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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Plummer is a passionate, experienced and respected wildlife

expert and professional photographer. His images are featured in leading

publications and he is a regular guest on TV and radio. David advises

internationally on eco-tourism and is a proactive conservationist.

Wildlife and photography have always been David’s two great loves.

He is a wildlife photographer who only takes pictures of wild animals

in their natural habitat. His extensive knowledge of the animals and

birds and their environment is the first essential ingredient behind his

breathtaking images. The second vital element is research: David studies

relentlessly to get under the skin of a new subject before heading into

the field. The third is endless patience: David regularly waits for hours,

often in the most inhospitable environments, to get the perfect shot.

‘Taking the perfect image is a great quest. The buzz that I get when

I achieve it is the culmination of a lot of hard work and problem-solving

to get inside the fear circle of that animal: there is nothing serendipitous

about the perfect wildlife photo. And everything in the image is

important to me: the animal, the perch, the background, the lighting.

But it’s never over: we can always get different shots, different

behaviours.’

In 2016, when he was featured in a BBC film made for

The One

Show,

David spoke publicly for the first time about living with Parkinson’s

disease. His unrelentingly positive attitude, combined with more than a

touch of belligerence, has helped David prove that life with Parkinson’s

does not only go on but can be lived magnificently. It is widely regarded

that David has achieved his best work since his diagnosis seven years

ago, and he hopes that by showcasing these photographs he can inspire

others to believe that Parkinson’s does not have to mean the end of a life

worth living. David is donating 50 per cent of his profits from this book

to Parkinson’s UK charity.

DEAR READER

The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded

directly by readers through a new website: Unbound. Unbound is the creation of three writers.

We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and

readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly

with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a

beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever

books are sold, in shops and online.

This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this

way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. At the back of this

book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy,

and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the

profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have

your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £ 5 discount on your

first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type 7years in the promo code box

when you check out.

Thank you for your support,

Dan, Justin and John

Founders, Unbound

Unbound

This edition fi rst published in 2017

6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF

www.unbound.com

The right of David Plummer to be identifi ed as the author of this work

has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied,

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form

or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be

otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on

the subsequent purchaser.

Photographs pp. 1, 110 © Viv Nicholas, 2017

Photograph p. 188 © Jenny Foster, 2017

Photographs pp. 242–47 © Ricardo Casarin, 2017

Photograph p. 249 © Jimmy Tinka, 2017

All other photographs © David Plummer, 2017

Page design by Essential Works

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78352-393-1 (trade hbk)

ISBN 978-1-78352-394-8 (ebook)

ISBN 978-1-78352-392-4 (limited edition)

Printed in Italy by L.E.G.O. S.p.A.

To all my friends and family, who know I’ve

always been a bit bonkers but still had faith

that something might turn out right.

FOREWORD

first met David whilst presenting a piece for BBC’s The One Show.

I had been told by the series producer that I was going to meet a

photographer who had built a floating hide and was getting incredibly

intimate shots of water birds called Little Grebes on their nest.

Little Grebes can be notoriously difficult to get images of. Not only, as

their name suggests, are they pretty small so you need to get close to

them, but they’re also very shy and have a habit of popping down under

the water and disappearing whenever you get close.

It sounded a challenging and fun job.

I was going to go out with David, who had built me my own floating hide,

and together we would set sail onto a lake in Surrey to find these elusive

birds. A mini camouflaged armada, but with cameras not cannons, ready

to fire shots if we could find the birds in question.

I had read about floating hides many years ago and seen some results by

other talented photographers. The water level perspective gives you eye

to eye contact with your subject and the results are very intimate, quite

stunning and unlike anything you can get from a hide based on the side

of a lake or river bank. These hides really are the best way to photograph

water birds.

Despite knowing this, I had never built a floating hide myself; not only am

I terrible when it comes to practical things involving drills and saws and

the like, but I guess to be honest, I’m a bit lazy too. When it comes down

to it, DIY is not for me and that has got in the way of me achieving many

images I would’ve liked. I am certainly not a great example to follow

when it comes to wildlife photography in this respect.

So this was a golden opportunity to use one of these hides for the first

time and I couldn’t wait.

When I met David on the day of the shoot I got a big smile and a firm

handshake. We quickly got into the business of the day discussing

how to best maneuver the hide into the water and how to approach

the birds, and David gave me a few camera tips about photographing

whilst floating about.

I was very taken with how well David knew what he was up to and how

determined he was to make this work. It’s one thing photographing

wildlife on your own, but when you’ve got a TV presenter and

accompanying camera crew in tow, you just made everything ten

times more complicated for yourself.

But for David, none of this seemed to matter and true to his word,

I got the best shots of Little Grebes on their nest that I could possibly

imagine and The One Show got a lovely film too.

I’m sure some of David’s Little Grebe photos will appear somewhere

in this book, they should!

After we met I went on to look at more of David’s work and found it all

to be bold, direct and clear. Shining a characterful light on some of our

best loved animal species.

If you know anything of wildlife photography you know, when looking

at the images in this book, that these are photographs that have been

thought about in great detail. Good ideas, well planned and then well

executed. Just as my day with the Little Grebes had been.

SEVEN YEARS OF CAMERA SHAKE

And it’s this kind of preparation that makes the difference between those

that can photograph wildlife well, and those who cannot. David is most

certainly a man that can!

With this in mind then, I’m tempted not to even bother mentioning

the second time I met David. It was to make a film about the fact that

David has Parkinson’s Disease.

But mention it I have. Why? Well, it’s important that Parkinson’s has

nothing to do with how we look at David’s work, it speaks for itself.

But I feel the disease has everything to do with how we should look

at David’s approach to life.

Where so many others have failed he’s succeeded. He has turned his

passion into a career and has done so whilst living a life that could have

overwhelmed and sunk him before he had even begun to get close to

his ambition.

Instead he found inspiration in the natural word and turned his energies

into capturing it with his camera. He focused his mind on celebrating life,

when he could be dwelling on darker things.

So the disease says nothing about his photographs, but his photographs

say a lot about the disease and, how a life with it, can still be so well lived.

This book bursts with the determination, clarity and sense of purpose

that belongs to an exceptional man and a talented photographer. It will

sit very proudly on my bookshelf and be enjoyed time and time again,

spurring me on to achieve the very best I can in every aspect of my life.

I am sure it will do the same for you.

Richard Taylor-Jones

Naturalist, Presenter, Photographer

FOREWORD