Life from back seat of my car
Snapper I was stuck inside a BMW but these pics were my liberation
When Scott Wilson was told the cancer treatment he needed to save his life meant he had to avoid sunlight, he refused to give up his passion for outdoor photography.
Living in sunny Denver, Colorado, the award- winning lensman decided to try shooting images from inside the protective shade of his car.
Driving to both a nearby park and wildlife reserve, he sat in the back of his family’s BMW and shot images through the car windows.
Now, 12 months on, Scott – who is originally from Glasgow – is in no doubt the joy he felt from taking wildlife photos was a powerful weapon in helping him beat the disease.
And he hopes a book he has put together of the stunning images he captured from his car will not only help raise awareness of early detection of bowel cancer but inspire others not to be defeated by obstacles they face in life.
Scott, 49, said: “Taking these pictures was my liberation. To have been diagnosed with cancer was bad enough. Then to be told that I couldn’t be out in the sunlight so couldn’t follow my passion, well, that was like being punched twice.
“As far as I was concerned, a big part of getting through my treatment was keeping life as normal as possible and continuing to do what was important to me.
“I came up with the idea of taking pictures from my car and I couldn’t be happier with the results – both in terms of the photos I took and being told by my doctors they can now find no evidence of any disease.”
Dad-of-two Scott was diagnosed with bowel cancer in September last year, 12 months after moving to America to take up the post of chief corporate affairs officer with brewery giants Molson Coors.
He was told he would need to have major surgery followed by a 40-week treatment programme of chemotherapy.
And he was warned one of the side effects to his specific treatment would be a severe hyper-sensitivity to sunlight.
Scott, whose mother died from bowel cancer aged 59, said: “Without over-blowing it, life at the time just before my diagnosis was fantastic.
“I had moved to America with my beautiful wife Jaione and two amazing children Andrew and Alba, we had a dream home, we loved Denver life and really felt like we had made it. “Then, one year later, I was told I had a large mass in my colon.
“In my mid- 40s, I had gone to my doctor in the UK, worried about my mum’s early death, and asked to be screened for the disease.
“I was told that despite what happened to my mum, I didn’t qualify for a colonoscopy but they gave me a stool test and told me everything was fine.
“Less than five years on, I felt as fit as I had ever been but noticed a few spots of blood when I went to the toilet. I got it checked out and tests showed I not only had colon cancer but the disease had travelled to my liver.
“I was told it was likely I’d had the disease for more than five years so, if I’d been offered colonoscopy screening in the UK when I was worried, things could have been different. But there is no point in being angry or resentful.
“I’ve heard stories since of people in the exact same situation as me being told, ‘There’s not much we can do for you – you’ve only got six months.’ “But my consultant was amazing and, while he didn’t give me a great prognosis, he didn’t give me a poor one either. He just said, ‘Let’s get through this,’ and we did.”
Scott, a four-time finalist in the Landscape Photographer of the Year awards, said: “I was lucky I didn’t have too many side effects from my treatment so I was able to keep going to work around 70 per cent of the time.
“But one of my biggest loves at the weekend was going off really early in the morning and shooting sunrises and I wanted to keep that photography normality going too.”
Scott swapped taking photos of landscapes for taking shots of wildlife at beauty spots near his home. He said: “I would drive my car to a couple of places – Cherry Creek State Park and Rocky Mountain Arsenal. They have road systems so they were almost like safari parks, which meant I could stop the car and shoot.
“I soon learned that the back seat of the car offers far more manoeuvrability than trying to vault a gear stick with a 400mm lens in your hands and to pull in the wing mirrors too.”
Scott would comfortably sit for hours on end, armed with coffee and sandwiches, waiting for what might just be a fleeting moment when a bird or animal would appear.
He believes the creatures were less startled by the sight of his vehicle than they would have been by the sight of a photographer on foot. He ended up capturing images of everything from tiny hummingbirds and burrowing owls to badgers and bison.
He said: “My one issue taking the picture was that I suffered from neuropathy as result of my treatment, meaning my finger felt numb. I could hold a camera but, when was trained on an animal, I would hit th button and nothing would happen.
“I realised I wasn’t touching the shutter, was touching the bit of camera next to it. So I put a little dot of paint on the shutter releas button and it was a bit like braille so I knew exactly where it was.”
Scott, who is also a resident artist at gallery in Denver, was so delighted with hi
To be told I couldn’t follow my passion was like being punched twice
shots, he launched a Kickstarter campaign to cover the printing costs of publishing a book of his work – with all proceeds from its sale going to America’s Colon Cancer Alliance.
Last month doctors told Scott his cancer treatment had worked so successful ly, they could find no trace of the disease in his body.
While he is deeply thankful for the powerful drugs and expert medical care he received, he also believes a positive “survivor mindset” – helped by his photography – played a role. He hopes his book – Through The Window: A Photographic Tale of Cancer Recovery – will inspire others diagnosed with serious illness. Scott said: “I’ve called the book Through The Window because every wildlife image I ’ ve created since beginning chemotherapy was shot through the window of my car.
“This book chronicles my journey back to full health through my wildlife lens and I hope demonstrates what can be achieved if you are determined to keep your mind and passions alive.”