AS A BARRISTER, Rob Farrands got used to switching his own perspective to see things from another point of view.

Now he has turned that talent to photography – and is exhibiting the results at a hospital.

The 68-year-old, who recently stepped down from his second profession as a managerial consultant, calls his exhibition at the John Radcliffe Hospital 'Rivers of Life'.

The collection includes numerous shots of the Thames as it rolls through Oxford – often caught in unusual angles that make it look like a different river.

But there are also a number of portraits and even some photographs from Farnborough Air Show – mostly cloudscapes.

The thing that unites them, he says, is seeing things in a new light.

Speaking from the East Oxford home he shares with his wife Bridget, he said: "The question behind the exhibition was 'can you see familiar things a bit differently?'

"Does photography help us see what we have got used to in a new light?

"The portraits, for example, are mostly friends of mine and I'm trying to see if I can see them differently. Certainly when I walk out onto a landscape or meet a person with a camera in my hand I see things differently."

The John Radcliffe exhibition is one of Mr Farrands' firsts.

It came about after Gabriele Dangel, who books artists for the hospital's Link gallery, discovered his first exhibition at Oxford Artweeks earlier this year.

Many of the photos in this show are the same ones as the first exhibition or explore similar themes.

He added: "One of my ideas was that the camera helps you see things differently and so explore how we make contact with things around us.

"It is often thought that photography takes a step back from its subjects, but from my experience using cameras often draws people closer."

Mr Farrands first learnt to use a camera at university with help from his friend David Sawyer, a professional press photographer.

It stayed as a hobby for more than four decades, then he said: "I got to this stage in my life and decided what had been in the background needed to come to the foreground, so I made the switch."

Rivers of Life runs at the John Radcliffe until February 28.

See more of Mr Farrands' work at figure-ground.photography