As the saying goes, every picture tells a story. We asked photographer Tim Beavis to showcase some of his stunning shots and give us an insight into how photography became more than just a passing interest…

‘I originally got into photography as a hobby after working for a year as a Product & Dispatch Specialist at SO Cameras whilst living in Brighton during my first year of uni. I had no previous experience in using a DSLR for photography but I was taught the basics and understood the functionality for that job role. During spring 2016 I would often go out in the evenings and walk along the seafront in Brighton, capturing many photos on my iPhone. During the summer that year, I decided to get myself a camera to take photos with and ended up purchasing a Canon 60D and a 50mm lens to accompany it. I would often snap shots around my home in Southampton including Winchester and Holly Hill. I didn’t even consider the idea of producing shoots for clients until one of my mates from uni asked me to capture some promotion shots of his band, Imbium, which turned out fairly well for my ability at that time.

My personal love of capturing landscape shots provides the perfect motivation for me to get out and discover new places or even find new spots in places I’m familiar with that had until then been hidden to me. Over the two years I’ve been involved in photography, my most common shoot location is Winchester and to this day I’m still finding new places within the city that I’d previously been unaware of, one such location being The Weirs, behind Pilgrims School.

Whilst I love capturing landscapes, more recently I’ve ventured into headshot and dance photography through my involvement with RicNic Hampshire, a youth led theatre production company, who asked me to take headshots, rehearsal and dress run shots during August 2017. This was a massive boost to my work as it forced me to capture different subjects to usual and I ended up making a large amount of contacts with dancers and actors who I have gone on to shoot since.

RicNic was the big push I needed to force myself into shooting a fully manual setup on my camera. Up until that point I had been shooting mostly in auto and making all the creative decisions in Lightroom, however I realised that to get the shots I desired, I needed to be controlling aperture and shutter speed.

Recently I traded in all my Canon gear and have replaced it with a Sony A7ii in pursuit of much higher quality images. Whilst I don’t like technical spec to get in the way of the image itself as photographers often forget the best setting, composition, is free, there were features within this camera that I knew would enhance the work I am capturing. I’ve recently started to venture into videography and this camera was the next step I took to get closer to that. In the future I’d like to break into the world of wedding photography though I also find the prospect of that very daunting…’

All photos in this feature are taken and copyrighted by Tim. If you’d like to see more of his work or book a shoot you can contact him via his website or find him on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

11th October 2018