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1993 geography graduate Niall has an enviable career making his name as an international wildlife and landscape photographer in wild corners of Scotland and Europe including Latvia, Poland and Norway.
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Building a rich picture bank of popular species and predicting "animal chic" - are among the business talents which have helped Niall turn his lifelong passion for photography into a way of life. But a chunky contacts book, a certain inventive streak and a supportive it's important to stay within your depth as paddling can be very difficult in these circumstances and you'll quickly be washed away" he said cheerfully.
This technique has been particularly effective at Montrose Basin Nature Reserve which is especially rich in waterfowl. In fact it's mostly on land that these birds perform for the cameras but getting close to their habitual patch on the sand banks is tricky. With the hide, Niall can wait for the tide to wash him up there naturally and get the intimate photographs he needs without disturbing them at all.
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Getting close to a musk ox - a bison-like creature native to the Arctic tundra, with a long shaggy coat and fantastically curved horns - is a very different proposition. For these shots Niall travelled to Norway where, guided by Dr Duncan Halley, a Dundee-born biologist working in Norway, he had to make his way to a wild mountainside in the remote Dovrefjell Nature Park, accessible only on ski.
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"I had never cross country skied before so it was an arduous journey and by the time I arrived I was already exhausted and in bad shape but absolutely determined to get the photographs. We took off our skis and climbed the hill with the photographic gear to where the musk ox were lying chewing the cud but that does not make for startling photographs so we waited in the sub zero temperatures. After about 45 minutes they got up and began to do their stuff. The musk ox were magnificent, the shots were satisfactory. It was only afterwards when the adrenalin rush had gone I suddenly realised how cold and hungry and fatigued I was - too cold even to hold anything to eat. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep in the snow."
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It was the first stages of hypothermia and luckily Duncan recognised the signs, took some of his gear, and cajoled him down the mountain and through many ski falls back to base.
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That network of international contacts is immeasurably useful in achieving the vital economy of "setting up" time.
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"You quickly learn that non-productive time waiting for a bird or animal to show up is expensive. It's much more effective to find out where the best chances are of getting close to, say a sea eagle or an osprey. I can pick up the phone and ask contacts both in this country and abroad. Is there anyone regularly feeding them? Is there a place they regularly haunt? Often it can be cheaper to fly to Eastern Europe to a favoured location than to spend time in the field in Scotland waiting and hoping."
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The foundations for that contacts network were set up when Niall was still a student at the University of Dundee. "I wasn't exactly a conventional student. I arrived in my mid twenties after running the family fruit farm for seven years. After selling the farm it was important to me to get a degree and find a career - geography seemed like an accessible subject and it also had a bearing on natural history and photography which I'd been interested in since boyhood. I did all my student work from 9 until 5 then spent evenings and weekends building a freelance career in writing and photographing. It amazes me that more students don't realise the market there is for that kind of thing. I never had a part time job at university like many of my peers but I managed to earn some useful income from this work. Some of the pictures I took then still sell today."
While in his second year he founded the Scottish Nature Photography Fair in Dundee, running it for the first five years before it was taken over by Scottish Natural Heritage who now stage it at Battleby, outside Perth.
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"Although wildlife photography is something I have always wanted to do I wouldn't say there was any single point that launched it all.
The first couple of years after graduating in 1993 were difficult but I am lucky in that my wife Rachel, a museum curator, supported me - paying the domestic bills until I got going.
I just built the business very slowly so it has always been self financing. Few successful photographers are frank about how they managed to get their businesses started which is a pity as I think it's of real and legitimate interest for others considering going down this route. Weathering that initial period until you get established and your name known - which may take five years - is difficult but essential. Once you start getting published regularly, the name becomes known to picture researchers and the work comes in."
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Niall has half a dozen agents in the UK, Germany and the US, although the majority of sales are directly through his own office. Commissioned work is very scarce in this business but he writes regularly for photographic magazines and, last year, was asked to picture the seasonal changes in the landscape at Bein Eighe in Wester Ross for the SNH. He has also contributed columns, pictures and features to newspapers including the Herald, Scotsman, Sunday Telegraph and "because I am not a proud man" the Sunday Post!
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"There are certain species which are eternally popular - what I call the 'blue chip species' such as red deer, otters and red squirrels. You have to build up a good bank of these pictures as they are regularly called upon. But there are some surprises at the other end of the scale too - for example another consistent seller is of otter spraint or dung !"
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Although he's been out of the university for over seven years Niall still claims to find his geography lecture notes useful. "Only the other day I was looking in the attic for notes from lectures by Bill Berry - who we inevitably knew as 'bilberry' - and Alan Small to help me with the book I'm currently working on, Creative Landscape Photography, to be published in October 2001 by David and Charles. It follows The Art of Nature Photography published in March 2000 (also by David and Charles) price £19.99. ISBN 0715309676.
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