It's been a while!

Sorry for the lack of updates in almost a month!

We have been busy, between Easter visitors and the holidays plus a few big projects all rolling together I haven’t had much time to update everything!

The workshop at Daingean went well with plenty of enthused families that got a taste for photography, history and archaeology all in one neat drop in workshop which I organised and ran with “The Gathering”. There is another workshop as part of this project to come in May, but that is a private one for a school and I am taking a slightly different approach - we are going to run it as a full photography project with them coming up with the concept (with a touch of guidance) and execution and I will help them along and teach them some basic photography fundamentals as we go!

The next project was some photography for a local B&B looking for some high end photography to reflect the luxurious accommodation that they offer their guests. The previous photographer had not managed to capture this essence of the place, they were not bad pictures - but they were just a little sterile. The owners are delighted with what I have produced as it just conveys that sumptuous feel that they are offering.

I kept everything dark with loads of chocolatey tones in the images to try and give that enveloping luxurious feel to the rooms and think they worked well. We are going to do a few more shots on an evening at some stage to try and work more with the atmospheric lighting and candles as well as shooting their holiday cottage and do another exterior video for them once the leaves are out.

Next up it was some more work on the Polmailly House video, which is coming on really nicely now - we have been shooting sections each season and will finish off with a summer shoot in a few months. We may add in an evening shoot too, mainly stills I think, to try and give it a little extra presence on the websites.

The housing side of things has been a little quiet of late so it has been nice to be working on something a little different whilst I am waiting for that to pick back up again. I am also looking for new clients to drive that side of the business forward through this year whilst also developing the hospitality industry side of things which is more likely to arise from word of mouth and reputation building.

Then we have the big fine art projects that are slowly starting to come together, my professional qualification submissions to build up, an upgrade to my drone licence to work through and some workshop offerings to develop for later this year and into next!

Busy times, I hope!

Trossachs Autumn Workshop - with Gartur Stitch Farm!

I am really excited about this!

We have arranged to run a weekend workshop in The Trossachs, an absolutely beautiful part of Scotland which is very close to my heart, in association with the Harrison-Goldins of Gartur Stitch Farm - who are very dear friends of mine and absolutely lovely people too.

Bookings are via their website: Gartur Stitch

This is going to be a fantastic event, exploring the autumn colours of the Trossachs, some lochs… even Scotland’s only lake! We have forests, mountains, rivers and burns - it really is a smorgasbord of opportunities with enough variety that we can work with the weather no matter what it throws at us to make something really special!

Head on over and check it out!

In Development

I am just working on a collaboration with some good friends of mine to offer a workshop weekend which could be pretty exciting. I will let you all know when there is something a little more concrete to work with, but just now it is in the early concept phase.

Today is pretty miserable outside, wet and windy, so I haven’t got a great deal done beyond chasing car folk - between insurance companies, repair companies, car dealers and potentially car buyers it has all been a bit crazy. I am waiting for another call back to finally get that all in order so that Friday should see the change from the Jeep back to a Toyota… which will be handy should I be in Glasgow or Edinburgh any time soon with the imminent congestion charging (and my Jeep being the antithesis of environmental transport). Tomorrow I have a meeting about electricity and then probably knuckling down to drawing up technical planning documents and/or evicting the chickens and ducks off the driveway and onto the grassy patch by the ruins so that the driveway can become just that once more and we can stop churning up the front apron.

My work on new property photography techniques is going at pace and the results are starting to look REALLY good. I still want to up the ante a little more however, but getting all the kit charged up and then into a Fiat Panda is proving more tricky. Once the new car arrives that should give me scope to really start doing something interesting though! I am going to start out using the twin Honeybadger studio lights, but I really need a third unit and my options are to add another Honeybadger or change that whole system to Godox which is much lighter and more versatile.

So loads going on and about to go off, but it has been a very quiet end to the financial year with only 1 week left and only 1 job booked in for that week at present. Hopefully the 2023-2024 FY will be much stronger as the foundations laid this year begin to be built on!

Roll Up, Roll Up

I am running a FREE photography workshop, designed as a drop in session for anyone, of any age - bring your kids, your parents… your friends and neighbours. All welcome.

We will be based up at Daingean Settlement in Glen Garry on Sunday 2nd April 2023 between 10am and 2pm working in conjunction with An Cruinneachadh and Invergarry Heritage Centre to lean a little or brush up on your photography skills (any equipment is encouraged, from a phone camera up) and learn a little about the history and cultural heritage of this corner of Lochaber. If you have youngsters in the family with an interest in history, archaeology or photography I would be delighted to see them - speaking as both a professional photographer and also a former archaeologist!

