When, aged 23, Steve Brown fell from a balcony and dislocated a neck vertebra, squashing the spinal cord, he couldn’t have dreamed he would end up presenting TV shows.
The accident left him with little or no level of movement below the breastbone, but he was determined not to be defined by his injury.
After taking up wheelchair rugby he was asked to commentate on the Invictus Games for the BBC, then worked for Channel 4 at the Rio Paralympics and has since presented on The One Show and Countryfile, where he can indulge his great passion for wildlife.
So he was delighted to be asked to join the judging panel for our annual wildlife photography contest, alongside our judge emeritus Sir David Suchet, Kelly Brook, TV zoologist Lucy Cooke and head judge Clare Balding, plus our two technical judges Gray Levett and Simon Stafford.
AP Awards 2021: The Good Service Awards
February 19, 2021
Announcing last year’s Good Service Award winners last February we said that 2019 had been the toughest year on record for retailers. A certain virus must have been sniggering in the wings at that, knowing what it had in store for us in 2020.
Retailers have had to contend not only with the continuing decline of both camera sales and bricks and mortar retailing, but a whole new set of problems: reduced footfall due to social distancing; forced closures in lockdowns; more caution about spending; no Photography Show and fewer new product launches to stimulate demand; and in many cases supply issues affecting availability.
Will Brexit make it harder to buy photo gear from the EU?
January 7, 2021
Now Brexit has finally happened, concern has been expressed that the new trading arrangements could make it more difficult and expensive for photographic dealers to sell equipment to UK-based buyers.
Paul O’Sullivan, for example, has a small business importing Minox specialist cameras and other optical equipment from Germany. “Some photographic shops in Germany and Holland have now stopped supplying to the UK, because of the new VAT rules for EU businesses supplying goods over £135,” Paul observes.
“In short, any EU business who sells anything to a UK-based customer has to pay the VAT proportion directly to HMRC (see the rules in full here). HMRC suggest that you use a customs facilitation agent or you do the paperwork and pay the duty yourself. In effect, EU businesses must register with a tax office using a language they may now speak, using forms they may not understand, to pay tax which they ma