Mary Plage 

Mary began her professional life working in a bank in Bath, UK, with her adventures into wildlife filmmaking beginning in 1975, when she met and married Dieter Plage, the renowned Survival Wildlife Cameraman.

Together Mary and Dieter travelled the world filming pioneering footage for Anglia Television, initially exchanging Mary’s bookkeeping skills for Dieter’s photography tuition. Their work took them travelling extensively round India, Sri Lanka, Galapagos, Sumatra and Australia to name a few. During this, Mary became an established photographer, producing publicity stills for Survival programmes, as well as stills and articles for National Geographic Magazine.

Both Mary and Dieter featured in A Breed Apart: The Wildlife Cameraman (1984), a documentary about their lives as wildlife filmmakers and they continued to collaborate up until Dieter’s death in 1993.

During her career, Mary contributed to a number of the groundbreaking films for Survival, many of which are still broadcast today. Mary has now retired and lives in Norfolk, UK.

Oral History

WildFilmHistory Films

The Secret World of Bats (1991)

Additional Photography