THE SUNRISE DETECTIVE
He spent decades tracking the most dangerous criminals in his role as a counter-terrorism detective.
But John McSporran is now more likely to be found scrambling up a mountain in the dark searching for a perfect sunrise.
The former senior police officer has become a top landscape photographer, his images attracting worldwide acclaim with millions of views online.
His beat now, atop the mountains of Glencoe or among the hills and lochs of the Trossachs, might be far removed from his previous work. But John says there are more similarities between the two than people might imagine.
He said: “When you’re in CID, you can get called out at any time and the job can have very irregular hours. There’s a lot of planning involved.
“Equally, landscape photography involves aspects like constantly checking weather forecasts.
“You need to know when the sun will rise and set and where in the sky it will be. You need to assess temperatures and cloud cover. If you’re camping up near the top of these mountains, you can be taking a 55lb pack.
“So for a lot of landscape shots, a great deal of planning and preparation goes into it. The same thought processes go into it in many senses as goes into undertaking inquiries in CID.”
John spent 30 years with Strathclyde Police, rising to detective superintendent and working with the Major Investigation Teams.
He was also the force’s head of special operations, managing the police response to organised crime and counter-terrorism.
His career saw him spend several months in 2005 as an adviser to the Anti- Corruption Commission in Sierra Leone, west Africa.
The high-f lyer helped to train staff and introduce intelligence systems to combat threats to security as the country emerged from civil war.
But John now splits his time between his Glasgow home and the Trossachs.
As well as his photography, he works as a senior investigator with the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, probing the activities of police officers.
He said: “I spent my career working in Glasgow, although much of my time was in counter-terrorism and it’s difficult to talk in any detail about that kind of work.
“I retired from the police four years ago but had always been interested in photography.
“I first got into it back in the days of film before other commitments came along. When I retired, I had the opportunity to start doing it again. I took up hillclimbing and wild camping, especially in Glencoe and the Trossachs, and progressed from there.
“I began to put my photos on my Flickr website and things just began to take off.”
He now has more than 5000 followers on Flickr, where his photos have had more than two million views.
The ex-detective has been published in national and local newspapers. His work has also been used in calendars and as mobile phone screen savers.
He doesn’t charge for his photos – but remembers one example where he perhaps could have.
He said: “Quite a few people are starting to use them. I called one of my photos If Only after a company called to ask if they could use it in a 2016 calendar.”
The photo shows a pier at Newark Castle, Port Glasgow. John granted permission – free of charge – and asked how many calendars they were printing.
He said: “They said they were doing an initial print run of about 100.
“I thought little more of it until I received a letter thanking me for the photo and enclosing three calendars from their initial print run of 100,000. I decided to call that photo If Only.”