Workshop Reviews

Just a quick post today. The past week or so I've received reviews from two participants about the Assynt Workshop last year and also the Skye workshop this year.

The first review is from Mukul, who made the following image on my Assynt & Inverpolly workshop:

The second review is from Norrie, who was on the Skye workshop with me a few weeks ago:

I think they both sum up the workshops very well.

I like to think of my workshops as just that - true workshops, where we spend a lot of time critiquing images, learning from them and then apply what we're learning back out in the field.

The trips do tend to be 'full on', and we do immerse ourselves in photography for the entire week. If participants are willing to put a lot into the trip with an open mind, then they usually get a lot out of them. I know I learn a lot too.

Happy reading.

Skye Workshop - March 14th to 18th

Just a quick posting today to let you know there are only two spaces left for the Skye workshop this March if you're thinking about coming.

I made the shot above on the last workshop on Skye in December. We had terrific weather for the week we were on the island and the light as you can see was amazing too. This image was used by Outdoor Photography (UK publication, not to be confused with the US Outdoor Photographer magazine) for their February front cover. It's the second time I've had my images used by OP.

Often the coldest time of the year here in Scotland is around February and it often extends into March. Winter light is the best light so I'm looking forward to what March may bring in terms of dramatic light on Skye.

Last day of Skye Workshop

This post was written on the last day of my last workshop this year. I never got round to finishing it, but since I've just scanned the image below, I feel it's fitting to include the posting, post event, post posting if you like. --

Today is the last day of my last workshop of 2010, and I can't help but feel rather reflective about this year and just how it's gone.

It's been a bit of an amazing year for me. I've done quite a lot of workshops, I've met a load of really nice people on my trips and I feel I've expanded my life in a direction that I never really thought I'd go.

One thing that has been incredibly inspiring is just how positive a lot of the participants can be. They want to get out there, to experience the landscape and will do anything in their power to get to a workshop - even if the weather here in the UK is trying its very hardest to make sure the trip doesn't go ahead. I've also had a lot of encouragement from participants who believe in what I do, and for that, I can only thank them.

So I end today's last workshop with an image from Elgol. I spent a bit of time with Simon trying to express how using a rock in the foreground of a wide-angle shot will not work by using any old rock. What we use or choose to put into our frame should be elegant, have some form of symmetry to it, or as Simon says, it should be a 'pretty rock'. I think it just has to be 'special'. So we spent a bit of time with what I felt was a 'special' rock and I used it to compose the shot you see above of the Cuilins of Skye - only the second time in my life that I've seen them with snow on them.

End of season Workshop

I'm on the isle of Skye right now, half way through a workshop and we're having some terrific weather. Which is in some ways, surprising to most people here in the UK because England is mostly buried under some of the worst snow and blizzard conditions we've had for a long time, and Scotland, particularly the east coast, is inundated with terrible weather too.

But Skye and the north west, has got off lightly and things here are really great. We've had some beautiful mornings, and we even ventured up to the Storr yesterday evening for sunset. The main image is by Simon on the workshop. We've had some long distances to cover as Skye is a *big* island, but we've managed to get to Elgol and a few other nice locations on time for sunrise each morning.

I think it's interesting that winter often gives the best light here in Scotland, but for some reason, we seem incapable of dealing with any thickness of snow that comes our way. It's surprising really as Switzerland, Germany, etc, treat this kind of weather as the usual and everything continues as usual.

I'd like to finish this posting by saying how much of a terrific year I've had running the workshops. It's fitting to find that Outdoor Photography magazine here in the UK have chosen one of my Skye images to adorn the cover of their Christmas edition, while I finish off the year with my last workshop on Skye too. I feel this is a nice way to have closure on the year and it makes me feel encouraged about the year ahead.

Assynt Workshop Critiques

In September I carried out a workshop on the Isle of Eigg and I reviewed an image by each participant on this very blog. I thought it would be a nice feature, as and when I have some spare time, to review or critique some of the images from each workshop I do per month. So I'm going to continue with a review of the Assynt trip I did this October. We were very lucky with the weather, experiencing some really nice cold, calm days for most of the trip.

The first image I'd like to discuss is Barbara's image of Stac Pollaidh. Barbara is a beginner in photography and we spent a bit of time during the week covering hyper-focal focussing so that she could get her images sharp. It wasn't easy as she has one of the kit lenses which manages to rotate the front element each time she adjust focus or changes the placement of her ND grad filter, but she did really well and I loved this particular image she shot through the week.

I think it's very tempting to want to make images dark and dramatic, but the soft light on the mountain needed to be brought out without adding any contrast, so we did some fine tuning in Photoshop for this one. I liked the composition - Stac Pollaidh is mostly on a third on the right hand side of the frame and I feel the foreground trees aren't too distracting as they're nicely balanced and don't intrude into the space occupied by the mountain. We did some slight cropping to this shot during the critiques, but I have to say that there was very little that needed to be done, and that's an important lesson in it's own : leave it alone if it conveys what you want it to in the first place.

The next image below was made by Frank. We were at this loch a few times, which I feel is always worth doing because you get to understand a location and work out better compositions each time you return. So often in my workshops, we will visit the same location at least more than once. Frank used the light of the sun on the reeds to give a bit of mid ground presence and a grad on the sky to stop the ground from under-exposing. I liked his composition because there is an equal distance between the edges of the rock and the edges of the frame. I do seem to be very sensitive to balance in a shot these days I felt that Frank had created a very balanced foreground. My only crit was that standing a little further back and using a higher focal length lens would have brought the mountains more into the shot. At the moment they feel a little too far away for me. That's the problem with wide angle lenses, you can exaggerate foregrounds at the cost of pushing the background further away. But it's a lovely shot all the same, which is another important lesson. Just because the image didn't live up to perhaps what you intended, it has a soul of it's own and you should just let it be what it is. And it's a lovely image.

