When Tom at the Hunting Ground asked me to write an article for his website, my initial reaction was "what do I write about" and as I am writing, I feel no further forward. Passion is a word that always bubbles to the top of my mind when I have these lacklustre moments. I am certainly passionate about what I do, which is taking photographs of hunting, shooting, fishing and most things rural.

It took me a few onerous years to realise this, whilst working as a poorly paid rep in the agricultural industry, trying to make a bit on the side by taking photos of agriculture and selling them to companies to use in their corporate literature. After five years on the road, I had built up an image library of a couple of thousand images and decided to take the plunge and go it alone as a photographer.

I moved to Tetbury, wrote a letter to HRH Prince Charles at Highgrove, with a picture enclosed of a dairy cow looking straight down a very wide angle camera lens. It was pure fluke that at that time they were looking for a farm-friendly photographer to do some work at Duchy Home Farm, and a week or so later I found myself the Prince mowing a wild flower meadow with a pony drawn mower. To whichever kind soul that enabled this opportunity I will be eternally grateful.

At that time I was involved with a racing magazine called Racing Review, for a period of two years, travelling all over the place photographing the behind the scenes stuff and also attending some of the highlights in the racing calendar, both flat and over sticks. My most poignant memory of racing was being sent to Florida for 2 weeks to cover the Breeders Cup at Gulfstream, the year Dettori won the Breeders Cup Turf on Daylami.

However my true passions lie more generally with Shooting, Fishing and Hunting, all things that I was involved with from an early age and therefore it was another great opportunity to get my first job from The Field magazine some 10 years ago. One of my ambitions as a young snapper was to have a cover on this institution of a magazine. Needless to say I have over a hundred to my name now on The Field along with others on Horse and Hound and Country Life.

However I suppose you're wondering by now what is the point of all this and what you really want to know is what makes a good photograph and hence a good photographer. Well as I mentioned you need to be passionate about the subject you photograph first and foremost and be able to get on with it, secondly you need to have some comprehension of how to hold a camera and take a photograph.

Most modern cameras can be set to program making exposure and shutter speed decisions slide into insignificance. For this article I would like to keep it like that as I don't think Tom has enough space or myself the time. From my own personal perspective I never use the camera on program and always remain a purist. I do shoot everything RAW however as this does give you the opportunity to go back in after you have taken a photograph and change the exposure (we all make mistakes sometimes).

Thirdly you need to know a little about composition and for this Google the Rule of Thirds, Wikipedia gives a pretty good description.

Finally you need to take lots of photographs and be highly self critical in your editing. I never delete anything on the back of the camera. I always save everything and then edit on the computer where you can see the bigger picture - you are guaranteed to throw away a gem if you do it on the tiny screen on the back of the camera.

One other useful thought that has just sprung to mind is about portraiture, again which I love doing and goes back to my first point. You will always put someone at ease if you strike the passion chord. I remember having to make a portrait of Lord Romsey at Broadlands for use by the CLA Game Fair some years ago. I was as nervous as hell and so was he and both of us getting nowhere very fast until one of his muddy little Norfolk Terriers appeared. I asked "would you mind picking it up your Grace" he obliged, smiled with his eyes and we got the shot.