Jason Pickering

Jason Pickering is an enthusiast; not just an enthusiastic photographer, artist, scuba instructor, guitar player, yacht skipper, teacher, naturalist and PhD level biologist - but all of these. He lived aboard his yacht, Ciao, with his family for the first seven years in the Caribbean and now spends his days either working in Antigua or sailing around the Caribbean; aided and abetted by his wife, Kirsti, and their daughters Rosie, 13, and Maisie, 7.

Jason's life story is certainly not run of the mill and he feels lucky to have experienced such a wide variety of jobs and experiences that have made his a truly wonderful life. Jason has been a serious and enthusiastic photographer since as far back as he can remember but it was not his first profession. Actually, not even his second or third.

He started his professional career with 10 years as an academic university biologist. After he competed his PhD in medical Virology at Birmingham University, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at several universities in Oxford, Hamilton (Canada) and then London. After leaving the laboratory he worked in Sales and Marketing for two lab supply companies (one a dot com during the dot com bubble era), before he completely moved away from science to become first an expedition diving officer in the Philippines and then returning to the UK to start his own diving company.

After a couple of years diving in the cold waters of Northern Europe Jason stepped away from diving (or dried out!!) for a short time whilst he concentrated on becoming a commercially endorsed yachtmaster, and buying and refitting a 39 foot yacht, Ciao, which became his home for the next seven years.

More recently Jason has established a more conventional base for his photographic endeavours, in his studio and home in English Harbour, Antigua. For the last 7-8 years he has focused on island based photography and has established himself as one of the preeminent wedding photographers in the area. As with many people living on a small island, he isn't restricted to a single photographic specialty and also works in the commercial, marine, yachting and advertising fields.

Kirsti Pickering

Kirsti Pickering has had an overlapping and similarly varied career trajectory to her husband Jason. As well as more recently submitting to the allure of life as a pro photographer, Kirsti is also a world traveller, scuba instructor, yachtswomen, biologist, businesswomen, manager and last but not least mother.

She finally ended up in the Caribbean living aboard her yacht, Ciao, with Jason and the girls and now spends her time taking photographs and organising weddings and other events. Most recently she started her own wedding planning business and co ordingating the annual Antigua Classic Yacht Regata.

Kirsti's life story has never been boring. She finished her school days as head girl of her local girls grammar school before taking a gap year to travel and work in working in Israel. Next she headed off to a human biology degree in Oxford, England and after that managed to secur a Wellcome prize studentship to study for a PHDi.

Again, not content to do the conventional thing Kirsti decided to write an MPhil instead of completing her PhD and then started a career in the medical education sector. She did stints as a writer, editor, sales person and conference organiser. After a few years in this field, working her way up to office manager and in charge of the company's sales, marketing and production staff she finally made the fateful decision to give it all up again and embark on the sailing odyessy that landed her here in Antigua.

For the next 8 years she helped set up and run a superyacht provisioning company in English Harbour, Antigua but eventually Supplying food and beverages to the rich and famous was simply not enough excitement. Over the next few years she stated working with her husband as an assistant and then as a talented wedding photographer in her own right. In 2015 she stated her own wedding planning and event organising company .