This website is a chance for me to show off some of my photos from my time working and travelling in Africa with a few others thrown in from other trips. I work in the safari industry and so have almost unlimited opportunities to get my camera out, every amateur wildlife photographer's dream!
I started taking photos when I first went to Botswana in 2011 and barely knew one end of the camera from the other. Needless to say there arent any photos from that trip included here but they started a passion, the product of which I intend to show off here.
I hope you enjoy them.
Recent
We passed this boat whilst driving around Applecross on the west coast of Scotland. An incredibly beautiful place with amazing scenery. My landscape photography isn't quite up to scratch yet so there wasn't any scenery shots from that trip that are good enough to put up but I really like this one.
I am very proud of this photo taken in Glenesk at the beginning of a long hike up to some falls which Merlin and I had planned out the day before. Sadly the planning and preparation phase hadn't included remembering to charge my camera. As a result this was the only photo I took that day.... not bad though.
At the beginning of lockdown Merlin and I came back to Scotland having just finished our two years working in Uganda. We had to leave a few weeks earlier than planned and in a bit of a rush. We decided to start working around my parents garden and started noticing a lot of the wildlife that we had overlooked in Scotland. This hen pheasant spend a couple of weeks sitting on her eggs in the bottom of the garden so aside from a few quick photos we left her in peace.
On our last trip around Uganda Merlin and I headed to Queen Elizabeth National Park. It was one of our best holidays during the two years. These lions are famous for climbing trees and we were lucky enough to see them on two occasions. Despite years of working in safari lodges neither of us have had much luck spotting lions so this was a real treat.
Kyambura gorge in Queen Elizabeth National Park is probably my favourite place in Uganda. Essentially a rain forest in the gorge in the middle of a big savanna park, as you hike into it you are stepping into a completely different world. The main attraction is the family of chimps that live there. Unfortunately for the chimps they are cut off from other populations so inbreeding is a problem.
The lodge we managed in Uganda, Mihingo, ran a charity in the area. It had two main aspects, one was a compensation scheme for farmers who had lost livestock to predators and the other was helping schools in the area in various ways. On this occasion we were at a school in Ruragara, a small fishing village, giving the kids uniforms. They loved getting their photos taken. It always put my upbringing in perspective when I went to the schools.
My wife spotted this chap crossing the road on a recent road trip. We went all around Eastern Uganda to some beautiful spots but this is one of my favourite shots from the trip. In exchange for using him as a slightly unwilling model we made sure he got across the road safely. Its very tempting to pick up or move tortoise when you see them to get a better shot but it can stress them out quite a lot so we were as respectful as possible
This was taken at Ziwa Rhino reserve in Uganda. They are breeding white rhino in a protected reserve and hope to reintroduce them to some of Uganda's national parks. It was amazing to get up close and personal with them for an hour or so. They are incredible animals
This was taken in the Napedet hills in Pian Upe, its an incredibly beautiful place. I don't really take many landscape shots so it's still a bit new to me
This was one of about 4 Ostrich that visited our camp in Pian Upe one evening. The group had recently been introduced into the reserve and so were pretty chilled around us. It's slightly cheating but still a photo I am proud of
We work in a horse safari lodge. I took this photo while the farrier was in doing his routine shoeing of our horses. I really like it but I don't really know why, I think its just the details that the camera managed to catch on Koem's hoof
Another shot from our visit to Ziwa. These two were play fighting but at times it did get a little heated. Our guides were pretty chilled out about the whole thing but it was pretty intimidating at times. Made for a good shot in the end though (with the long lens!)
The guys who work at the lodge stables rescued this baby waterbuck from poachers and we managed to get it back to its mother. Their mothers leave them hidden for a few hours at a time while they go to graze so we just put it back in roughly the right place and a few hours later the mother came back for it