Tony Priestley is a British photographer. Born in Carlisle, Cumbria, lived in Southwest France for 19 years and returned to the UK in 2020. In 1980 Tony was given an old Mamiya rangefinder camera by his father, and his photographic passion took off! Money was tight, he'd just left school and had virtually no disposable income, but over time managed to cobble together a Nikon SLR and one or two lenses plus some Russian darkroom equipment that looked, well, very Russian! Many hours were spent photographing nature, landscapes and textures, then processing the pictures in a small darkroom situated in a cupboard under the stairs in his father's chiropody surgery.

Time and technology moved on and Tony found himself devoting more and more time to his new loves of road cycling, mountainbiking and climbing in the Lake District and Scotland. SLR cameras and their lenses were big and bulky, and the new pocket digital cameras seemed to make more sense. By the mid 90's Tony's passion for photography had been replaced by a passion for sport.

Fast forward to France 2012. After viewing dreadful shots he'd taken of the Tour de France and birds in his garden, Tony decided to buy his first DSLR. Sticking with Nikon, he bought a D3100 and a couple of kit lenses. Tony's passion for photography had been well and truly reignited! It was also so much easier these days with software replacing hours in a darkroom.

Tony returned again to photographing what he knew best. Landscapes and nature, but with a growing interest in photographic manipulation (which was born in his darkroom days) he started designing composite fantasy scenes in Photoshop. This eventually led to Tony’s love of conceptual fine art.

Fast forward and Tony is back living in the UK. He sold off all of his DSLR equipment including his beloved Nikon D810 and is now heavily into Nikon’s mirrorless Z mount system. Taking mainly landscape, wildlife and nature photos with a Z8, Z6ii and a ZFC. He still delves into the world of composite fantasy art, street photography and a new love of making videos.