Ady Kerry QEP, ABIPP.

My earliest memories of photography are shooting butterflies in meadows aged around 10 or 11.  My father is a keen naturalist which clearly had an influence on the subject matter.   My first camera was a Zenit B which cost £15 from a camera shop in Beeston, Nottinghamshire which has probably long since gone. At the height of the Cold War, it was one piece of Russian engineering that certainly stood up to the rigours of being manhandled by a 10 year old.  This enabled me to learn the basics of photography: exposure, film processing and printing the resulant images, providing a sound grounding in genuine image-making – something, sometimes lacking, in the latest generation of photographers brought up on automation and computer software.

Beautifully engineered if slightly “ clunky”, the Zenit was to serve my early apprenticeship well, and five years of shooting colour slides followed. At that time M42 screw thread lenses were easily available and compatible with many different camera systems. That flexibility encouraged me to graduate up to a Practica MTL3 which was slightly more sophisticated than the Zenit, offering a few more shutter speeds and greater flexibility in my image making. My old lenses still worked and I invested in more, which would become a theme throughout my professional career!  Still under working age, it was a great saving to not to have to swap a whole camera system. Tamron, with their interchangeable lens mounts would reap further benefit as in my mid-teens I changed camera system again this time to an Olympus OM20. Small, light and a stunning design with amazing own brand optics, while I still retained some of the Tamron lenses by just changing the interchangeable lens mount.

In 1979 we moved house to Lincoln. I found my bedroom over-looking the flight-path and circuit of RAF Waddington, whose four squadrons of Vulcan bombers would forge a deeper interest in aviation. My peer-group influence turned me into a military aircraft spotter and eventually, and aviation photographer.

This new direction required specialist equipment, longer lenses were essential and along with the addition of a bicycle, I was able to get to the airfield after school and during the holidays. Having shot mainly colour transparencies, I changed to using print film as costs were lower and the volume of the work I produced was increasing. I was also becoming slightly more critical of my work and didn’t always want to print everything I took, so process only and printing of selected images became my modus operandi. 

The natural route was to join the Royal Air Force as a photographer. At 18, I visited the careers office, did the aptitude tests, swore allegiance to the Monarch and joined the RAF in June 1986.

I didn’t quite sign up to some of the military’s ideas for pictures, and wanted to do things my way, an independence of thought and image production which has remained with me even to this day.  On completion of the Photo(G) course I was posted to a lithographic printing section at RAF High Wycombe, an ignominious end perhaps to a promising career? Was printing flight safety posters and servicing manuals really what I joined up for? No shiny fast jets to photograph! Help!

There was the occasional photographic sorties which helped keep the fires burning. I made the most of the fleeting opportunities, but I managed to take some iconic pictures including a parachute drop from a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft over Thetford Ranges, which still stands the test of time. 

In March 1989 I received what I thought was more bad news; I was to be posted to Templer Barracks, Ashford, Kent as unit photographer with the Army in October 1989. 

It was to be the making of me both as a photographer and as a person. I learnt many things the RAF would never teach me, or not until much later in my career; use of really long lenses, instructional skills, man-management and how to run a photographic section.  The section produced over 100,000 slides a year as training aids for courses run at the Defence Intelligence and Security School, all hand-processed on a Jobo rotary drum film processor.  Responsibility for the section’s diary, job allocation and stock control helped in my time management skills for my own business in the years that followed.  The teaching has come in handy, as I run workshops, talk to photographic students at colleges and universities, while also lecturing and judging photo competitions for camera clubs around the UK.

Black-and-white skills dominated my work in the military throughtout training and for the first few years service. Later, in 1992, the section would convert to a full colour printing and process mini-lab set up. The monochrome influence is still strong today and I like the freedom to use tints and toning techniques along with film and developer combinations to enhance the quality of my work. Much of my personal work was influenced by Bob Carlos Clarke, who at the time worked closely with Agfa, producing stunning work on fibre based papers.  He was probably the major influence on my work and still is today; a slightly odd role model for an editorial photographer? When creative inertia strikes, I turn to his books for inspiration.

In 1995 it was time to go it alone; my success would now depend on the quality of work I took on a daily basis, the security of the military environment was gone; it was live or die by my own results in a competitive market place as a freelance photographer.

The ensuing 25 years working as a freelance photographer have been very varied.  My client list continually evolves and I have been in a very fortunate position to have travelled to parts of the world I may never have had the opportunity to go if I hadn’t been a photographer.  I have covered the Olympic Games, international hockey for GB / England Hockey as their National Governing Body Photographer. I have worked for many other national and world governing bodies, international news and sports agencies, national and regional newspapers, as well as a wide range of corporate business clients. I am currently England Lacrosse’s NGB photographer.

As 2023 drew to a close I started a new position at De Montfort University in Leicester as Technical Instructor - Photography to their BA Photography and Fashion Communications and Styling courses. Maybe the influence of Bob Carlos Clarke has finally brought me home?

Some of the resulting imagery across my commissioned and personal work is displayed on these pages, I very much hope you find something there you like and I am available for commissions; film or digital, in the UK or abroad. Just drop me a line and we can create the imagery you are looking for!

As the photography marketplace changes in the post Covid environment, I have sought other opportunities away from photography, to offer some variety to the day and also some welcome change of perspectives. That has resuled in me qualifying as an Open Water Swimming Coach and also as Open Water Lifeguard. I work on a part-timer basis at a lake near Melton Mowbray providing support, advice and safety cover for swimmers when my diary permits.

07973 286863
adykerry.akpictures@gmail.com