‘Seeing something like that changes your life’

SEEING a polar bear and its baby cubs swimming for their lives after the ice sheet they were standing on melted, would be a pivotal moment for anyone. For Hartlepool -born Dennis Bromage, it prompted him to become a professional photographer.

His pictures of the polar bears and the fragile environment in which they live were beamed around the world, illustrating the devastating affects of global warming.

Dennis, who lives in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, has always loved the outdoors and while he had always carried a camera when mountain biking, rock climbing and walking, it wasn’t until he went to the Arctic in 2007 that he began to take photography seriously.

“It was an organised trip on a scientific cruise ship and I thought, you can’t go all the way to the Arctic and not take a proper camera,”

he says. “It was mainly about the environment for me. I went thinking I’ll go and see the glaciers and if I see a polar bear, it will be a bonus. As it happened, we got the best sightings they’d ever had.”

The trip took him to the northernmost part of Norway, 60 miles off the coast of Svalbard, which is where they found the polar bear and six-month-old cubs. With the bears oblivious to the fact they had an audience, the passengers quietly sat and watched them for three hours.

“We’d had sightings before, but they were a long way off. This time we got within ten feet, slowly inching closer and closer,” says Dennis.

“The thing that struck me most was how delicate and incredibly graceful they were. They walked so gently even though they’re such massive creatures. It was a mind-blowing experience.

Seeing something like that changes your life.”

Along with wildlife, including humpback whales, he got some incredible shots of glaciers, waterfalls and vast expanse of tundra.

His pictures of the polar bears were published in the national press and attracted millions of viewers worldwide. Back in Britain, Dennis turned his attention to landscape, building a portfolio of beautiful images of the Lake District, Scottish Highlands and North Yorkshire. Then in 2010, he quit his job in production design to do photography full time.

“I have a real passion for the outdoors, particularly the moors, mountains and coast, especially wild, rugged and remote areas,” he says.

One of his favourite shots is a picture of the sun setting on the Isle of Skye – the result of ten hours of waiting for the weather and light to change on a late winter afternoon.

“It was an incredible moment, I couldn’t tear myself away and took the shot just as the sun was about to cross the horizon,” he says. “It was one of those moments you live for.”

Like all photographers, he is constantly battling mist, fog and torrential downpours.

His favourite times are the quiet of dawn and dusk and he’ll often get up at 3am to catch the sunrise, despite many times having to come back with nothing. “I don’t know how I ended up as a landscape photographer,” he says. “I really have to claw my way out of bed sometimes, but you’ve got to make the effort.”

According to Dennis, once he’s got a fixed image in his mind, he’ll go back to the same spot again and again until he has captured it, even if it means hanging off the edge of a cliff (which he does frequently). “I don’t put myself in danger, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get a good picture,” he says.

One of his best-selling photographs is Down The Steps, showing the sunset over Whitby. “I probably went there 200 times to get that picture and only had three good sunsets,” he says.

It also took him 12 visits over the course of three years to get the shot of Cockshaw Hill on the North York Moors that he wanted.

As well as exhibiting and selling his pictures at various events, Dennis does workshops and oneto- one tuition. He teaches people of all abilities from backpackers who have just bought their first camera to more experienced photographers, who have got into a rut and want to go from being technically proficient to producing something special.

He uses digital SLRs (currently a Canon 5D MkII) and believes firmly in getting the image right on the back of the camera rather than on the computer.

While there are many places and moments Dennis has still to capture, his current obsession is with North Yorkshire. “It is becoming my passion more and more. It’s such an incredibly diverse county with the moors, coast, sales and wolds. I think there is a lifetime’s work in the North York Moors alone,” he says. “It’s my mission this year to try to find some of the more unknown and quieter moments and share my passion. People forget about the moors, it’s always the dales and lakes, and I want to try and encourage people to see more of the Yorkshire moors.”

“So many people go abroad, it’s nice to fight to the corner of the North and of what’s on our doorstep.”

dennisbromage.co.uk