Snapper Tim is a big hit in Thailand!

Uppermill photographer Tim Simpson didn’t expect that he would become an internet sensation when he returned from a dream trip to Thailand.

Tim, a professional snapper and part-time music promoter, went to Thailand to visit his daughter Hannah, who has been an English teacher in Phuket since 2016.

Despite possessing lots of state-of-the-art photographic equipment at his office in Uppermill, Tim decided to head off to Thailand with a second-hand compact digital camera that cost just £5 - bought from Mossley-based homeless charity Emmaus – in a bid to prove that photography isn't all about fancy equipment.

“It really about how you use what you have,” said Tim (pictured below).

“Before I left for Thailand, I set myself a project to prove photography really isn't all about expensive equipment.

“Most people now have a phone camera and with a bit of thought you could get much better photos.

“After taking the first few shots I realised that the camera, which was quite old, was struggling with anything other than quite bright sunlight.

“It was giving me a very long exposure (which results in blurry/shaky images) and when you used a higher ISO to combat this, to make the camera more light sensitive, it was very grainy. “One way around this is to use flash, but I really didn't like the results this gave.

“So I decided to use these limitations to my benefit by using blur, grain, and long exposure as part of the image.

“This long exposure blur is often called Kinetic Photography.

“I'm pleased with the results.

“They are definitely very different from the images I would have gotten with my expensive Nikon DSLR, but in many ways, I think they are better.

“I will translate some of this to my day to day photography.”

Certainly people in Thailand appreciated the pictures.

After initially posting them on the Bored Panda blog, the snaps were picked up by a Thai news blog – petmaya.com – and the response on their Facebook page has been phenomenal.

The petmaya article has been viewed over 6,000 times and hits on Tim's own website - www.timsimpsonphotography.co.uk - have more than quadrupled.

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