Andrew Payne has a degree in Fine Art and was a postgraduate printmaking student at the Slade School of Art in London, where he gained a Higher Diploma in Fine Art in 1980. His art education gave him a strong interest in the representation of light in landscape painting, particularly the work of the 17th century Dutch landscape painter Aelbert Cuyp and the work of artists such as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and Atkinson Grimshaw.

For many years he made colour photographs of the landscape within walking distance of his house. This landscape is not exotic – it is the riverside in the centre of an English town. Now he makes short films showing the effects of light in this landscape – the interaction of light with river water or the projection of shadows into his home by sunlight.

He captures what is easily overlooked as we move through a landscape. Writing by the British painter Paul Nash is relevant to this work. Nash wrote about the 'unseen landscapes' of England in a Country Life magazine article in May 1938: "The landscapes I have in mind are not part of the unseen world in the psychic sense, nor are they part of the Unconscious. They belong to the world that lies, visibly, about us. They are unseen merely because they are not perceived; only in that way can they be regarded as invisible."

His camera is motionless, with the only movement occurring within the frame of the film. The films are structured with sequences of images or combinations of two moving images on a single screen running for 1 to 5 minutes in duration. The most recent work makes use of time-lapse photography consisting of single shots.

His work has been screened in film festivals and in art galleries along with work by artists working in other media. As well as being exhibited widely in the UK, his films have also been shown internationally – in Europe, the USA, Canada, India, Vietnam, and Korea.