Steven Perinchief started out taking pictures of crime but is now capturing the sunnier side of Bermuda.

The 60-year-old is the man behind Bermuda Toads, a range of shopping bags, tea towels and mouse pads adorned with photographs of the Island’s scenery.

Many of the photos sat untouched for ages until he decided to put them to use five years ago.

“My nephew would tease me a bit,” he said. “He’d say, ‘Here comes the camera with 1,000 clicks a minute’. My friend would ask me what I planned to do with [my] photographs and I always said ‘nothing’. I just took them. I didn’t print them or sell them or anything. Then I started thinking that maybe I should be using my photographs for other things.”

He got his start as a photographer in the 1970s, when he was hired by the Bermuda Police Service to take shots of crime scenes and drug seizures.

“It was kind of like NCIS, that kind of stuff,” he said. “After that I got my own camera and was taking pictures on the side, but I eventually put the hobby down when I left the Police Service and transferred to Customs.

“My younger brother was in school at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. My mom had been a single parent her whole life and needed help paying for my brother’s schooling. I couldn’t work a second job back then while I was on the Police Service, so I transferred to Customs and worked part-time at the MarketPlace. I put the camera down in 1988, but picked it up again in 2000.”

He was on holiday in Los Angeles when he came up with the idea for Bermuda Toads. Souvenir shops in the California city had lots of bags with photographs on them; Mr Perinchief felt something similar could work here.

Weeks later, he picked up his pencil and started drawing designs.

“I did that and kept it a secret,” he said. “It wasn’t that I was scared about my idea, I just wanted to keep it private first before announcing it to everyone. I didn’t want the word to get out too fast.

“Then one day I invited my brothers up to my house and said, ‘I have a presentation to show you guys because this is something I want to venture into’.”

Selling the items presented a bit of a problem. “One of the hotels really liked my bag designs but they wanted to put their logo on it and the bags had already been printed and shipped in from China,” Mr Perinchief said. “For a while I was depressed with that, but my mother really believed that good things would come out of it.

“My family told me not to give up, to keep pushing because one day I’d get a phone call and the right door would open. I started selling my bags at fairs and Harbour Nights and eventually started getting calls from local groups, tourists and people leaving the Island who were looking to buy the bags to take with them. Word of mouth started getting around and I got orders from around the world — places like the United States, Canada, Australia and the UK.”

Dockyard store Hand Made Bermuda was the first to sell his items. They’re now also available in Brown & Co, The Hodge Podge and Home Worx in St George. To reach that point, Mr Perinchief worked on product designs for hours every night. He frequently didn’t sleep until around 3am despite his nine-to-five job with British Airways.

“I decided to give up my job in the travel industry earlier this year. I’m happy I made the choice to move on because once I left there I was putting more emphasis on this and got my products sold in more stores on the Island.”

He said he takes a lot of pride in his products, particularly because they showcase the beauty of his Island home.

“The biggest lesson I’ve learnt is to never give up,” he said.

“If you have an idea it’s best to put it on paper, think about it and make your next move from there. There will be ups and downs, but don’t give up if it’s your dream. I really love seeing my photographs on something and knowing that it was made by me.

“I get a kick out of that and from the feedback I get from people. When you hear that you feel so good inside. You think, ‘I’ve done something worthwhile for people’.”

Visit www.bermudatoads.com