Martin and Karen Plant are nature photographers based in the UK. They frequently travel to the USA and to East Africa, and are now able to spend more time exploring the wildlife and landscapes of the UK and Europe.
Martin was given his first camera, a Kodak Instamatic, on his eighth birthday. He still has the images from the first roll of 12 that came with the camera. In his teens he inherited a darkroom kit from his grandfather and started developing his own black and whites. Photography was always an important part of his life although his career path took him into an ultimately unfulfilling corporate career. In 2005 he was lucky enough to be made redundant and was able to pursue photography as a career. Martin and Karen ran a successful portrait studio from 2007 until 2018. Now semi-retired they are able to devote more time to their first love – nature photography.
Karen inherited her love of photography from her father and would often borrow his cameras. A trip to the Far East with its temptingly-priced equipment led Karen to invest in her own camera and lenses. After that annual holidays trended towards being more photography oriented until eventually Karen and Martin would travel with specific photographic objectives in mind. In their studio Karen was the specialist image editor and retoucher.
If you’re curious to know what gear Martin and Karen are currently using then have a look at this page: what’s in the camera bags