Donald Ford was born in Linlithgow in 1944 into a sporting family. His father, a veterinary surgeon, won three Scottish caps at cricket, his elder brother Malcolm won nineteen while his mother boasted a Ladies' Championship victory at Linlithgow Golf Club.

 

It was football which took priority for Donald though and in 1964, he signed for Hearts, playing as an amateur until 1968. When a knee injury brought his football career to an end in 1976 he went on to practise as an accountant in the business he had established in Linlithgow in 1968. However he embarked on an entirely new career in Scottish landscape photography in the late 1980’s and began publishing his work, opening the Donald Ford Gallery in South Queensferry in 1994. His first Scottish calendar for 1996 went on sale with all 4,500 copies selling out. Since then, several large books of both his landscape and golf photography have been published, together with diaries, address books and calendars, many of which have gone all over the world.

 

Donald’s work is widely distributed to both private and corporate sources and the annual publications of his Scottish golf course photography, in particular, are now acknowledged as the finest available. His strength of composition and obvious love of Scotland's kaleidoscopic characteristics are major features of his photography. Never better are they evidenced than in some wonderful shots ofearly morning light on many of Scotland's finest links, from his favourite haunts amidst the unique landscape of Assynt, or aboard any of the Hebridean Isles - Inner and Outer - whose fantastic lightscapes turn the west coast into a photographers dream.