I retired from full-time employment in 2005 with a commitment to improve my photographic skills by obtaining a photographic distinction from the Royal Photographic Society. I qualified as a Licentiate of the Society in November 2006 with a set of ten landscape and wildlife photographs. In September 2007, following submission of a set of wildlife images to the RPS Nature Panel, I was successful in becoming an Associate of the Society and I was elected to a Fellowship of the Society in November 2009. My FRPS submission comprised twenty pictures of British birds displaying behaviours typical of their species, photographed within natural habitats. I was honoured to become a member of the Zoological Photographic Club in 2010.