty years have lived in the south-east of Scotland, in the Border country. After military service in the RAF, I studied Textile Design, worked in the textile industry for ten years, and then took a lecturing post at the Scottish College of Textiles, retiring from that ten years ago.
My interest in photography started in my mid-teens, initially working in black and white, then moving to colour slides, and then, with the arrival of our first child, to film-making . One of my early films, shot in the fifties on a beach in the Western Isles, was selected for the "Top 8" of its year, and another film won an annual Scottish trophy and was shown in a Glasgow cinema. In the 60's, I gained my Associate of Institute of Incorporated Photographers for portrait and theatre photography, followed by Associate of Royal Photographic Society for 'pictorial' work, and followed by the Fellowship of the RPS for Audio-Visual presentations. For a few years I was a sponsored lecturer on behalf of the Scottish Arts Council.
My interest in mountains started when I was 20 by bagging a few fells in the Lake District, then some Munros in Scotland, and a dozen or so peaks in the Alps. Today, in my mid-seventies, I confine myself to the lower summits, and greatly enjoy any occasion on which I can trek with my camera into the high hills.
