I wanted to show you this beautiful image by Jana Hoffman. She was on my Isle of Eigg workshop this September.
What appears at first to be a body wrapped in plastic, is of course, just plastic wrapping that has washed up on Laig bay. There is often so much jetsam and flotsam that comes up on the beaches of Eigg each year and this was perhaps too good to pass up on.
Image by Jana Hoffman. Isle of Eigg workshop participant 2026.
I think what makes this image, is the long exposure in the background. The island of Rum is just beautifully veiled in cloud. And the sea wash is also beautiful.
Interestingly for me, the initial edit of this image did not go well and I had considered rejecting the image. By the end of the workshop it was one of my favourites from the week.
During my mentoring workshops, I like to discuss editing, as I feel that we learn to compose better and look out for obstacles in our compositions during the editing stage. Not the capture stage as many assume.
Below is the initial capture turned to black and white with no filtration applied.
Anyone can use Lightroom. With a bit more effort Photoshop can be harnessed as well, but it is the ‘what to do’ rather than the ‘how to’ that does not come with the software knowledge. Interpreting a scene is a skill. With no single definitive way to edit images, an image can be interpreted and re-interpreted forever.
Wrapped up in the interpretation are our own aesthetic leanings (tastes), and also our ability to ‘see’ or not, as is often the case for the less experienced editor.
Many thanks to Jana for allowing me to reproduce her image.
