A PHOTOGRAPHER who snaps Wyre Forest tourist spots for a living is celebrating the publication of a book containing around 140 of his images.

Van Greaves says he has a passion for editorial photography and is delighted with his latest offering, A Portrait of Birmingham.

The Offmore 56-year-old went to great lengths researching the book, which includes pictorial references to Lord of the Rings author, JRR Tolkien, who, it claims, gained inspiration for his legendary books, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, from sites in the city.

He also tapped into his own specialist knowledge of the city where he was born and bred.

"I've got a great knowledge of the city because I lived in and around there all my life until recently," Mr Greaves said, describing A Portrait of Birmingham as "very, very easy on the eye".

"It's on Birmingham, up to Waseley Hills and Sutton Coldfield, and concentrates on lots of different photographic matter, including architectural juxtaposition, such as Victorian buildings against 1960s high-rise, and different cultures," he went on.

"There's quite a few picture references to JRR Tolkien as well because he spent his childhood in the Moseley area of Birmingham and got his inspiration for things like the Hobbit down in Moseley Bog, which is still a small nature reserve.

"Also, for the Twin Towers, he was inspired by two towers in Waterworks Road in Edgbaston - the waterworks tower and Perrott's Folley."

Mr Greaves said his publishers, Halsgrove, chose the subject of the book and he hoped it would be the first of many.

"This is the first in a long line of a string of books I'm hoping do," he said.

"The others are on areas more local to Kidderminster, with a suggested title being Worcestershire and Elgar Country, then I might be doing something on Shropshire and the Marshes but we don't know yet.

"Then I might be doing one on Shakespeare country but it's all pie in the sky at the moment."

Mr Greaves, who has his own website, www.vangreaves.co.uk, began seeing his pictures in books in the late 1980s when he shared the photography of Snowdonia to the Gower.

Since then, he has written and illustrated the book, 100 Walks in Hereford and Worcestershire, and provided pictures for Discovering the Pennines.

He has also worked as a wedding photographer since the 1970s and became Wyre Forest District Council's official tourism photographer in 1992.

Copies can be purchased by calling Mr Greaves on 01562 60445.