Hi, I’m Phil Collier.
I first started my photography back in my early 30s when, having bought Laurie Campbell’s book “The Wildlife Photographs of Laurie Campbell” whilst on honeymoon. The fact that we were honeymooning on the Island of Mull just made Laurie’s book more real to me, so it seemed that photography was the obvious way forward.
Before photography, however, I’d been a birdwatcher ever since I can remember, spending hours as a kid back in the suburbs of north Liverpool, wandering around Bluebell Wood and Froggy Meadow, neither of which have existed for many decades, sadly both now housing estates.
I think our (me and my two brothers) yearning for the countryside, wildlife, and birds though, was the result of early childhood summer holidays spent on the west coast of Argyll in Scotland. Mum and Dad, both teachers, rented a cottage in Kilmelford, 16 miles south of Oban, for six consecutive summers, the first when I was six years old. I clearly remember to this day seeing my first Golden Eagle at the age of seven, although I recall the most prolific birds back then were Grey Heron, Oystercatcher and Common Buzzard. In this kind of environment as a youngster, how could it not influence and envelop us for the next six decades.
During the 1990s my passion for photography grew. By this time my younger brother was lecturing in photography and so I learned much from him and indeed, Tim and I would head off on annual photographic ventures, often in Scotland, for many years to come.
Of course, I am going back to the age of film, a good decade and more before I would make the move to digital photography. Looking back, I recall with fondness being on holiday and numbering the rolls of film as I posted them off to Kodak or Fuji to be developed so I would know, for example, that my Otter photos would be on roll 8, and then returning home with nervous anticipation to see whether I had captured anything decent. A far cry from today’s world where we can scrutinise our photographs in real time!
Over the years I have been fortunate to have had many photographs and articles published in various magazines, including The Iris (The Royal Photographic Society’s nature publication), Birds (the RSPB magazine) and a two-part article about me and Tim in the Nikon Owners’ Club Magazine. My first ever published photographs were in the large glossy programme for the 1990 Scottish Open Golf Tournament at Gleneagles – Robin, Curlew, Red Grouse, Golden-ringed Dragonfly and Grey Squirrel.
I took a sabbatical from my photography in 2007 to focus on my career but it has never been far away. My iPhone has served me well in between times and then, more recently, I bought a Panasonic Lumix bridge camera which has been my trusted companion over the past few years.
I have moved on from my wildlife photography to cover other genres and have a couple of interesting and challenging projects in mind for the coming months and years.
I do hope you enjoy my website blogs which will look backward at my past work and follow me moving forward.