Bio

Dr Robin Williams has had a distinguished photographic career that spans four decades on three continents. He is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, the British Institute of Professional Photography, the Biological Photographic Association of America, and the Institute of Medical Illustrators. He holds undergraduate qualifications in both scientific and medical photography and Masters and PhD degrees in Medicine. He was a Professor of Photography for over 20 years. He has run workshops all over the world and taught and supervised hundreds of photography students at undergraduate and post-graduate levels in the UK, the USA, and Australia. He has published over 70 original papers and books and delivered more than 400 conference papers. His work can be found in galleries and private venues all over the world, has been featured in travelling exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society and The Arts Council of Great Britain. Now retired, Dr Williams is pursuing his passion for photography as a landscape and nature photographer and recently won the International Garden Photographer of the Year. The artist and the scientist in me are always in restless juxtaposition. It is my Ying and Yang. Photography is a remarkable blend of art and science and in photography I found my natural habitat. As a medical photographer I was required to be objective and to make not just faithful reproductions, but ones which were consistent and accurate to the extent that measurements could be taken from them. And yet amidst this pure science I found beauty – images that were both tools of investigation and also an expression of pure natural beauty. At their most harmonious the artist and scientist in me allow me to capture a faithful image that also engages the viewer in the sheer beauty of the natural world. The greatest reward is when a viewer connects with an image emotionally: when they say they wish they had been there to experience what they see and feel when they view my photographs. The peace, the excitement, the solitude, the awe inspiring visual feast that is the natural world.