Welcome Bradley1978,
Are you planning to fuel it with charcoal, or wood?
If using wood, you want to maintain a small hot fire.
Start with a bed of hot coals. This can be from burning down wood into a bed of hot coals, or you can start with a chimney full of charcoal.
Then add one or two small logs or splits at a time. I recommend starting with one at a time until you learn how it likes to run, adding too much fuel can let it run away on you and get too hot unless you choke off the intake air and then it will smolder which is not good.
Preheating your splits by setting them on top of the firebox will allow them to catch fire quicker. Should only need to add a log every 30 to 60 minutes depending on the size and how hot your are running.
If using charcoal only, a coal basket and the minion method is the way to go.
I notice that you have some kind of short pull out rack pretty high up in your firebox. Can you tell me what you are thinking with that?
If that is your fire grate, it should be much lower than that in my opinion.
Also, are those air intakes on the front of the ash pan?