About you
I was born and brought up in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. After studying zoology and plant biology at university I worked in nature reserve management and ecological research, before becoming a full-time photographer in 1984. For fourteen years I was the staff photographer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), but since that time I’ve been self-employed. I also write about photography, and teach it through workshops. I am currently a training partner with Nikon (UK) Ltd. I live in Bedfordshire with my wife Pat, and we have two daughters, Hannah and Alice.
Tell us a little about your project:
My lifetime project has been connected with wild birds; their place in the environment, the threats they face and the efforts being made to protect them. Working for the RSPB meant I had lots of opportunities to put that into practice, but the ethos persists in my freelance work and there’s certainly no lack of subject matter.
What are your aims as a photographer?
Never being satisfied with what I’ve just done, always striving to improve and experiment. It’s important to believe that my best pictures are still ahead of me. And then, hopefully, to motivate other people through my photography. That might be persuading somebody to take a second look at something they’d never bothered about before, encouraging them to become a photographer themselves, or influencing a decision in a way that benefits the environment.
What aspects of what you do are most important to you?
The opportunity to work in a creative industry is undoubtedly appealing, but the over-riding aim is to contribute something positive to the environmental movement. I can imagine a life not being a photographer – but I couldn’t contemplate not being involved in the field of conservation and promoting biodiversity.
What is your greatest photographic achievement?
That’s probably for others to judge. But if I have to nominate a personal favourite, then my series of images of roosting flocks of red knot come closest to my ideal. This is a behavioural phenomenon I’ve been watching and photographing for over 25 years. The fact that it’s a fairly common, readily accessible bird with arguably quite dull plumage made the results all the sweeter – I like the idea of being able to make something special out of ‘unpromising’ raw materials. One of these images won the GDT’s European Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2007, and that was a particularly proud moment.
Where or what do you most enjoy photographing?
Anything really, as long as I’m rising to the creative challenge and not wasting chances. I’m very happy photographing farmland birds in the countryside near where I live, but I spend quite a lot of time on the East Anglian coast and also in west Scotland and the Hebrides every year. Seabirds at sea are among my favourite subjects; mysterious and enigmatic, and particularly difficult to photograph.
What does ‘Conservation Photography’ mean to you?
Being a small part of a much greater effort. It’s no good if your pictures are seldom seen, so that means co-operating with agencies, publishers, conservation NGOs and so forth. Don’t try to do it all on your own. I’m also a believer in the slow burn effect of positive imagery, using that to turn people on to the wonders of the natural world and making them care about it. We have to balance this sensibly with the finger-wagging “see how you’re ruining the earth” type of picture, and I guess the bias should be something like 99% towards the former.
How can nature photographers make a difference?
Often in quite prosaic ways. Although the blockbuster images undoubtedly have their place, the day-to-day documentary work can also be incredibly useful. For example, pictures, which can be used in environmental impact assessments, as evidence at planning enquiries, and in lobbying government ministers have a real practical value, but tend not to glorify the photographer. The mistake is to imagine that the only worthwhile photographs are artistic masterpieces with a by-line credit in bold type.
What advice would you give to aspiring conservation photographers?
Forget any notion of glamorous overseas assignments, keeping David Attenborough company. Do the dirty jobs nobody else wants to tackle. There’s a big demand for imaginative and effective photographs of people and how they relate to the environment, and too many of us shy away from that.
