Where are you from?
I'm from Luton, England, which is a pretty flat, barren place. I went to university in South Wales, which is hilly, so better than Luton, and where I started mountain biking in 1985. I split my time between bases in the UK and the Alps, but I'm usually on the road for four to five months a year.

What was your profession before you became a photographer?
I've had many different jobs, but I've been a professional photographer for 24 years. I have a degree in marine biology and worked for years in river pollution control. Then I quit my job to ride my bike through Argentina and Chile for ten months in 1996, on a Kona Cindercone - back then they still called bikepacking a bicycle tour. I published a few reports from this trip in magazines. When I decided to become a full-time professional photographer, I was working for the UK distributor of GT Bikes in 1997. I went to the Alps for a winter to shoot snowboarding and spread my photography.

What was in the first picture of you that was published?
I shot a story in 1992 about the Transalp bike race, a 5-day race in the Italian Alps. Four of us mates rode from the UK to Italy, all squeezed into an old car, to take part in the XC race, and I wrote a story about it for a British magazine. We were all on hardtails with 35mm travel elastomer suspension forks, the photos were pretty basic and the race was harder than we'd imagined. But it was a lot of fun, and it made me want to work more with mountain bike magazines.

And what was in the first picture you got paid for?
It would have been a photo in the story above, but as a standalone photo it was probably a snowboard photo from 1997 that Billabong bought for an ad. I was so excited to have a photo to sell.

Is there one image or photo story that has launched a career?
For mountain bike photography, it was probably a "selfie" I took in 2003. I was out alone in Chamonix in the fall and had a small camera with a 35 mm black and white film with me. The path led through the clouds of a temperature inversion. The light was incredible, so I placed the camera on a rock, pressed the 10-second self-timer and rode into the sun's rays. I only took one shot and then rode on for two hours. After I got home, I set up my darkroom in my bathroom, developed and printed the image that same day. At the time, I was photographing snowboarding full-time and kept mountain biking as an escape from photography. I actually only published pictures in "Bikemag" in the USA. I sent them this photo and it won the photo of the year award. That got me thinking that I should take my mountain bike photography more seriously, so I started to step it up.

Why did you stick with mountain bike photography?
I photographed both for years, and snow actually followed mountain biking, but now I've left snow sports behind because it was just too dangerous for me. My passion was for the big mountain backcountry, which involves a certain amount of risk. I've filmed so many trips and expeditions - to Greenland, Russia, Patagonia and for four years as part of Jeremy Jones' projects "Deeper" and "Further" in places like Alaska and Svalbard. But I got to a point in my head where I became too insecure before a trip. When I was on the mountain I was fine, but when I left my house I wondered if I would come back, and that's not a good state to be in. So I stopped photographing snow sports altogether. Now I photograph mountain bike tours in dangerous sounding places like Afghanistan, North Korea and Iraq. So my decision sounds strange, but the difference is that on a bike you are in "control", whereas with snow photography in the mountains there are too many natural factors that determine your fate.

Who taught you how to take good photos?
I took a six-week evening course in darkroom printing techniques in the 1990s, but as far as photography goes, I'm self-taught - but I wish I'd gone to school for it. In the era of 35-millimeter film, learning was slow and expensive: 36 slide film images cost about 15 euros. There's so much you can learn from others about finding and exploring your own style, but I also believe that you either have an eye for the artistic side of photography or you don't. Anyone can learn the technical side of the camera, especially now with digital, but developing your own style is the harder part.

Whose pictures do you like to look at?
I'm a big fan of street photographers like Martin Parr, who capture the comedy and irony of everyday life.

What other skills did you have to develop to become a photographer who makes a living photographing what he likes?
Patience. The ability to live cheaply. Patience. Diplomacy. Articulation and communication. The willingness to overcome one's own ego. The ability to listen. Business acumen. Calculation. The ability to see, not just look. Oh, and even more patience.

What compromises do you have to make?
The biggest compromise in my life, at least for me, is flying so much at a time when we have to cut back. I normally do three long-haul flights a year, which is not a lot compared to a professional racing driver or a marketer, but it's still a lot and I'm uncomfortable with it. But I still see tremendous value in traveling, especially because it gives me the opportunity to learn about other cultures and help reduce the xenophobia that is rampant in society. I also do a lot to reduce my environmental impact - for example, I've been vegan for more than 20 years, I have an electric car for local trips, and for the last two years I've traveled exclusively by train instead of plane within Europe, including between the Alps and the UK.

How do you choose your travel destinations?
I usually see a photo of impressive mountains or a track or something else that's interesting - even an impressive tree can get my photography hormones flowing - so I google the location to see if I can find any tracks there. Then begins the tedious process of figuring out if these trails are a complete nightmare or if they're good for mountain biking and offer a new, interesting story to photograph. Sometimes, as with the Lebanon trip, it can take two years to work out the final plan, from the initial idea to getting there. I constantly have a list of places and ideas in the back of my mind, waiting for the right time to be tried out.

