Assynt is a special place, situated in the far north west of Scotland. It’s not so well known as places like Glencoe, but I think that’s more to do with Glencoe’s accessibility. While Glencoe has a major trunk road going right through it, Assynt is tucked away from most people and certainly, the photographic press don’t cover it much, if at all. Which is a blessing as well as a burden. A blessing because it’s not overrun with photographers and a burden, because it takes more effort to convince people to come here!

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This podcast deals with the subject of isolation. Perhaps the biggest thing that bothers me while I’m away making images.

I sometimes find myself feeling too much on my own and in this podcast, I try to ask some questions: is it a wild landscape that makes us feel isolated, or does the landscape more or less amplify our own feelings and reflect them back to us?

I’ve been pumping out the podcasts lately. I’m sorry for the sporadic publication of these. It takes quite some time to put them together…. but they are a labour of love on my part. I often find I can get round to doing them when I feel inspired to do so. With any ‘art’, it can’t be rushed, and conversely, you have to strike when the iron is hot (take action when you’re feeling creative). I’ve been feeling creative this past few weeks.

The reason I got into making podcasts was because I was inspired by a podcast I saw by Jake Warga. He’s an independent reporter.

I was intrigued by Jake’s podcast. There was a great story, good production values and good photography too. I’ve always been interested in reportage, and so for me, it felt like Jake had shown me how to combine my photography with a story.

I’ve been talking to Jake for the past two years now. He’s in Patagonia at the moment, and he’s approached me about doing an interview. I’ll let you know if something comes of it.

Anyway, I’d love to show you some new stuff by Jake. I’ve just been on YouTube tonight and found these. I think they’re great. It’s interesting stuff.

I know that many of the visitors to my site are interested in Landscape Photography only, but I personally feel that most of us start there and progress to other forms of photography. I love portraiture and reportage. I’d love to do some reportage at some point: to tell a story. Perhaps later this year if I manage to make it to Ethiopia (next place on my list). Until then, why not watch these two podcasts to see someone weave a story with some excellent audio and photography:

India was captivating in many ways. In this podcast, I try to convey how overpowering India’s culture is and how it affected my approach to portraiture photography.

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Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on my trip to India and to re-charge my batteries, I’d love to go back. I think we need something to challenge us, to surprise us from time to time and in that respect, India succeeds hands down.

I’m really quite surprised to discover that it’s taken me just over a year to get round to putting this little podcast together. I think there was a lot going on for me last year and a lot of travel. It was so satisfying going back to the audio recordings I made whilst in India and listening to them with fresh ears. It took me right back. I’m hoping to record more ambient sound for future podcasts….. it’s a much more enriching experience to have sound as well as photos. Perhaps even video at some point, but I feel that involves quite a bit of a leap in technique. For the time being, I’m just going to stick with iMovie for my basic slideshows and an Audio recorder (Sony PCM-D50 which is great by the way) and of course, my photography for the substance to my podcasts.

Now available under the podcast section of my web site, I’ve a new podcast about Harris & Lewis. Confusingly, Harris and Lewis are the same island. The south part is called Harris while the north part is called Lewis.

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I’ve been twice now – first in May 2009 and then back in November 2009. It’s an hypnotic place and the light last November was stunning. Dramatic, changeable and moody. I hope to get back to putting some new podcasts together. I’d like to discuss Assynt and Skye too, perhaps talking about the efforts that I go into making a trip and staying out there for a concentrated time. Until then, I hope you enjoy this little podcast!

I’ve not even begun to work on my Indian images yet. But along while back, sometime in February when I got home, I started to collate all the usable images from my visits to the Taj Mahal.

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It’s quite an incredible landmark and it didn’t disappoint me. Photographically however, I was restricted : they won’t let you in with a tripod or any recording devices. Still, I did manage to smuggle an audio recorder past the entrance gates. So in this podcast, you can hear ambience from the surrounding gardens. It’s hard for me to explain, but it was just so calming to be there, despite the fact that I was there with 1000 other people at 6am in terrible smog.

My throat and lungs ached after spending a couple of hours there. So bad was the pollution.

However, the Taj Mahal is simply one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. It did not disappoint.

I went perhaps three or four times, and the last time was enough for me. Going in the evening is the worst because everyone, and I mean everyone, is there. It was like Disney Land. Terrible. It’s also a shame that the gardeners are onto touting the tourists too. After spending weeks being harassed by threatening touts, I thought I was going to get some peace in the gardens. So I was pretty frustrated when I had to tell the gardeners to leave me alone in peace.

I think the Taj Mahal has to be enjoyed in silence, with time to reflect, it’s a beautiful special place, more so because it is a reprieve from the madness of India.

I had no idea I was going to be so taken with this landscape.
The Bolivian Altiplano brings together a vast expanse of varied geological features under unusual climatic conditions.

For one thing, the altitude of the Altiplano averages around 4000 meters or 12,000 feet. The air is thin here and for no reason I can fathom, this seemed to guarantee stunning light each sunrise and sunset.

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Because of this, I felt that I pushed my tour guide and driver to their limits as we navigated the vast Salar de Uyuni landscape before sunrise and long after dusk. With scarcely defined roads, more a slight suggestion, a faint scar on the desert like landscape, it was hard for me to watch as my driver sped through the darkness with no visible signposts as to where we were, or where we were going.

And we sped on, often to some intangible destination that my driver knew about.

But I was suffering hard. A mixture of slight Altitude symptoms and running around too much, too soon after my ascent onto the altiplano had left me with a thumping headache and slight dizziness – symptoms of mountain sickness.

I felt overawed by the experience. Coupled with my suffering, everything regarding landscape photography seemed inverted. The ground was often brighter than the sky and the sunsets proved to be more impressive than the wondrous sunrises. I was never really just sure how to meter the landscapes for the film I was using.

This is not what I’ve come to expect from most of the landscapes I’ve photographed over the years.

Being so high up, I´d expected to feel cold, yet strangely I didn’t – even though I got caught out. Like a mouth that has gone numb and un-cooperative after a visit to the dentist, so I found my hands unable to operate my camera after being outside for more than half an hour in the dawn light.

As for my most lasting impression, well I must say that I tried one day to walk on the vast salt plain for as long as I could with my eyes completely closed. It didn’t take long for my mind to concoct imaginary obstacles in my path and I had to fight my instincts, which kept screaming at me to open my eyes. When I did, I was greeted with the unchanged, vast emptiness of the Salar and a feeling that I had been tricked. By my own mind of course.

Perhaps this was the Bolivian Altiplanos parting gift to me – a lesson that most limitations in my life come from within rather than from without.

I lost all sense of context whilst on Easter Island.

In this podcast, I explain how easy it is to lose your point of reference in a new land. In this case, I found that after a few days on Easter Island, I felt like I’d always been there. Home felt like it had never existed.

I sometimes find I lose all sense of context when I’m somewhere remote, making photographs.

I’m just not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

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Going to extreme lengths to get a shot of Cerro Torre, I ventured onto the southern Patagonian ice field.

In this podcast, I explain why sometimes, I go too far in the pursuit of an image.

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Depriving myself of sleep, I spent most evenings ‘lost in the moment’ above the arctic circle in Norway’s Lofoten Islands.

In this podcast, I explain why it’s possible to go slightly mad in the pursuit of photography.

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What does landscape photography mean to you? Is it a verbatim recording of a scene, captured for posterity, or is it something more?

In this podcast, I use a few select images from my Scotland landscapes to illustrate what landscapes mean to me, and why I chose to shoot them the way I did.

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