We spend our evenings watching the light paint ever changing pictures on Ardnamurchan and the light coming and going over Rhum. The rabbits and birds entertain us by going about their daily business and the otters are regular visitors to the bay.

Who needs David Attenborough, or the television for that matter.

Wednesday night looked promising, with a thin layer of cloud over Rhum that looked as though it would light up at sunset. We sat there with a glass of wine watching the ever changing light develop, then a squall slowly moved in from the east. It was going to be close, would the sun set before the squall obscured Rhum altogether!

At 9pm I finished my glass of wine, put on outdoor clothes and walked a couple of hundred yards to the headland to capture the sun setting over Coll. Meanwhile Janet kept a watchful eye on Rhum and captured this dramatic shot as the squall passed over the island.

Back at the cottage by 9.30 for more wine, feeling very pleased with our evenings work.

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We had a couple of ulterior motives with Scarborough as it’s one of a few gaps in my coast dawn to dusk project, but we also have an exciting new exhibition coming up in Scarborough in July, so we thought we ought to have some Scarborough shots for that . More news to follow in the “what’s on section” coming soon.

As always with landscape, you are very dependent on the weather conditions, so we were a little perturbed when in snowed on the way to Scarborough! Conditions weren’t  great though but the squally conditions did give us some interesting skies, so it just proves the old adage there’s no substitute for getting out there and giving it a go.

Not many people visit the Lofoten islands in winter, but the winter light can be awesome, as we saw on the drive down from the airport in Leknes to our base in Reine in south of the islands. We stayed in a fisherman’s hut or rorbu overlooking the fjord with Reinebringen mountain as a backdrop.

Picture postcard stuff!

After a storm the sky cleared on our first night, so we were treated to a faint but tantalising display by the northern lights, so far so good. 5 am the following morning saw me woken by fabulous arctic twilight, so we were up, out, working and smiling!

We had planned to shoot a lot of low visibility winter mono shots, but as is often the case with these wild, remote places, the weather can be very variable, so we spent the rest of the week dodging rain, smow, gales and glorious sunny periods. All in all a magic place to visit and well worth the effort.

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A few months ago a photographer friend tipped us off about the “Scottish Nature Awards” competition and book. We bought a copy of the 2011 book and liked the look of it, so we decided to enter and Janet was pleased to hear that her Eilean Donan photo had been selected for the landscape section.
The Scottish Nature Awards  is a relatively new competition and rapidly growing in stature so a worthy addition to stand alongside “Take a View”. Last year’s book had some very high profile entrants, so Janet is feeling very proud to be selected for this year’s book.

PICTURES TO FOLLOW SOON……..

Way back 20 years ago when we started in photography we had Cokin P type filters, but I didn’t like using them, so I spent more money on round screw on filters. As we got more serious about landscape photography, we realised the limitations of round filters, and bought Cokin P Type filter systems again. Over time we gradually bought better quality lenses and therefore bigger diameter, so we soon reached the limitation of P type filters and had to upgrade to Cokin Z type filter systems, but I didn’t get on with the Cokin filter holder, so once again we had to upgrade to a Lee holder with proved much better. Remember there are 2 of us, so by now we’ve spent an awful lot of money! The moral is if we’d bough the Lee system in the first place we would have saved a lot of money!

I’ve often heard people say how much better Lee filters are because of the lack of colour cast. I currently have an eclectic mixture of Cokin, Hitec and Lee filters, but I recently had this brought home to me on a shoot on Holy Isle. I had a Lee ND grad fitted, then wanted to slow down the exposure so I fitted an ND4 from another brand and whole photo went a yucky shade of magenta! Once again, buy the best first time around and save money in the long run.

Still on the subject of equipment, I’ve been having problems with my camera turning on the quick release mount when I’m shooting in portrait mode. A chance bit of investigation of Vanguard tripods (Janet won one from Photography Monthly) lead me to an article by David Clapp where he recommended L-brackets. This prompted me to invest in a Kirk L-bracket, which was eye wateringly expensive, but what a lovely piece of kit! It not only solved my problem of the camera drooping, but also had the bonus of being much more rigid on the ball mount and eliminates the need to re-level the camera when swapping from landscape to portrait mode.

Still on the subject of equipment, I’m not sure I need the 36mp of the new Nikon D800. I’m sure 20-25 mp like the Canon 5D2 is quite enough. However Mr. Nikon, what I do need is:-

• Even greater enhanced low light noise reduction
• Definitely ISO 50, but why not ISO 5 so I don’t have to fit ND filters to slow things down
• A major must is a remote shutter release like we’ve all had to lock our cars for years. This would save me having to fit a cable release in a hurry every time I relocate.

Sales at the end of 2011 were strong and have started well in 2012 and we also have some exciting developments coming through for 2012. The first is our winter landscapes are now available from “The Art Café” in Flowergate, Whitby, so next time you’re in Whitby why not drop in for a coffee or a snack and view the range of wonderful art works available.

In addition the Art Café, we also have the workshop in conjunction with the Ship Inn on Holy Isle and we still have places available for that. Check out the Tuition page on the website for details.

Also new for 2012 will be the Picture Bank stock photography library which will be available to both the public and commercial customers in the none too distant future.

Another new project we’re very excited about is the exhibitions we have planned for Pickering Station on 21st & 22nd April and 16th & 17th June.

This is a lovely exhibition space, so why not come along and have a look and chat to us.

So as you can see we are due another busy and exciting year.