Tributes have been paid to award-winning wildlife cameraman and photographer Doug Allan OBE who has died in Nepal after becoming unwell.
Allan (74) had a close connection with Ireland, particularly Connemara, and participated regularly in the Clifden Arts Festival.
He was principal cameraman on BBC documentaries including The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet, and spent much of his career working alongside Sir David Attenborough.
BBC News reports that he suffered breathing difficulties soon after setting out on a trek to Annapurna base camp earlier this week.
It quotes doctors saying he died of a brain haemorrhage in hospital in Pokhara, Nepal, on Wednesday.
Allan, who was born in 1951 in Dunfermline, Fife, has won eight Emmy Awards for his work and was conferred with an OBE for services to broadcast media and environmental awareness in 2024.
The quick-witted Scot said he became interested in snorkelling and diving after watching Jacques Cousteau's film, The Silent World, a 1956 documentary which was one of the first to use underwater filming.
After graduating with a degree in marine biology from the University of Stirling, he took on a number of diving jobs.
He was employed as a research diver with the British Antarctic Survey, stationed at Signy Island in the South Orkney Islands and was later awarded the Polar Medal, an honour he would be conferred with twice.
In 1981, a chance meeting with Attenborough led to Allan working on the documentary series Living Planet, part of which was filmed in the Antarctic.
He has filmed whales transiting from Antarctica up to the Arctic pack ice, life on a coral reef in the Red Sea and Indonesia, and has been nose to nose with mating Right whales in Patagonia.
In September 2020 he launched Spirorbis, a memoir by his long-time friend and fellow adventurer Peter Vine (published by Artisan House) at the Clifden Arts Festival.
In a two-part interview with Wavelengths for Afloat in May 2021, he spoke about tuning in to the rhythms of the reef, singing happy birthday to belugas, how polar bears will smell you before they see you, why sharks get a bad press and how it’s more common for surfers than divers to get attacked by them.
His ex-wife Sue Flood OBE, also a wildlife photographer, said on social media that “it was "of comfort to know that he was doing something adventurous with a dear friend of ours, with whom he'd shared many adventures over several decades".
Allan's management company, Jo Sarsby Management, said he was “immersed in nature and surrounded by friends”.
It has described him as a "true pioneer of wildlife filmmaking", and said that “Doug leaves behind a visual legacy that few could ever match”.
“His work brought audiences closer to the wonders of our planet, inspiring awe, understanding and deep respect for the planet.”
Listen back to Doug Allan in a two-part interview on Afloat here and here
