IMAGE OF THE MONTH

FEBRUARY 2017

Evening fire at Balnakeil Beach

This image was taken on my weeks photography tour with landscape photographer Richard Childs.  I have greatly admired Richards style of work for some time, I have only been this far north a couple of times and I totally love the remoteness, beaches and surrounding hills of Arkle and Ben Loyal, so this was an ideal opportunity to immerse myself in a weeks landscape photography with Richards vast experience, vision and passion for the Scottish landscape.   There were only two other photographers on the tour so this was an ideal situation not to get in each others way and allowed us space to capture unique images at each location. Richard was also able to dedicate the time to each of us if we had any issues with image making.

We were warned that in February the weather can be extremely, cold, wet and windy so I expected the worst. But thankfully we were mostly blessed with calm weather for the week.  Sunrises were clear blue skies but cold and we had a couple of evenings with subtle and stunning light for sunset.  Accommodation was comfortable and Richard nailed the porridge for me on the fourth day!  Had one visit to the famous choco mountain for a session to go over some of the photographers that Richard admires but had to have one of the best hot chocolates I have ever tasted 🙂

We all got along really well which makes the week all the more enjoyable.  Was interesting and fascinating for me to watch the large format users of the diligence they go through to obtain their images.  The processing of their film images in the evenings was like watching a science experiment, with all the chemical mixing and precision timings.  Then in the morning once their images had dried watching their faces of the sheer joy or disappointment looking at the image in their hands.

I thoroughly enjoyed the week and Richard had given me renewed inspiration and new visions of what images work and different lighting conditions I would not have considered before, “sticky light” being one of them.  I would highly recommend anyone with an interest in landscape photography and wanting to take their photography to the next level to consider a tour with Richard. You can find his website and his tours here.

http://www.richardchildsphotography.co.uk/workshops/