Photographer in a landscape

Acclaimed landscape photographer Colin Prior, who made the panoramic format of Scottish mountain photography his signature, is featured in a new documentary on BBC 2 Scotland to be broadcast on Monday 17^th April.

Colin has already the subject of a BBC Scotland film, ‘Mountain Man’, which showcased him working on location in both Scotland and Pakistan in the Karakorum mountains.

This new hour long documentary made for the BBC by independent production company  Adventure Show Productions’ executive director Richard Else,  is not just about photography alone but is a portrayal of Colin and some of Scotland’s finest mountains.

Throughout Colin’s life he has searched for the perfect timing to record our finest scenery in the special light at dusk and dawn. He imagines the perfect shot and often has to go to the summit of a mountain many times, before the timing is just right to capture the image he has in his head.

The programme is presented by Cameron McNeish, who joins Colin in Letterewe to see exactly how he produces his world famous images.

The programme focuses on three Scottish mountains, including the iconic An Teallach. And to achieve success Colin has the help of those who know this landscape inch by inch and whose knowledge has been built up over a lifetime.

On An Teallach, we are in the company of the climber, geologist and explosives expert, Lord Cromartie, John Mackenzie (a former Mountaineering Scotland president). Colin also gets a lesson in the Gaelic place names of the area from local expert, Clarinda Chant.

The film also sets Colin’s work in the context of the great Scottish photographer, Robert Moyes Adam, and Colin tries to imitate his classic view of An Teallach with a vintage 5x4 plate camera.

An Teallach - the blacksmith’s forge - is, for many, Scotland’s most spectacular mountain and has been described as a complete mountain range in miniature.

The other two mountains featured in the programme are the isolated A’Mhaighdean in the centre of the Letterewe wilderness, and the highest of the Coigach hills, Cul Mor. The programme also features someone who knows Cul Mor intimately, the stalker, Duncan MacKenzie.      

Twenty five years after he first set foot here, Colin Prior is back - to take what he plans will be a definitive set of photographs that capture these hills of north-west Scotland in all their many moods.

According to Executive Producer Richard Else of Adventure Show Productions, the film “reflects the phenomenal interest in photography in all its many forms.

“Watching Colin at work offers a rare insight into an exceptional landscape photographer painstakingly working in a world class background.”

It not only follows Colin’s long love affair with An Teallach but also documents his development as an artist. “His first expedition here ended in failure,” added Richard. “Now he produces images that all photographers aspire to but very, very few can equal.”

The documentary will be shown on BBC2 Scotland at 8pm on Monday, 17^th April.