This is being funded by the community grants from the windfarms so there is absolutely no cost to yourselves other than getting to the site itself!

The location is HERE and will be clearly marked at the entrance, the road up is not particularly long, but is passable even in a Fiat Panda, but please take care as it is a raised forestry track, and there is plenty of parking both at the site and just before in a large layby on the track just before the carpark if it is full.

It Continues

I have been experimenting more with the new techniques that I have been working on, and I have started to develop them into something else… something new… something more “Highland”!

This is one from today, a pretty ordinary rental flat, but a good canvas to just experiment on a little.

Once I have my own car, rather than the teeny Panda, I can start taking my studio lights with me which should allow much greater control of the artificial light that I add to the room which will, in turn, get the highlights on the floor under control a little more. I am looking at a lighting upgrade though to really make the most of things as I want at least 3 light sources, perhaps more, so that I can get really creative and minimise the number of exposures that need to be blended.

This was 4 exposures. I am thinking a fifth may have been useful.

Always Learning

One aspect of the work I do that is hugely satisfying is the constant learning experience. Over the last few weeks I have been working on a set of popular techniques utilised by our well-paid brethren in Australia, the US and Canada - where paying good money for the best real estate photography is considered entirely normal practice. The UK is a strange market where you have some agents and clients willing to pay decent rates, some using agencies that pay poverty rates and some using their own skillset and equipment… with varying results (and rarely all that good).

The latter are a special breed at present as they have all been buying into drones and I have seen some woeful footage recently in terms of flying skill and editing skills, but also flagrant breaches of aviation law which I strongly suspect is going to see a huge enforcement clampdown soon and some stinging repercussions.

Anyway, back to the point (and away from critiquing the output of others)… I have been trying some of the techniques out for myself to see how they translate to my work and my locations. The results have been pretty interesting, and they certainly work well on more modern properties… but something more traditional or less “clean”… I am just not sure as yet. I need to work on the technique as they operate it a little more, but I have also started working on a variation of their ideas and created my own workflow that is a hybrid of their system and what I had been doing previously. Early results are really quite favourable too!

This house belongs to an elderly couple and has that lived in look about it, using a super clean technique lost the homely warmth, whilst using my standard technique left the windows blown out for one. I wanted to retain the view out the door but also that natural light! This technique seems to work well for both, but it is time consuming… with a little more refinement and streamlining though I think it could be a winner!

The Cull Begins!

I hate this part of a photography competition campaign - the cull. Yesterday I shortlisted about 80 photographs from the last year or so (I try to cut off each year at competition time and then start a fresh batch, there is a little overlap but not too much). This morning I have taken that 80 down to 40 and over the next couple of weeks I need to take that 40 down to a final 20.

Without adding too many more in.

The hard part is putting all emotional connection to the photograph aside, whether that is the place, the time… whatever…. and try to judge it purely as someone else would. So the photograph needs to tell something of a story to pull the viewer in and hold their attention long enough for it to be passed on to the next round of judging. Last year I felt I had put forward a pretty strong batch and got nowhere much with it as I think I failed to distance myself from the individual shots enough, but I have learned more about the whole process since then so fingers crossed! The knowledge of how these things are assessed is pretty fresh though so I plan to shoot more relevant material over the coming months which will also make my landscape photography stronger and fits in with the projects I am working on just now too!

Busy Bee

Had a crazy few days, and on for a pretty busy weekend and week I think. The Gathering project is rolling along nicely and about to start building towards the first event… which is mine! A free family photography day out in Glen Garry which is being funded by the windfarms. Really exciting stuff that one. I have also just quoted for an intriguing job shooting commissioned landscapes which would be fantastic if it comes my way, put in an application for some freelance car work which would be an interesting change in direction and then next weeks tasks are starting my campaigns for LPOTY 2023 and a load of submissions to Outdoor Photography Magazine which have been sitting waiting for completion for some time.

Oh… and I have a day photographing houses booked in so far too!

The Jeep should finally be back from repairs on Monday after being off the road since November 5th, and my new eco vehicle is in the country and working it’s way to the Highlands on the back of a truck too so that is going to be a massive change coming very soon!

Going to be a full on few days I think!

Free Event!

