HE'S still only a teenager but self-taught photographer Ieuan Berry, 17, of Maindee, has already achieved a lot through his work capturing the ‘unseen’ city including being chosen to photograph the Nato Summit. He talks to HAYLEY MILLS.

I was rubbish at art at school so I wasn’t really a creative child.

It all started when I met a boy named Lloyd Miller, he’s a couple of years older than me and from Newport so I have stayed in contact with him ever since.

We met when we were playing in the sand in Tenby, I was about eight and he was about 15. We built a dam in the sand and later I found out about him being a photographer.

Later he taught me how to use a camera and the basics.

Back in Newport we used to go out taking photographs together, he enjoys taking photographs of animals but I found that quite boring.

But we also did some urban exploration, exploring derelict buildings and that I really enjoyed.

I got my first camera when I was 10, when my mum bought me a digital camera for Christmas, and I went around taking photographs of Newport.

About a year after that, Lloyd taught me how to shoot on 35mm film and how to develop it.

Using film is very exciting as you have to wait a couple of days to see what you have taken, so there is a lot of suspense as you wait to find out if you have a good photograph- to me that is true photography.

I found that I was naturally good at using a camera and learnt a lot of my skills from Lloyd who went on to university.

Lloyd and I went to the abandoned sports village in St Athan on the other side of Cardiff when I was about 15.

It has been derelict for a long time. I like graffiti and there was lots of that to photograph.

I have also explored the old Sainsbury’s in Shaftesbury. I remember going there shopping so going inside now and seeing it, it was quite shocking.

There is an adrenaline rush as you are waiting for someone to come and ask you to leave.

You don’t know what you are going to find and that adrenaline seems to show in your photography.

I like to look for the unknown.

You discover things like a former manager’s office is now being used as someone’s home.

I enjoy documentary photography showing change and capturing normal life in street photography.

I really like Brutalist architecture and buildings from the 70s.

Buildings made of pure concrete, like Capital car park, people thought it was ugly but I liked it.

It had some of the best views over the city.

My quote is ‘making the known, unknown to people’ so taking something that they see every day and think they know, but then they have to look at the image twice as they do not think that it is the same place that they have seen.

People need to look up more, for example in Newport above all of the new signs is some lovely architecture that people walk passed every day and never notice.

Sometimes I take photographs and won’t look at them for about a year and it’s a nice surprise to discover them again.

I can just walk around taking photographs thinking that is nice at the time but then don’t look at them for ages.

My collection at the moment is over 30,000 images in just over three years and I only have 500 on display.

I enjoy covering weddings, taking photographs of food and I also cover nightclub events.

I do quite a lot of nightclub work, but it is quite difficult to get a perfect shot when people are intoxicated as they tend to move about a lot.

I started photography as a hobby, but in 2011 I set my own business up, Berry Photography.

I used it as a platform to share my work and posted my images on Facebook and people were able to buy prints from me.

From that I started working at The Basement doing 16 plus events, taking shots of the crowd and the DJs.

By 2012, my page had grown from 100 likes up to 1100 odd likes.

I went to the Royal Welsh Show with Lloyd and worked with him on a freelance basis and got to shoot David Cameron.

I also got to meet Gregg James and Scott Mills from Radio 1, and also Gareth Gates the singer.

One of my favourite images though isn’t from an event, but from Newport.

During high tide, I took photographs of the River Usk back in January.

Everyone was taking images from a lit area, but I went to a dark spot, where no one was.

I didn’t think anything of the image when I took it but later I was shocked.

My first exhibition took place in Newport Art Gallery in January this year for about a month.

I had about 10 images on display showing the high tide.

My photographs of Newport and The Royal Welsh were spotted by the people organising the Nato Summit.

They contacted me and said that they saw that I hadn’t applied for accreditation.

But I didn’t think that I could as compared with photographers who work for national newspapers, I’m a nobody.

I had missed the deadline to apply and they helped me to get accredited so that I could attend.

The experience of covering the summit was better than I thought it would be.

I got to travel in convoy with other photographers and got to go inside Cardiff Castle and The Celtic Manor,

I met Doug Mills of the New York Times who lent me some of his lenses, so it was a friendly atmosphere.

The highlight of the summit for me was going to Mount Pleasant Primary School in Newport to photograph Barack Obama and David Cameron and I really enjoyed the start of the Afghanistan talks.

I got to go to the Celtic Manor the day before it started so that I could look in the circular conference room and things were still being put into place with only a day to go.

When I saw all the leaders sat in there, it was like I was sat in the middle of that room only 24 hours ago and now people like Obama are there- I felt really privileged.

I gained over 700 followers over the two days from all over the world and lots of people were congratulating me online.

Also I was the first person to take an image of Barack Obama when he arrived at the Celtic Manor.

I was with a group of photographers and all of them ran one way but I wanted to go another way.

So I had a dilemma to go the way I wanted or follow the people who had far more experience than me.

But I went with my gut instinct and ended up running up a hill and climbing through a bush to get the shot and it paid off.

During the event, I got very close to the leaders being able to stand about two meters away.

But one image I took of French President François Hollande is not going down too well with the people of France.

I got a shot of all the leaders looking up at the sky watching the Red Arrows flypast at the Celtic Manor, but he was looking the wrong way.

It ended up on Euro News, MSN in France- it went viral.

I know I took the image but my objective was to get Barack Obama and David Cameron so I didn’t really notice it until later as I wasn’t focusing on Hollande.

That was my first image that I ever sold internationally and it appeared in a Swiss and French newspaper.

So I came home tired from the Nato Summit and my image was on Euro News within seven hours of me taking it.

I hope to do more work with the Celtic in the future and cover future events.

I decided to hide some of my Nato prints around Newport for people to find as without the support of local people letting me take photographs of them and their businesses over the years, then I would never have got the opportunity that I did.

All four have been found.

I just wanted people who didn’t get the chance to attend the event to have something.

I’m currently in college studying photography but I don’t think I will go to university as I want to get out there and work.

In the future I want to work for instagram as I use it all the time to share my work, and I would like to help develop it and market it.