Just heading home from my workshop up in Assynt. Been coming here since 2000. So that is now twenty six years.

We had a mixture of weather this week, but overall, we got some very nice shots. Here are the images that I chose to edit from all of the participants.

What I like to do on the ‘Scottish’ trips, is take a digital projector with me. We have a private room in the hotel and we do a ‘review+edit’ for two hours each morning after the sunrise shoot and breakfast.

It’s hard for me to explain what the ‘review+edit’ is like. I am always encouraging, but I do point out where I think the composition does not work, how it could have been improved (often by moving) and then choose to use the participant’s images to show editing techniques. Rather than assuming my aim is to ‘make the image better’, I like to emphasise that it’s more about conveying concepts. My edits are often not precise enough at the time - I am after all, editing live in front of a group. I have always found that I need to live with my edits for a few days to help my eye adjust. As the week goes on, I then start to show the group how I would assemble a portfolio, and often use one image as a ‘reference’ to help me notice discrepancies in others.

Always the aim is to educate. Never to ‘perfect the images’. So I am not there to micro manage images, and we can sometimes get lost in someone’s feeling that something is ‘not quite right’. With a group of six people, it’s not a good idea to edit by committee. So I often make a point at the beginning of the week that the aim is to show concepts, and not to spend time fine tuning them.

Thanks to everyone who came. We had a great time. I love coming to Assynt and Ullapool.