I am running a free Family Photography Day at Daingean Village on Sunday 2nd April 2023 - this is a drop in session where you can come along and brush up on your skills amongst the lost clearance village in Glen Gary:

Daingean Settlement

https://maps.app.goo.gl/1ujHan174kV4B3Mr9?g_st=ic

We are hoping to have some very special guests and currently plan on being on site from 10am until 2pm. No need to book, just grab a camera or your camera phone and come along!

Mixed Week

Things have been a little quiet the last week or so, I had a burst of holiday let work and a couple of days research for the big project up the glen… then nothing much happening. So I have been spending a little time upskilling! I hope to put the new techniques to work on my next assignment to see how they translate to the Scottish Highlands from the LA Mansions!

I have had a couple of nice landscapes though, and a cracking aurora tonight to kick in the new week to come! Hopefully some work will crop up (I do have another day on the project scheduled in for Tuesday, so that is a good start!)

Off to Etsy

I have decided to move my gallery sales off the website and onto Etsy to see how that works out for me. I will pop a link up in a few days once I have decided on what I am stocking, how much I am selling for and all the rest of the ins and outs of the platform!

Otherwise it has been a pretty good week, after a worrying start! Hopefully we can keep the momentum up and get a decent month overall.

Loads going on at the moment, hopefully some of which will lead to some long term gains. More later.

About... Turn!

So there I was, all set to forge ahead with an industry qualification/award - my set was chosen and certainly good enough to get onto that first rung of the ladder. It would have been a rush to get all the supporting documentation together, sure, but it was not beyond the realms of possibility as most of it is to hand anyway.

Then there was a presentation about the process.

And I decided to change tack.

So, I am not putting myself forward digitally for the Spring round, I am going to hold off for the Autumn and, I think, I may attend in person for the assessment rather than take a purely digital approach.

This will allow me to link my panel in with a commercial project that is just incredibly exciting in and of itself, but the photography that I can foresee for that project should also create something really quite special when presented as a panel. It also means I can make it a statement of where I am going rather than selecting pieces from the past, and to me that is important. I don’t want to be judged on where I am coming from but the direction I am travelling in, if that makes sense.

So this isn’t a rout, more a tactical retreat to regroup and come back stronger. If I can come back strong enough and attend in person then I have the chance to gain something better from the awards than a licentiateship (the base rung on the awards ladder) and that really would be a vote of confidence to (perhaps) quiet the voice that builds the imposter syndrome.

I NEED A WEEKEND!!!

Last week was a crazy busy one - plenty of jobs coming thick and fast followed by the first meeting of a new arts and culture collective for a big windfarm funded project over the weekend! This week, fortunately, looks pretty quiet!

There have been some great photographs coming out of the last few days though and I feel that stylistically I have emerged now on the property photography side of things and my landscapes just keep gaining depth. This year I need to capitalise on both these factors!

New Video plus Photography

I have finally finished a “not a rush” job for Polmaily House - following on from an autumn shoot we ran a Christmas addition, just a few decorated rooms plus a video with the seasonal change. As fate would have it, on the 17th December just after the decorations went up… we had snow! The result was everything we could have hoped for!

The video is in the newly re-instated “Video” section under “Photography” and features the Autumnal work merged into the new Winter footage. The plan is to do some more in the Spring and then the Summer to create an all-season piece for their website. It is a really exciting and fun project!

I also have some (now unseasonal) photos which are rather nice.

This year I think I will push much harder on the drone and video front as there seems to be a little more opportunity in that direction at present (and there are few operators up here using big DJI Inspire 2’s which helps differentiate somewhat!) I have just put the order in for some flyers that I am hoping some of the local estate agents will take to offer a specialised service even if they are not interested in upping their photography game.

New Campaign

Today I have been hitting the marketing hard and launched a new advertising campaign to boot!

There’s nothing like getting yourself ready to hit the run up to Spring like a series of marketing campaigns and special offers (coming soon!)

Looking Back

I was just doing a little comparison between a couple of jobs I have done, one from last year and one from this - almost exactly 12 months apart. They were similar jobs in that both had dogs ;-) Both were also lovely homes, although different in style and character.

They do make a good comparison of how my style and technique have evolved over the first complete year or working in the field though.

First up, a fairly standard shot in a lovely home. I used a fill flash and single exposure on this one and have retweaked it in Lightroom before uploading here to just balance out the shadows a touch more. It is a nice shot on it’s own, but there are things I would change where I shooting the same house again.

