I chose to become a photographer after seeing a TV documentary about Brian Harris photographing Sizewell Nuclear Power Station for The Independent in the early 1990’s. I started working at weekends in the darkroom of the East Anglian Daily Times and eventually went to Stradbroke College in Sheffield for the NCTJ course in Photojournalism, under the auspices of Paul Delmar.

Not being a studious, college sort of person, I got myself as much real work as possible. At first I worked under Paul Sanders, who was deputy picture editor of the Manchester Evening News at the time; Paul placed me under the wing of the legendary Howard Barlow, who in turn introduced me to Don McPhee at The Guardian. Don eventually got me a gig at The Independent and I worked there for a couple of years.

This photograph of the reed cutter, Eric Edwards, was part of a feature I shot for The Independent in 1998. Eric was something of an enigma and is known by a large contingent of the Fleet Street photographers. He once told Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, she ‘was doing it wrong’ when giving her a lesson in stacking reeds.

Jason Bye covers East Anglia for day-to-day news, and travels further afield shooting magazine features and portrait assignments for the Daily Mail. He is also a founding contributor to the new regional glossy Norwich Magazine.

Photographer since 1992. EPUK member since 2004.