Scottish based wildlife photographer Philip Price with an insight into his local world.

FPC: This week Philip Price has kindly written an article for us with an insight into his photography tours, workshops and other activities. Enjoy!

My name is Philip Price, I am the founder of Loch Visions a Scottish based wildlife photography and tour business. I have almost 15 years experience in professional wildlife photography, guiding and teaching in Scotland, with most of my work being done in Argyll and the islands.

Red Deer

Unlike many wildlife photographers I took a very deliberate decision when I started my career to focus solely on my local area. I have occasionally gone further a field, but 90% of my images, workshops and tours are taken and done within 40 miles of my home and the vast majority 5 miles! This was because I wanted a deep connection with place and wildlife. I think this enables me to become a much much better guide as well as building relationships with local communities and outdoor workers and enabling me to get involved in local environmental restoration projects.

Puffin

I offer a wide variety of workshops, tours and hide rentals. In the last few years I have started to shift the emphasis from purely wildlife photography to adding in a lot of restoration work or citizen science to my tours. This enables me to combine my day to day work with my other job which is being a rewilding advocate. For example on our Beaver Tour, clients will not only get some incredible close encounters and amazing images of Beavers they will also help review camera trap footage for the Argyll Beaver Centre which directly helps with the national reintroduction of this amazing animal. So some of the tour is spent taking images, the other part is spent helping in the research and restoration of this wonderful Eco system engineer.

Black Guillemot

Other than running tours my main focus is working for 3 organisations, Scotland: The Big Picture which is a rewilding social enterprise, CROMACH our local marine restoration group and I am a trustee on the Argyll Beaver Centre wildlife charity.

Beaver

Rewilding, which is ecosystem restoration, for me is the most powerful thing you can do on a local level to combat the climate crisis and global ecosystem degradation. It really is a wonderful win win situation to get involved with. That is why I am trying to combine my tours and workshops with rewilding, it just makes a lot of sense.

Otter

Some kind words from attendees of courses:

• "Great teacher and inspirational photographer, loved the conservation message" - Peter

• “I am just dropping you a note to let you know Katie and I had a really great time on your course on Sunday, thoroughly enjoyable” - Alastair.

• "Just a note to say thank you for a superb day. Both Ryan and I really enjoyed ourselves. I thought your description of how light behaves was brilliant and that comes from an old spectroscopeist and physics teacher. Every last detail of the day was just perfect and we both got a lot out of it" - Julie

FPC: Thank you very much for this insight Philip, we respect the worthwhile work that you are doing. For a full list of photography courses in Scotland please click here.