Blog Post

Otters Otters Otters

Nov 30, 2020

Otters Otters Otters

As some of you have read before if you follow anything I do, one of my main ambitions over the last year with my business is to try and incorporate effective and useful citizen science into our photography workshops.

It means when you come along, not only do you get to take amazing photos (hopefully) but you will be contributing to the protection of that animal or the enhancement of it's environment. Due to Covid a lot of my ideas did not happen this year. However our Otter project did kick off and I have absolutely loved it!!

The ambition is, over the next 10 years, to get a truly detailed picture of the movement and behaviour of individual otters. As far as I know this has never been done before and can only be done because of client images and the fact I will be working the same territories day in day out for years. I don't take a camera with me when guiding otters, too hard to deliver a top quality workshop if I am muscling in, so it will be your images that enables me to log which individual we are watching and what they are doing. This is really exciting as it shows that wildlife photography can really be a force for good.

Why is this important! Well if we know what individuals are doing, we know much better the population turn over and can link that too activity in the loch. Otters are apex predators and therefore what they eat and how they are doing is a great indicator of the lochs overall health. This means if Otters are going well, we can look at activities that have happened and do more of it, like our oyster reintroduction - see below. Likewise if suddenly Aragon and Merry disappear at the same time from the same territory then we can look to see if something has changed for the worse in the loch and campaign to stop it.

What has been surprising and really nice for me, and this is where the technical bit of this part of the newsletter comes in, is that it has given real purpose to my Otter photography beyond getting good images.

As a pro my ambition is to get top quality amazing images (please note the word 'ambition' in the sentence there!!). The main reason for my photography is to showcase and advertise workshops so people want to come out with me (and to a lesser extent for articles and rewilding work). Hence the need for the images to be as eye catching as possible. In our new instagram world we all live in, getting that stand out image can feel very daunting and an ever increasingly difficult task.

This means in the past when going out photographing Otters and I did not get good enough images, I had that weird mixed feeling where on the one hand I had had an amazing day out but on the other hand I felt disappointed I had not nailed that award winning or insta popping image!

The joy now, is that the pressure has eased and I am finding I am enjoying the photography process much much more. I still want to get good pictures but if all I manage is a few record shots then they are now really really useful to further this citizen science project.

In conclusion it has been very liberating as a photographer to know even the crap shots matter now!

Maybe you too can find purpose for your hobby and make it all just that bit more fun!

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GOOD NEWS IN 2021...AT LAST!

13 Jan, 2021

I have just processed pics I took the last time I was out with our Otters, which was a few days before Christmas...oh yeah and Happy New Year everyone! What a terrible start. Anyway having just gone through the images I am pretty sure this Otter above , who is called Éowyn, is pregnant. Look at her belly in all these images and there is a definite bulge. This is incredible news and means we should have a family in our main territory again in the next 3 or 4 months, just in time for nice warm spring and summer days!!

How not to use my hides.....a professional guide to avoid my idiocy

By philipvprice • 16 Dec, 2020

I spent an incredible day in my hide which is the first time it has been used since I dug it in to improve the photography angle and to stop it getting destroyed by every storm. Usually this is where I would then say 'to get great images you need to do this and that etc' which is what most photographers write about. I have decided to take a different approach mainly due to my slight (to great) incompetence on the day. Rather than hide my head in shame, I decided to do a 'how NOT TO guide' to wildlife photography in our loch side hide.

Common animals can sometimes make the very best photographic subjects

Don't forget what is all around us

By philipvprice • 04 Dec, 2019

Common animals are all around us. And generally let us get very close to them which makes them ideal subjects for wildlife photography.

November 2019 - And we are back!

By Philip Price • 14 Nov, 2019

This newsletter I am so so excited to say for the very first time I can combine my environmental work with delivering new workshops. Here's how it works. For most of my tours and some of my workshops next year, not only will you be able to get some incredible images and experience some world class moments you also get to genuinely help the animals or their habitat that feature on the tour or workshop. Here is a flavour of what we are doing: Red Squirrels Hours of incredible photography combined with tree planting to create more habitat for these amazing wizards of the forests. Beavers Great photography combined with helping the Argyll Beaver Centre with their camera trapping monitoring program. This is vital work for the national re-population of beavers in Scotland.

Otters Otters Otters