My love of landscape was cemented at age 14 when my parents risked letting me go on an unaccompanied hill walking  trip with  friends. The sense of freedom was tempered with the knowledge we were small beings in an immense landscape. I felt an exhilaration which has stayed with me ever since. This love affair steered me to read Geography at University and become a teacher in beautiful Devon. Meanwhile hill walking had given way to a 15 year obsession with extreme rock climbing. I first became literate with a camera whilst trying to capture our daring exploits.

In late 1988 I bought my first serious SLR camera and soon had  a black and white photography darkroom set up in my bedroom. I began to see the world with fresh eyes, and realised rock climbing was not the only way to intensely experience life and nature.  In the next year I took every opportunity travel to Britain's wild places to build a portfolio of UK landscape photography. Unfortunately my first faltering steps in this new adventure were to be hobbled by illness. I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (M.E.) after a severe bout of flu at the end of 1989. For the last 15 years my muscle stamina has been so low that I have been unable to walk more than 20 yards -- not an ideal scenario for a landscape photographer!

Despite this I have continued my quest with help from family and friends, who drive me, carry heavy equipment and push me in a wheelchair. I have also branched out into pictures of people. My candid street photography often makes good use of the low viewpoint offered by the wheelchair. The darkroom was proving very tiring for me so it was a natural step to take advantage of computers. By 2002 the scanning and printing equipment had evolved enough to compete with traditional darkroom printing. The film negative is the starting point for all my images. It is still ahead of digital cameras in terms of resolution and dynamic range. There is no contest when medium format film images are compared to those from digital cameras.

Pete Saunders 2006

Fairly momentous news! Following a course of  The Lightning Process in October 2007 my physical ME symptoms have dramatically improved. I cannot recommend this course enough. 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following people for their help and encouragement in making these images and  website:  Linda Maben, Lee Maben, Bob and Irene Saunders, Margaret Gladwin, Nick Hancock, Judy Baxter, Sandra and Dan Smith, Tony Aspinall,  RJ Lam, Jin Ong, Walt Odets.

   © 2006 PR Saunders All Images
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