Els spent a bit of time with me going over compositions for the following shot. We spent a bit of time trying to get the right placement of the tree in the foreground so that it didn't intrude on anything in the background. The first few attempts led to images with clashing objects and the clouds reflected in the water caused some clashing too. This image worked out well because we moved further up the bank, perhaps maybe only a couple of feet. I often find that a composition can live or die purely by moving a few feet back or forward. Subtle changes also affect the composition which is why I'm a believer in first finding your composition, then setting up the tripod and using it to fine tune what you have.

Henk too the following image of Suliven early one morning. The day started off with little potential but as the sun rose, we realised there was a lot of drama and colour in the sky. The red tones at the horizon is the sun attempting to break through the heavy cloud cover. Under my instruction, Henk used a very long shutter speed for this image, courtesy of some ND filters to get the streaking effect across the sky. One way to create movement in a static landscape is to blur things, which I'm very fond of doing when the light and conditions are right. The cloud cover had enough contrast to project some movement and the wind was moving the clouds across the landscape at a pace that I knew would work well for this intended photo.

Mukul, I got the feeling, wasn't happy with most of his efforts during the week. That's often a sign of someone aiming too high, too quickly I feel, but despite how he felt, I thought this image was stunning. I think Rainbows are a little cliche, and only work well if they just so happen to appear in a well composed landscape shot. Mukul created a really interesting composition here. The light on the far away mountains is great, the rainbow occupies the north west area of the frame and is balanced by some bracken in the bottom right hand side of the frame. I also like the foreground foliage as it seems to give a 'foundation' to the image. It's tonality is similar to the mountains, but at the same time, it's non-distracting.

Tonino shot this image of the Stac Pollaidh mountain range from afar and he went straight for what was important: the drama in the sky. I love this image because of the mood as well as the composition. Keeping the mountains right at the bottom of the frame gives the main actor here (the sky) space to show off. The mountains act merely as a prop, a way of giving context to the sky.

As you can see, we had some great weather during the week. Many thanks to Barbara, Els, Frank, Henk, Mukul and Tonino for coming along.

Torridon Workshop

I'm in Torridon right now conducting a workshop with a group of six. This morning, we went out in one of the most beautiful days I've seen in Torridon for a long time and Hartmut, one of the participants made this image of some of us at Loch Clair (please click on the image for a much larger view).

Hartmut seemed to be much more interested in documentary shots (he was always photographing me during my talks), that I felt perhaps that Landscape was maybe not so much of an interest for him. But I'm very taken with this shot - it's a really nice blend of someone's interest in both documentary and landscape photography.

Many thanks to Hartmut for allowing me to show this image (and not incur any special license fee that he keeps joking with me about).

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Postscript - this was written yesterday, and since then, the workshop has sadly ended. I had a lovely time with the group they were such good company. So without further adieu, here are some contact sheets of the few images we chose to discuss at our critique and edit:

It was a great trip and as usual, the weekends are simply far too short. It's always a blast for me if the folk on the trip are willing to get into the trip and for that, I'd like to thank Fiona, Linda, Hartmut, James, John & Neil for coming along and creating such a nice group environment.

Ethiopia and things

Sorry my postings have been very quiet of late. I've had a lot of workshops and things on off late, so it's been a bit hectic. I thought I'd let you all know that I'm off to Ethiopia sometime in the next few weeks. I won't be able to post anything on the blog because there is no internet access there, but what I do intend to do is write up a journal about my daily activities and the 'memorable' photographs I hope to capture each day. This is with the intention of coming home and creating a pseudo-diary of events on my blog, with the processed film pictures to go with the writing. I think since I'm a film shooter, this is going to be a really nice way of letting you see what happened each day etc.... I think it matters little that the entries will not be in real time.

So anyway, I was on Eigg last week with a group of eight people. We had a great time and I have a really nice mixture of different nationalities: Swiss, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, English and of course one Scottish person too ;-) I hope to post a contact sheet or two from the groups efforts later on this week once I have had some time to rest. We ended the workshop on a nice note by putting together one big long slideshow with everyone's best images in it and married it to the music of Martyn Bennet and some of his recordings from the Glen Lyon CD. Very atmospheric it was too!

Arran Workshop

Last week I spent the week on the isle of Arran with a group of four participants. We had a good time and managed to cover a lot of different varied landscapes on Arran.

Arran is a subtle island. It does not have the dramatic peaks of Skye, nor the stunning expansive beaches of Harris, but as the tourist brochures say, it is 'Scotland in minature'. With a ring road that is 60 miles in circumference, we found most locations were within half an hour driving distance and so set off each morning around 5am to capture some of the best light. My favourite location is Pirate bay on the east side, as you may have seen on my portfolio of Arran to date, but there's a lot more to this island than initially meets the eye.

Where we stayed was ideal. I liked the rooms and we had a sitting room dedicated to us in the day time so we could review our images of the day and I even managed to slot in a showing of Michael Kenna's 'Hokkaido' video, which he kindly gave me permission to use (many thanks to the joy of giving something http://www.jgsinc.org/index2.php). It was interesting because each day I kept asking everyone if they wanted to see the video and most folk were too interested in getting some sleep or working on their own images, but on our last day I managed to shoe-horn it in and it wasn't soon before everyone was glued to it. He's a master of simplicity and it's something I'm keen to focus on during my workshops.

Many thanks to Annie, Dorin, Milan and Peter for coming along.

Eigg Workshop 1 Space Available

Just a quick note to let you all know that one of the guys on the Eigg workshop this September can't make it. So if you were keen to come to Eigg this September, there is now a free space for one lucky individual on my workshop.

First come, first served. :-)