{"id":655447,"date":"2025-12-26T07:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/655447\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T07:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:26:11","slug":"i-was-once-charged-by-a-musk-ox-and-they-can-shift-fortunately-i-could-shift-faster-than-the-photographer-i-was-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/655447\/","title":{"rendered":"I was once charged by a musk ox \u2013 and they can shift. Fortunately, I could shift faster than the photographer I was with&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What inspired you to get into wildlife photography in the first place?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I went to a lecture by the photographer Laurie Campbell. His first slide was a robin on a spade \u2013 a cliched shot, but on that huge screen, it blew me away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If not Scotland, where would you live?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Somewhere cold and snowy. Maybe Norway.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red squirrel or lynx?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve got to love a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/facts-about-red-squirrels\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">red squirrel<\/a>. But we\u2019re one of just a handful of European countries refusing to live with large predators. There\u2019s an ecological, economic and moral case for bringing back the lynx.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What shot is most important to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A simple silhouette of a whooper swan standing on a frozen loch at dawn in winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I can still remember the sun burning through the mist. Photography delivers both great images and lasting memories.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s been your closest shave?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was once charged by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/musk-ox-facts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">musk ox<\/a> \u2013 and they can shift. Fortunately, I could shift faster than the photographer I was with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the poorest investment of your time on a shoot?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I spent three months trying to capture a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/birds\/facts-about-golden-eagles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">golden eagle<\/a> on a camera trap. It was 150km away and an hour\u2019s trek across open hill ground. I made around 40 trips only to find that rain or snow had fogged the lens, mice had chewed the cable or the light was too low. I ended up with one image.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your most useless piece of kit?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Just before drones were mass produced, I paid \u00a36,000 for a bespoke rig. I flew it three times and then couldn\u2019t even give it away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you lost much gear in the field?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes. Note to self: don\u2019t leave a camera bag on a beach when the tide is coming in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have any advice to budding wildlife photographers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Trends come and go, but tell powerful visual stories and you will always have<br \/>an audience.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.petercairnsphotography.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pete Cairns<\/a> is a conservation photographer and founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotlandbigpicture.com\/learning-days\/letting-nature-lead\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scotland: The Big Picture<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Main image: Getty<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What inspired you to get into wildlife photography in the first place? I went to a lecture by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-655447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115784684926543683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}