Photography
Very few people start something knowing completely where it will end up, such is the variety of life and our enjoyment of it. However, if you had told me when I first took up architectural photography that I would end up being appointed to the Royal household I would have thought you were mad. At the time I wasn’t even aware that the Queen retained her own team of architectural photography specialists, but indeed she did, and it was this team that I would eventually lead following my appointment in 1987.
I started my career straight out of university, where I had studied architectural photography, getting a job at the Lambeth Times, covering new local building projects. Eventually I moved up to editor of the entire architectural photography division, which is what I was doing when I was approached by the RAF to instruct at their new photo-reconnaissance training college at Cowdenbeath.
Following the outbreak of the Falkland’s War in 1984, I was temporarily drafted in as a civilian advisor to their photo-intelligence division, which is where I met Prince Charles, on temporary secondment from the household cavalry.
He was so impressed with my knowledge and experience of architectural photography that some years later I was commissioned by his estate to photograph some of his private lodgings. The resulting album was held in such high regard that following the dismissal of the previous household photographer for pilfering the family silver, my name was passed to her royal highness and the rest, as they say, is history.