Focus on... Corporal Ian Forsyth

My name is Ian Forsyth and I'm from Saltburn in Cleveland and I'm an Army Photographer.

For most of last year I was working as a Brigade Photographer in Catterick in North Yorkshire, starting off with 19 Light Brigade and then working for 4 Mechanised Brigade when they moved across from Germany.

The job that I'm there to do basically is to provide photography which will support the Brigade and the activities that it does, and some of the images I've taken cover all the activities that the Brigade undertakes, from exercises on Salisbury Plain, to operational tours, to homecoming parades or even repatriations at certain times.

Other things that we get the chance to do: the Infantry Training Centre is up in Catterick, I carried out a project there, over a period of about a month and a half I documented some of the guys who were going through the training process at ITC and the pictures here depict the bayonet practice that they do. 

It's a very intense, very sort of aggressive period for the guys who are going through training because they need to learn the art of using the bayonet. 

Sporting events - that's another big part of what we do.  This particular photograph was taken at the Riverside Stadium in Durham and it was on the occasion of a visit by members of 4 Brigade who had been invited up by the cricket ground as a mark of thanks for the work that they've done on operations recently.

Other occasions that we have to photograph are Mess functions or formal occasions.

There was a formal parade when 4 Brigade arrived in Catterick and we do a lot of parade photography and it's quite easy just to take the routine stuff. It's always good to try to think a little bit 'outside the box' and try and make it different.