There can be no better person to give an illustrated presentation to the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland than the landscape photographer who, for our money is the best of them all – Colin Prior FRPS.
Many Scots and visitors to Scotland will probably have first come across Colin Prior’s work through high quality landscape calendars featuring his photographs – as with outlets in Fort William making sure to maintain a good stock of Prior’s mountain photographs in Glencoe and the Nevis range.
Prior has a rare sensitivity to place and his photographs give almost literal voice and animation to his landscapes. They can threaten or calm, exhilarate or mystify but they present something that is always alive, sometimes looking back with equal curiosity, sometimes absorbed in its own world.
Even keen snappers have little idea what the life of a dedicated landscape photographer entails: getting up before dawn and not finishing until dusk is long gone; walking miles into remote places and up rugged mountains ranges; learning to climb and to abseil; learning how to read weather systems and to predict conditions from them.
Anyone who saw the television programmes showing part of Prior’s four-year commitment to photographing the Karakoram mountains in Pakistan will have been left in no doubt too of the physical risks photographs at this level take. This is not about climbing into dodgy places in pursuit of an unforgettable and unique shot. Its about going into politically dangerous places – because you want to be there and to see there.
Prior has spoken of the shaking impact of learning that, in that part of Pakistan in 2013, a few hours away from where he was, a group of 11 western mountaineers and their porters were brutally murdered in a terrorist attack at their base camp.
And getting permissions for entry to the territory of some regimes is a long challenge of its own.
The Edinburgh event
The internationally acclaimed landscape photographer’s presentation is entitled, The Journey So Far - given in aid of The Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland [APRS] – whose President he is, after its Annual General Meeting on Saturday 3th May in Edinburgh.
The charity promotes the care of all of Scotland’s rural landscapes. Colin, who believes that ‘great photography is the fusion of art and craft’ – and he is master of both, will talk about his inspiration from the natural world and how he deals with the challenges he faces both in Scotland and Pakistan.
APRS Director John Mayhew says: ‘We are delighted that Colin has agreed to give one of his superb presentations in aid of our charity. He is quite simply one of the world’s best landscape photographers, so I am sure that anyone who comes along is in for a real treat.
‘By running this event we hope to raise the profile of the important work our charity does in campaigning for Scotland’s rural landscapes. It would be wonderful if people who came to hear Colin’s talk decided to support our work by joining APRS.’
Colin Prior’s presentation takes place on Saturday 30th May at 2.00 in the superb modern Lindsay Stewart Lecture Theatre, at Edinburgh Napier University’s Craiglockhart Campus. The original building was built as a ‘hydropathic institute’. During the First World War it was used as a military psychiatric hospital for the treatment of shell-shocked officers, including Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.
Tickets are selling fast, but there are still a few left – £10 per head, which includes tea & coffee. They are available from the APRS office”
- by email on: info@ruralscotland.org
- or by phone on: 0131 225 7012.
Everyone interested is welcome to attend.
About Colin Prior
Born in Glasgow, the city’s proximity to the Scottish Highlands shaped Colin Prior’s passion for the outdoors and fostered his interest in photography. His photographs, which capture sublime moments of light and land, are the result of meticulous planning and preparation and often take years to achieve. Prior is a photographer who seeks out patterns in the landscape and the hidden links between reality and the imagination.
Commissioned by British Airways for four years, he has travelled to over forty countries throughout the world and lived alone for extended periods of time in the wild just to understand his subject.
His six books include The World’s Wild Places, which was published internationally. More recently he has written ‘Wild Scotland’, published 2014. He is currently working on a four-year project in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan. He is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and a founding member of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
Colin currently lives in Glasgow where he runs his own publishing business and works on a variety of corporate commissions. Over the past six years he has shared his knowledge through a series of photographic workshops both in Scotland and overseas.
About the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland
APRS is the charity which promotes the care of all of Scotland’s rural landscapes. It aims to:
- Protect and enhance Scotland’s rural landscapes for future generations
- Promote effective planning and landscape protection systems in Scotland
- Encourage genuinely sustainable development in rural Scotland
- Raise awareness of the importance of Scotland’s landscapes to its people and economy
- Promote the activity of land managers who care for Scotland’s landscapes
It does this by:
- Working in partnership with individuals, other charities, local authority, government and public bodies
- Active involvement in national policy development and advocacy
- Advising members of the public on how to respond to proposals which affect their local landscapes
- Publicising our work to our members and beyond through our website, quarterly newsletter Rural Scotland and regular email bulletins
APRS welcomes new members who share its aims – you can join on its website here.