'I ALWAYS wanted to live in the Esk Valley. My principal aspiration was to live where there were real trees. On my old council estate, trees were thrown on bonfires. Now, when I look out my window, I see oaks, sycamores and ashes.'

Ian MacDonald grew up in Middlesbrough and spent five years working at ICI Wilton. He later moved to Grosmont and loves the North York Moors.

He is always taking photographs, painting and drawing, and teaches part-time at a Loftus school.

He helped Skinningrove residents with their new exhibition at the Margrove Heritage Centre, which focuses on events surrounding the burning of a monumental wooden effigy of a fox. Some of his own photographs are included and the exhibition will tour the area.

Now aged 50, he recalled how, in 1968, he announced he was leaving ICI to study at Cleveland College of Art.

"At ICI, I'd had about 15 different jobs doing general labouring and plant operations.

"Some work was OK, but I didn't enjoy much of it. I certainly didn't want to be there for the rest of my life. I wanted something creative.

"I was working with a maintenance gang, full of old navvies from the Cleveland ironstone mines. I'd joined them because I wanted to learn about concrete and I had some fantastic experiences.

"The gaffer was called Ernie Patterson, from Guisborough, and there was Tubby Edwards, from Skelton. Another bloke was a huge brass band fan. They'd all worked down the Skelton and Lingdale pits.

"They took terrific pride in the job - it had to be right. The boss would throw a golf ball at freshly-laid hardcore to test it. If he wasn't happy, it had to be re-laid.

"When I told them I was going to art college, they were totally thrown."

From Cleveland College of Art he went to Sheffield, to study painting and drawing, and finally to Birmingham.

"I got into photography at Sheffield, because a lot of painting was very conceptual and abstract. I found it a total turn-off."

He and a small group of students were interested in figurative art and photography complemented this.

"It was the landscape and industry around me that inspired me. I liked painters who worked outdoors, like the Impressionists. They had a big impact on me long before college."

He also liked painters who focused on the human figure, such as Titian, and then discovered the great photographers.

"I saw a Bill Brandt exhibition in Middlesbrough during 1971. It came from New York. It was incredible."

Another influential photographer was Bruce Davidson, who documented the harshness and humour of life in Harlem, New York.

"It really got me. There were amazing photographs of people and their surroundings - apartment blocks and fire escapes. This was something I wanted to do."

When his studies were complete, he and his wife, Susan, were married. He worked at Cleveland College of Art and trained as a teacher.

The young couple moved to Grosmont and he taught at Rosecroft School in Loftus, now Freeborough College. He still teaches two days per week.

Throughout the Seventies and Eighties, he took portraits and landscapes, some commissioned by local authorities and arts bodies. He kept on painting and drawing, which was important to him.

Early photographic projects included work about Loftus Brass Band and Greatham Creek on the Tees estuary.

"I photographed the old house-boats and collected archive glass negatives, showing the Tees from Haverton Hill to the estuary.

"I still remember the area before the arrival of industry and artificial light. It was a wild place. One of the saddest times was when the refineries arrived and inter-tidal areas were lost."

In the Eighties, a number of North-East photographers came to the fore, including Chris Killip and Graham Smith. They shared an interest in the rapidly changing urban and rural landscape of the region, and the social and economic problems in former industrial heartlands.

Newcastle's Side Gallery and Impressions Gallery in York became associated with them.

Exhibitions about cigarette factories, shipyards and offices, or on unemployment, poverty or environmental issues were shown.

Glossy landscapes were displayed next to hard news images, and the boundaries between different photographic styles were pushed.

Ian MacDonald became increasingly interested in exhibiting at workplaces rather than galleries. He and Cleveland painter Len Tabner showed work at South Cleveland Hospital in Middlesbrough.

In 1986, a huge opportunity arose when British Shipbuilders announced the closure of Smith's Dock - the last shipbuilding yard on the Tees.

With the classic shipyard art of Cecil Beaton and Stanley Spencer in the back of their minds, the two men wanted to record the last Teesside ship launch.

"We had always wanted to do a big project about the Tees. My uncle worked at Smith's Dock and Len had family there.

"We approached the managers, who were over the moon with the idea. They commissioned us and we spent the next eight months there, following the construction of the North Islands ship."

The resulting photographs and paintings were shown inside the yard's vast workshops. Accompanying text, archive material, technical drawings, models, patterns and objects were exhibited, and a book published.

Mr MacDonald also took pictures at British Steel's Redcar blast furnace, the largest in Europe, and returned there in the summer of 2000.

The furnace usually operates continually, but was temporarily closed for re-lining. He hopes to publish a book of that work.

His interests seem to have rubbed off on his children. Jamie works freelance for The Times and as a curator of exhibitions, Emma studies fabric design and Joe begins film school in Leeds this autumn.

"I'm interested in images that move you. Black and white is easier than colour.

"I'm no technical expert, but I print images all the time, at home or school. I've sometimes printed pictures at three o'clock in the morning. I like the whole process.

"Images must move you, whether they show disasters or joy. I suppose some of mine have a feeling of pathos, but I hope all life is there."

When not working, he enjoys walking the moors and coast. Favourite places include Eskdale, Runswick Bay and Sandsend.

He plays quoits for Egton Bridge and quipped: "Whether I'm any good, you'd have to ask the others."