In comparison, this is the more recent shot. Both were agency jobs, so both paid the same… but the latter shot looks more “expensive” I think.

So… what has changed?

First up, I am approaching my interiors more like a landscape photographer now that I am more comfortable with the genre and what is being asked of me - so I am looking for lines, placing features in strategic locations in the frame where I can and making sure that the angles just “look right”! Now, I do like an oblique shot to convey space, bit slightly off dead on is not a good look, so now I will generally shoot dead straight with horizontal horizontals and vertical verticals when going with this kind of angle. I will usually try and get at least one oblique “corner to corner” shot per room too, usually more, but sometimes there just isn’t a composition there to be had!

The other big change is that the first one was as prescribed - single frame, shot with flash. Wham bam thank you mam type photography… and it sucks. The flash kills the atmosphere, kills the natural light and makes the room look flat. These days, even though I am not being paid to go to these lengths, everything is shot natural light and often using HDR techniques. The result is a more more natural looking photograph which is more three dimensional and, to be honest, just more inviting. It also looks way more expensive… because it should be!

So… looking at the obliques next, here is an old shot from the same house:

Now, I am actually pretty happy with this all in all - modern houses do take flash photography better than old ones for some reason, but this room held up particularly well. I had already adapted my style by this stage from the very early shots anyway, but there was still room to improve and try to capture some of the atmosphere and just the general “feel” of the house.

And the current oblique. What has changed? Well, the lights show up and provide some nice patterns which would have been overcome by the flash, there is a softness and welcoming feel imparted too. The only aspect that I am less keen on with this HDR shot is that the window has not retained as much detail as I would have liked. Perhaps another exposure would help, or a slightly wider exposure spacing would help? I have another technique I have yet to try which is to blend the natural light exposures with a flash exposure to gain the best of both worlds… but that really is pushing things to the extreme for the low rates that agency work pays per house!

Just for the sake of interest, here are two shots from my very first job, the living room and bedroom for sake of comparison!

Again, not bad shots - I think I tried a little too hard in this instance as I turned up with portable studio lighting, and for the bedroom that seemed to work nicely holding the softness of the natural light and just helping a bit with the flash - the living room was completely overcome however!

So I have learned a lot, I feel like I am getting into the stride of things now and I feel like I am developing my own style. This year is going to be all about growing both my style and technique, becoming more confident in my approach… perhaps allowing myself a little artistic flair… and building on my reputation and business!

It will be interesting to see where we are next January!

2023 - Simplified Pricing

For 2023 I have decided to simplify our pricing structure, which is now live under the Services menu option.

I feel that we are still one of the most cost-effective suppliers for photography and drone operations in the region whilst also producing as good or better content than others. We work with private individuals and businesses equally so if you have any photography needs then, please, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Snowbound

This week has been very, very quiet.

I did have a few jobs on but the snow pushed most back to next week, along with a cancellation who just couldn’t wait quite that long so decided to use someone a little more local and hence less impacted by the significant snowfall!

On the plus side it did transform the glen into something even more special than normal!

I did manage to get out to a couple of properties that needed photographing though, one I was really desperate to get done as the owner needs to get things moving to secure the house they are looking to move too so that really was a priority job. The week wasn’t a complete washout work wise as a result, and would have been more productive if the Jeep was back from repairs, but the parts aren’t due in until mid February making it a 3 to 4 month repair job!

Busy Week

Last week was hectic! I didn’t shoot a vast number of properties, but I travelled quite a lot! Monday was Gairloch, Wednesday was a double return trip to Culloden and Thursday was back to another property in Gairloch! The two properties in Wester Ross were absolutely stunning and the drive out west is always something to enjoy… even in the Fiat Panda courtesy car!

Things are looking quieter for next week as it stands, which is a good thing. I have a load of images to edit for Polmailly still and a B&B to make arrangements for a half days work just down in the village.

I will add some of this weeks shots into the “Latest” album!

First Workshop 2023

The first workshop of the year is up - a small group, early Spring event on 5th March!

There will be plenty more to come, I am still planning everything at the moment! I am also thinking about running a short multi-event course (probably Sunday Mornings once a month for 4 months as a single bookable course to concentrate on a different area of photography each week).

The residential workshops may start in the Autumn, there is a plan to run them from Drumnadrochit and our own on-site accommodation but there is a lot of work needed first to make that a reality!