Biography

Ivor is a professional photographer, OM System Ambassador, and senior writer for Fstoppers based in Northumberland in the UK.

Much of his work is training other photographers, and his clients range from absolute beginners to other professionals. He also mentors other professionals and helps them launch their careers.

Many of his clients go to him because he specialises in helping people to use photography as a tool to improve their mental health and assist them to cope with disabilities.

"Photography is an amazing tool for helping people recover and overcome stress, anxiety, and depression. It gets them outdoors, is a mindful activity as it focusses their thoughts on taking images, is creative, and helps them to socialise."

He also takes photos, of course. Professionally, he shoots events including occasional weddings, holiday cottages, and images for business websites, as well as some outdoor portraiture and pet photography. he does some video work too. On top of all that, he sells limited-edition prints of mainly seascapes and abstract images of birds.

Ivor is an early riser because he loves the early morning light, and there are few better places to capture that than on the sublime North East Coast of England with its smattering of offshore islands. He often arrives on location by cycle.

A long-time user of Olympus and now OM System Gear, Ivor cut his teeth on an Olympus OM-2n back in the 1980s. His digital photography adventures started with an Olympus bridge camera, then quickly progressed to an E-510 and then an E-5. After a series of Olympus mirrorless cameras, he now mainly shoots with an OM-1.

Through his training work, Ivor handles a huge variety of cameras from different brands from small, cheap compacts to top-of-the-range behemoths. Yet nothing he has worked with tempts him away from the OM System. The combination of the image quality, ergonomics, and especially technical capabilities of the cameras set them way ahead of the other cameras. Furthermore, they are robustly built, absolutely essential when clambering over rocks on the beach.