CAPTURING a moment in time is what photography is all about - but one local photographer is hoping to document a tradition that goes back centuries.

Andy Elliott, a commercial photographer based in Stockton, is publishing his second book of photographs this autumn.

Two years ago his book Golden Thread, which featured pictures from hunts across the Darlington and Teesside areas, sold out.

Since then he has been spending his time photographing every hunt in North Yorkshire.

"It is an effort to go out day after day, finding it's raining, you can't see anyone, the hunt has gone in the opposite direction to where you had hoped, it's too dark, and so on, but you have to keep at it, over and over again, and occasionally you get lucky," he explained.

The 51-year-old's interest in photography started as a boy, when he captured the end of the steam train era on film, as well as the collieries and factories which have now long gone.

"I realised as a very young teenager that there was something here that was vanishing, and this one idea has taken up a lifetime.

"I have kept on at it, photographing North-East people, at home, at work, in the pub, and it's a monumental record of life in the area. This hunting stuff is just a tiny part of it."

Having attended art school, Mr Elliott spent 20 years working for the BBC as a cameraman, working on everything from drama to news, including programmes like Blue Peter, Newsnight and Panorama.

Ten years ago, he gave his job up and returned to Stockton to become a carer, which is when he rekindled his interest in photographing life in the North-East.

Mr Elliott has received funding from the Arts Council of England towards the second book, to help cover the cost of film and petrol.

Although many photographers now use digital equipment, he continues to shoot on film, partly because he likes the cameras he has, which are now obsolete, and he also feels shooting on film makes for better prints.

"Also, if you pick up a negative and hold it to the light, in it you have trapped a bit of that day, something you can hold. If you're just putting it down some digital black hole it doesn't seem to have the same sort of worth," he added.

His second book of hunting pictures will be different from the first, in that he will also include statements from those who have been pictured, about what is happening in the countryside.

"I'm hoping it will be a fair and representative cross section of country-dwellers, including huntsmen, farmers and landowners. Fox hunting is the most egalitarian sport I have come across, you get everyone from the duke to the dustman involved.

"There are people who are farm labourers, slaughtermen, on the basic minimum wage, as well as wealthy landowners, and they deal with each other as equals, because they're sharing a common interest.

"It's a very interesting part of British social history."