Scotland through Light

As mentioned in my last post, things have been somewhat quiet on the blog between one thing and another. However, I do have a few updates that I would like to share with you all.

I was approached by Scottish Field magazine back in May regarding one of my pictures of the beach huts at Hopeman asking if they could use it in their July issue. I thought that this was an excellent opportunity and duly accepted, the picture was subsequently published in an article featuring the Scottish actor Kevin McKidd and his connections with the Moray area. This was the first time that I have had a picture published and I am really delighted about it.

Many of you may know that over the last few years I have supported a charity called SiMBA by way of donating limited edition prints to the auction that they have at their annual ball. Sara from SiMBA contacted me recently regarding purchasing some prints from me to go into new family rooms at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness and the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital. The prints for Raigmore – Mellon Udrigle and Early Morning Rainbow have now been given to the hospital. There are six prints going in to the Princess Royal. I’ve posted the images that SiMBA have purchased below. If you would like to know more about SiMBA then click this link here —->SiMBA Website

Contact Sheet of images for SiMBA

I am hoping to be able to offer prints of the images that SiMBA purchased for sale with a donation from each sale going to SiMBA. I will update the blog once I’ve got the details sorted out.

At present my Flickr page has my most up-to-date images, please feel free to browse my photostream. If there are any images that you would be interested in purchasing as a print then please get in touch with me through the contact form on this website.  —-> Link to my Flickr page.

That’s all for now, I will try and post more updates soon.

The last time I posted to the blog I had just returned from the Outer Hebrides where I’d been able to spend some time taking photos whilst being out there doing work for my employer. I was pretty lucky to be able to do that and don’t really know when I’ll get a trip like that again – soon I hope!

Since then I’ve had my Mamiya 645j camera repaired which has enabled me to start shooting on film again. At this point in time I don’t have a scanner to scan the medium format film but I’ve been lucky enough to have had a couple of images scanned by a fellow landscape photographer (thanks again Tim). The images below were shot on Fuji Velvia 50 film at Findhorn a few weeks ago. I’m quite pleased with them and think they compare well (if not better) against their digital equivalents which were taken the same evening – I’m not going to get into the Digital versus Film debate here though.

Thankfully my camera appears to be working as it should now and I hope to start using it for the majority of my landscape work.

One or two people have been asking me if there is going to be a 2011 calendar. At the start of the year I was pretty confident that there would be – I certainly have more than enough photos for a new calendar. Unfortunately the charity that I was hoping to work with already had two calendars about to go into production for 2011 and they didn’t feel that they had the sales capacity or budget to cope with a third which is fair enough. As things stand just now it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to produce a charity calendar for 2011, I don’t have the funds to cover the costs personally either. I’m optimistic  for 2012 as I’ll hopefully be able to put more time into finding sponsors.

Recently I have begun to feel somewhat stuck in a rut with the shots I’m taking, it seems like I make most of my images at coastal locations and feel that I’ve become perhaps somewhat lazy as a result.  I think this is something that happens with most photographers from time to time, you get into the way of going for the same kind of locations or the same kind of shot.  So….. its time to challenge myself again and get out of my comfort zone so to speak. I’m now living in Forres and have Moray pretty much on my doorstep,  I would like to make the effort to get to know the area and find locations for photos away from the coast. In addition to this there is Cairngorm National Park not too far away so really I shouldn’t have an excuse for not trying. Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience with your photography  – what did you do to get yourself out of that rut?

I hope you all have a good summer and hope to have some news soon.

Until then, take care.

Chris