Growing up in Yorkshire, I first began taking photographs of the surrounding countryside aged about 12. Photography remained my first love throughout a degree in philosophy at Bristol University,sustaining my creative urges as I developed collages from the photos I took. In 1994, four years after leaving university, I began to create paintings from my photographs, developing this to the point where I now photograph the scenes first, then paint an entirely fresh image, drawing on both the photograph and my impressions of the view itself. My aim is to capture the emotion and mood of a scene and share it with onlookers.