Mike Powles’ Nature’s Visions - wildlife travel and landscape images

Mike is a full time photographer and tour leader living on Norfolk’s north coast where being up and about before dawn is a way of life.

To be in wild country at the start of a brand new day is addictive.  For Mike, wild places are a passion whether in pursuit of ethnic peoples, landscapes, giant pandas, tigers, primates or big cats, or at home with foxes, otters and the UK’s other wild creatures – just being there is a privilege.

Mike believes that practised field craft and simple rules are the key to successful nature photography:  know and understand the behaviour of your subject, patience, the right light, hard work and recognising the decisive moment.

The majority of his year is spent pursuing wildlife here in the UK for clients and stock. Recent commissions have included the following: recording the restoration of wildlife habitats, capturing images of resident wildlife and important landscapes within large estates, conservation grade farming projects and a number of species reintroduction programmes.

The remainder of the year finds him overseas, either working for stock or escorting guests on photographic journeys to capture images of wildlife, peoples and landscapes around the world. Having travelled to more than 60 countries, Mike has a network of friends and experienced and knowledgeable contacts on all continents.

With the ever increasing pressure on our planet’s wild places, Mike’s travels are focussed on creating the opportunity to share with kindred spirits what, in some cases, may be a “last chance to see” – whether it is an  endangered species, a wild land or ethnic peoples.

Recent trips have found Mike with fellow travellers in India – exploring its deserts and in pursuit Bengal tigers, in Southern Tanzania – experiencing Africa as it used to be, in Botswana  - the Delta, with fantastic lion prides and huge aggregations of elephant,  and in China – for giant pandas and Siberian tigers.

In 2000 Mike was a winner in the British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition in the category “The World in our Hands” and in 2003 he won the “Travel” category in the Royal Geographical Society Photographer of the Year Competition.

Mike’s work has been exhibited at London’s Heathrow Airport and has been used by the BBC, RSPB, National Geographic and British Petroleum amongst others.  In addition his images appear in books, greeting cards, calendars and fine art posters.