Bury St Edmunds musician and photographer Robb Appleton ‘over the moon’ to release debut book Seen

A musician and photographer from a Suffolk town is ‘over the moon’ after releasing his first photo book full of black and white pictures.

Robb Appleton has been a musician for most of his life and moved from Cambridge to Bury St Edmunds in 2012.

During the pandemic, Robb started going for lots of walks and developed a strong interest in taking photographs and fast forward several years later, his debut book, Seen, is now available.

The 164-page book includes a variety of images from his long walks through meadows, streets, woods and more, mostly in the Bury area, but also other spots in Suffolk, Cambridge and even the Isle of Skye.

Robb said: “I’m over the moon with this new book of mine and I’m very pleased with how it came out.

“Bury is such an interesting place to walk around and the photography thing was a new route for me which I really enjoyed doing so I’m just very excited about it.

“Doing this really got my creative juices flowing and taking pictures of something, like a reflection in a window, has sometimes set off more ideas for music that I do.”

Robb, who specialises in playing the harmonica, taught in the contemporary music department as a senior course tutor at Cambridge Regional College from 1996 until 2007.

He said he has come a long way since then and is very grateful to the people who helped support him put his first book together.

“I absolutely love photographs and my music is often influenced by the pictures I take, but for this book, I couldn’t have put it together without the help of others,” Robb said.

“Roy Hammans in particular was phenomenal. He’s a good friend of mine and he really helped with the layout and I really appreciated it.

“I want to thank my wife Paula and my daughter Alice for their constant love and support. I’m very grateful to them.”

Seen costs £25 and is available to buy from Waterstones. There will be a book signing on Thursday, December 19 in the Buttermarket store in Bury, from 5.30pm to 7pm upstairs.