A YOUNG photographer has set up in business at his Wensleydale home thanks to a grant from the Prince's Trust.

Mr Neil St Quinton of Bainbridge will use the £2,500 award to buy a laptop computer for his business, Foot Films.

Mr St Quinton, aged 21, approached Mrs Gill Robinson, project co-ordinator of the dales action for local enterprise scheme, which operates under the Prince's Trust banner in the Yorkshire dales.

The scheme funded him for courses in business planning and marketing at Craven college and helped him draw up a business plan to submit to the trust.

Although he originally needed a car, a digital camera and an A3 printer, Mr St Quinton said: "By the time I received the cheque, I had managed to equip myself with those."

He has already had commissions from a number of sources, including Wensleydale artist Piers Browne. Another Wensleydale artist, Mr Tim Slatter, gave him encouragement in starting his own business.

"I particularly like doing studio stuff like product shots for brochures," he said. "However, I can pretty much turn my hand to anything."

He can also revive old, dog-eared black and white, colour or sepia photographs.

Mr St Quinton gained only two GCSE passes at the Wensleydale school and was diagnosed as dyslexic when he returned to the sixth form for a course in communications.

He wanted to be a cameraman, but part of the way through the course a science teacher gave him a standard SLR camera and he became interested in stills photography."

After a two-year photography course at Harrogate art and technology college, he taught himself web site design and digital photography while working part time in hotels and pubs in the Bainbridge area.

Mr St Quinton can be contacted on 0777 555 6122 or e-mail neil