Are the places that interest you the most also the places your clients are interested in?
Not always. My own curiosity is not always the same as that of magazine editors, whose agenda is often driven by publishers and advertising politics. Of course, magazines want original, interesting and fresh stories, and that's what I deliver. Partly because I like to experience new places and learn from them, and partly because I know it will sell. Fortunately, adventure reportage is very fashionable at the moment, but that wasn't always the case. There was a time when magazines only wanted stories from the "hometurf", your own country, but even then you can find a new angle for a story - it doesn't always have to be remote and exotic to offer a real adventure.

What does it mean to you to be the first to come back with mountain bike images from certain areas? How much of a selling point is that?
A pioneering story is a strong selling point, but sales still depend on magazine interest. I haven't managed to get some magazines to take a pioneer story from a remote part of Chile because they've already run a story from Ecuador - that's 7000 kilometers away but on the same continent and it was already too close! The hard part is getting the editors to look beyond the place name and see exactly the story I want to sell.

How much of the story you come back with do you have set in advance? How much of it develops during the trip?
We are not making Hollywood movies. Although I do research before the trip and present a story idea to get assignments from magazines, a lot can change on location. Many of the tours I explore have never been mountain biked before, so there are so many unknowns. It could be the weather, a single life-changing moment or a person we meet who becomes the center of the story.

You are known for traveling to places that are considered dangerous, where there are armed groups, polar bears or an unpredictable government. Why do you choose these places?
The obvious answer would be: Because no one else does. But the reality is that I know that the story told in these places is not what people expect to hear. I like to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions. It's true that few, if any, other mountain bike photographers ride to places like this, so at least I have a unique selling point, but I also feel the need to see these places for myself rather than just believe what the media tells us. It's always been like that. I traveled to Latin America in 1989 to see the political struggles there. If I thought such trips were really dangerous, I wouldn't do them - I'm not a war photographer. Conflict zones are usually localized, and if you inform yourself properly, the risk is low. As a rule, you discover really peaceful places and people who are just as human as we are on such trips: People who have never wanted a war.

Where did you have the biggest problems and what happened there?
The trip to the island of Navarino gave us a reality check when we lost one of our employees in a snowstorm at the top of a mountain. The day turned into a 14-hour slog in bad weather in an area with no cell phone reception and no way to get help. We knew that if something went wrong, the consequences could be really bad. Then we lost a man who was already struggling to ride and we couldn't find him again. We were forced to continue without him and try to get help. We finished the tour in the dark, and as we were unable to organize a helicopter search, we had a sleepless night. The next morning our friend stumbled into our camp. He was hypothermic and had abandoned his bike as he was faster on foot in the dense forest. It was an educational experience, and I realized that we often get too complacent.

When do you come home with a good feeling, what makes a trip a failure?
Travel is never a failure - it's a learning experience, no matter what. Of course, sometimes things can go wrong, the weather or a bad trail can make it much more difficult, but I never consider them failures. When a trail turns out to be truly unusable, it's hard to stay positive the whole time, but that's the price you pay for seeking out the less trodden paths.What do you struggle with most as a photographer?
The "imposter syndrome" (impostor syndrome). With so many photos being taken every second these days, it's too easy to constantly compare yourself to other people's work as if it's a competition, and that can often have a negative effect on the psyche. This is why I hate Instagram (even though I'm supposed to be on there) and its toxic system of likes and how much emphasis is placed on how many followers you have, even though we all know that's not a true measure of artistic ability. This kind of pressure forces you to compromise on the way you photograph just to fit the latest trend; instead of having the confidence to just go out and photograph how you want and tell the stories you want to tell in your own style. There are an insane amount of copycat photographers and many more who just buy followers. Why is social media considered so important? I think it's much more important to develop and photograph your own style.

If you only had a camera with a small sensor or a cell phone, how much of your photographic style would still be possible?
There would certainly still be something, because I use a lot of wide-angle and telephoto lenses.

What makes mountain bike photography different from all other types of photography?
I'm not sure it is. I think it has the same energy and soul as many other sports, such as skateboarding or surfing, and it uses the same photographic laws to maximize the impact of an image. Be it through the use of light or composition. A lot of my pictures are just big landscape shots with riders in them. Ok, they're riders looking good on their bikes!

Where do you travel when you don't have a story to sell?
When it's not for work, I always like to go on adventures for fun. It's nice to put the camera away for a while, and sometimes I go away without it. I seem to enjoy week-long sea kayaking trips around islands where I bivouac on beaches.

What do you do when you get home from a trip?
I drink a cup of tea, make myself comfortable on the sofa and watch something that doesn't make me think. The next day I save the photos and go through them, which is a pretty satisfying session on the computer. Then I set up my bike again. I'm usually too tired to ride, though. I usually unpack my bags after about five days, which is about the time I need to start packing for the next trip.