THE fantastic images taken by Bolton photographer Cliff Heyes are the product of more than 60 years’ experience.

Mr Heyes, from Edgworth, was inspired to pick up a camera aged 12, after he received a copy of The Art of Bird Photography as a gift.

“I still have the book my mother bought me,” he said. “For as long as I can remember I have had a passionate interest in wildlife in general and particularly birds.

“When I was young I would cut photographs of birds out of magazines and stick them in a scrapbook.”

The young Mr Heyes noticed many of those photos were taken by Eric Hosking so, when he saw the book was written by his hero, it was a must-buy.

He soon after invested in a basic Brownie box camera, but it was not until he left school at the age of 15 and took up a job as a junior clerk with the North West Gas Board that he could afford something more suitable.

He spent his entire savings of £5 on a brass and mahogany quarterplate camera and, despite being able to take just eight plates at a time, amassed thousands of slides.

The 74-year-old eventually changed to film photography, and then to digital.

He said. “All my early cameras were hand wind-on, and you had to work out the exposure yourself.

It’s child’s play now.

But the former Castle Hill pupil said taking photographs digitally is not as satisfying as the older methods.

“It’s like anything. You value your photos more if you have to work really hard for them,” he said.

Mr Heyes, who has been married to his wife, Sheila, for 44 years, has taken photographs across Europe and America, and even drove through Arctic Norway to the border with Russia to photograph the wildlife there.

In 1977 he was made an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and his work has been published in numerous magazines.