Making a living from natural history photography is often claimed to be difficult. Someone who has got there through sheer passion is Ulsterman Robert Thompson

Hours spent up to your neck in water, crouched in cramped conditions or lying on your chest, doesn’t sound like the perfect working day, but for passionate natural history photographer, author and conservationist Robert Thompson, such time spent in pursuit of the perfect shot and specimen is akin to bliss.
“On Sunday I was photographing bog orchids. A change of clothes is essential to do good closeup work on the ground,” he enthuses. “I get soaked most of the time and so engrossed in what I’m doing that food doesn’t come into the equation. You have to focus completely on what you’re doing. My philosophy is: you can eat at any time but you can’t take pictures at any time. I don’t relax until I feel like I’ve got what I want in the bag. It involves early starts, late nights, weekend work and sometimes fitting the family around everything else.”
Born in Northern Ireland, Thompson’s lifelong love of flora and fauna can be attributed to a childhood living on a large parkland estate where he romantically collected butterflies in jam jars. Getting into photography in his twenties, he combined taking pictures with environmental surveys of habitats for various insect groups – indeed his pictures grew out of the desire to record what he found and to take things to another level. Since late 1999 he has been operating as a professional photographer.