Welcome to my Galleries.

My main interests within these galleries are inspired by Nature, from Landscapes to Wildlife. In the case of wildlife, I have taken the view not to use flash. By not using flash I do not disturb or harm the wildlife. Though this can result in a loss of some images due to the greater difficulty resulting from less light, I feel this gives the image a fuller and softer natural rounded appearance.

My specialism is macro photography of the amazing and wonderful unseen world of the arthropods (insects and arachnids etc) all around us and of course flora. We are surrounded by many thousands of these arthropods daily, yet we rarely see them or appreciate their importance in the natural world.

Other interests include Man's Environment, from the countryside, towns and cites, down to buildings, especially those tempered by the passage of time. I also enjoy picking out natural abstracts and general pictorial images of interest.

I aspire to take images to the highest standards for your enjoyment and all purchases are processed by one of the worlds top photographic laboratories. I have a number of 'International Photographic Awards', these are a recent acquisition from entering top International Competitions from 2016 onward. As and when awarded, I will display them in the appropriate Awards Section, for your assurance of Quality.

Potted History

My name is Rod, commonly known as Rod Hill, although my full first name has a Scottish twang to it i.e. Roderick and may reflect the fact that my Grandmother was a Petrie, a sub-branch of the disbanded royal line of MacGregor.

I have one lovely Daughter and currently (2017) two wonderful Grandchildren. You can see my daughter, grandchildren and some other members of my family by clicking the link above, 'Family Images' please feel free to browse.

I am not a portrait photographer and none of my family are particularly interested or good at posing, so I usually have to steal my shots to get natural poses when they aren't looking.

You may or may not notice that these are natural shots taken without the use of 'Flash', and this is currently reflected in all of my photography. It is my preference not to use flash at all currently, and in doing so, I feel this reduces harm/impact on wildlife.

The way I started photography is rather unusual, in that I knew nothing about the practice/art of photography before taking it up as a hobby. Several years ago, I gave up smoking overnight using the ‘’Alan Carr’’ method (2nd hand book purchase, 'The Only Way to Give Up'), the best 50 pence I have ever spent and have not smoked since finishing the book. As a reward, I invested in a camera system from Samsung, the GX10 and some kit lenses and a Sigma 12-24 lens. Now that was quite an investment for someone who knew absolutely nothing about photography, in fact at the time I could not have told you the difference between a bus stop and an 'f-stop'. All I knew is that for some reason I wanted a camera to take up photography, go figure.

I am now very thankful that I listened to my inner intuition and perhaps this is also reflected by my photography which is also very intuitive, but tempered by and improved over the years, by practice, which is an ongoing practice for us all, regardless of ability.

Initially, like many others who enjoyed walking and the great outdoors, I wanted to take and record landscape images from my journeys. Over time my enjoyment of the natural world and the wonders of its inhabitants drew me ever closer to the art of Macro Photography.

Just recently i.e. late 2016,  I began entering online International Photography Competitions and have now achieved a number of International Photography Awards.  I will add or reveal these awards as I develop this new website.

I am also a Curator at the world famous ViewBug (VB) website which is an ideal site to showcase your images and try your hand at entering competitions. My avatar at VB is Badgrandad (click chain link below), a nickname that the grandchildren loved so it stuck. Here again, I have won a number of awards.

In addition to VB, I also have a 500px account and these are both excellent sites to display your images and get a feel for how they are regarded in the photographic community. Hence, these two sites are generally my first port of call for displaying my initial images and from there I re-edit my images to a higher standard if necessary for display here on my website.