Michael Gore CVO, CBE, FRPS (Joined May 1990)
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I have been fascinated by birds since my schooldays and took a few photographs of birds at the nest in Sussex in the early 1950s. Most of my working life was spent overseas firstly as an Army officer and then with HM Diplomatic Service. I continued to watch birds in my various postings and in 1971 co-authored The Birds of Korea with a Korean ornithologist, Dr Won Pyong-oh. I did not take up bird photography again until I was posted to Uruguay in 1971 where I co-authored Las Aves del Uruguay with an Uruguayan ornithologist, Alfred Gepp, and we decided it would be illustrated with photographs. From Uruguay in 1974 we moved to The Gambia where I was appointed Deputy High Commissioner and here I really “got the bug” for bird photography. During my tour I wrote the definitive work on the birds of The Gambia published by the British Ornithologist’s Union. Postings to Kenya, Malawi and Liberia followed, enabling me to photograph a wide range of African wildlife, and in Kenya I wrote and illustrated a popular tourist guidebook - On Safari in Kenya - An Illustrated Guide to the National Parks and Reserves. From Africa we moved to the Caribbean, firstly to the Bahamas and lastly to the Cayman Islands where I was appointed Governor. Both were good for watching birds and for bird photography. Since retiring in 1995 I have travelled the world with my wife photographing wildlife. We have been to the Arctic and Antarctic, North and South America, Australia, India and Japan and we spend two months a year in Cyprus where we have a home in the pine forest on Mount Olympus. Birds remain my favourite subject but elephants come a close second. I moved from taking transparencies to digital in 2002.