You want to know more? Here’s a quick history:

1964. I was born in Bournemouth in 1964. That’s where I grew up, went to school and first became fascinated by photography. Between 1984 and 1986 I studied an HND in Advertising and Editorial Photography at Medway College of Design (now the University of the Creative Arts) in Kent. I graduated in 1986 and began working as a photographer.

1986. My first job was a four month maternity cover as a photographer at Haymarket publishing. From there I freelanced for a while before joining with two college friends to start our own small agency. In April 1987 we established an office and darkrooms in central London. Work picked-up and before long we were shooting for a wide variety of corporate clients, magazines and newspapers. My time at the agency was hugely enjoyable. I gained an enormous amount of experience in what seemed like a very short space in time.

1994. January 1994 was a big month in my career. I left the agency and joined the staff at the Times Supplements – which became TSL Education. It was a rewarding and enjoyable fourteen years. By the time I left there in August 2008 I had made over 3,500 visits to schools and colleges – which must be something of a record!

1998. After years of scanning negatives and transparencies I went fully digital. The arrival of a pair of Canon/Kodak DCS520 cameras was a big moment and signalled a huge shift towards the way we now work.

2003. I joined the team running The British Press Photographers’ Association. We work to promote and inspire the highest ethical, technical and creative standards from within the industry. In 2012 I represented the association at the Leveson Inquiry.

2008. September 2008 saw me becoming a freelance photographer once again. By then I had developed a reputation for being easy to work with, creative and very switched on technically. I have continued to use that knowledge to bring greater flexibility in the way that I work with different clients.

2012. An invitation to join the media team at the London 2012 Olympic Games was too interesting an opportunity to miss. I took three months off from my ‘day job’ to work at the Main Press Centre. The contacts that I made there have lead to many more interesting adventures.

2014. I worked as an editor on a couple of large sports events with a team of photographers for the first time. Since then being a picture editor with those teams has become part of my portfolio of roles within photography.

Since then… Finishing the story in 2014 doesn’t seem right. Since then I have been working as a freelance editorial, corporate and NGO photographer with a long list of clients with whom I work. Editing and teaching are still part of work portfolio. I’d like to think that  I’m still easy to work with, I know that I still get excited when new projects are added to my diary and I’m still switched-on when it comes to the blending of photography and technology. That’s everything that I was in 2008 when I returned to freelancing, just with even more experience.

Some trivia: why dg28?

(originally posted on my blog in 2009). Why would a photographer whose initials are NT call his website dg28? It’s a question that I get asked with amazing regularity and I have always enjoyed the mystique.

I did a seminar (in 2009) for some London Strobists and the first question that I was asked was “why dg28?”. Every time I tell the story it gets less exciting – unlike most anecdotes which seem to get longer, more interesting, adventurous and heroic. I have finally decided to tell all. Right here, right now..

It all started back in 2000. I had a site hosted by AOL which had a domain name longer than anything you could properly remember. The site and its content were attracting quite a bit of attention. I had written a couple of pieces for Phil Askey at DPReview. Sitting in a London bar he advised me to get some proper hosting and a snappy domain name. Good advice from someone who knows a thing or two about photography websites I thought.

Lightbulb Moment

A couple of days later I was doing one of my visiting lecturer appearances with some highly motivated post-graduate photojournalists. I was telling them all about the digital process – something that I was already used to but few of them could get their heads around. It was a successful lecture and we ended up in another bar for a couple of drinks. We talked about photography, photographers and photojournalism for quite a while. The topic turned to the old chestnut of “what was the first record that you ever bought?”

I always like this one because I have a very good answer. One member of my family started his collection with “Ernie and the fastest milk cart in the west” by Benny Hill. Being proud of my record I spoke first telling the students that I had bought Metal Guru by Marc Bolan and T-Rex. At that point a young Canadian guy said “that’s great. You bought Metal Guru and now you are our Digital Guru…” Cue light bulb moment… digitalguru would be a brilliant domain name.

The next day I got onto a registration website only to find that it was gone. As were several variations. Then I remembered Phil Askey saying that short is good so I tried variations on DG and finally settled on dg28.com. The dg bit is for digital guru and the 28 is for the day each month (the 28th) when I used to post updates.

You see what I mean, it’s not actually that interesting but it makes for a decent story – one which I hope to be telling less often in future.

Updated 19 April 2025