Last week, I left my Assynt workshop and headed back to my Dad's to get my own car, only to find that he'd left me a news paper cutting on the drivers seat. The cutting contained an article about a workshop participant of mine winning the "Amateur Photographer of the Year award". I looked at the mug shot and knew instantly that Dudley, a participant from my November Harris workshop last year had won the competition and had been featured in the Herald news paper.
Dudley is a very memorable fellow indeed as I discovered on the Harris workshop. Each morning he'd 'bag' the front seat in the van so he could subject me to many funny stories of his 'growing up years and the special relationship he seems to have with his Dad.
Anyway, I got in touch with Dudley to ask him about the competition and also to ask if I could put his winning photo up on this very blog, along with some blurb from him. I've copied the email verbatim for you - It was very nice to hear that my workshop had made a difference to him, but I do remember sitting in a cafe at the end of the trip and telling him that there 'is a landscape photographer inside you'. Up until the trip, he'd been shooting studio portraiture so it was interesting for me to see how well he did at landscapes throughout the week, even though it appeared that most of the time, he was more interested in taking photos of the group rather than the stunning beaches of Harris.
Anyway, thanks once again Dudley. I love it when I see people get a real buzz out of their photography, and if I've helped them in any way, that really makes my day.
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Hi Bruce,
This is the one. At my open house event it was the image that had most attention in terms of time spent viewing and comments. The most popular was the wide view of a Harris beach with rollers breaking.
Blurb? After attending your Harris workshop in 2009 I spent ages staring at the images I came back with. I said at the time that I felt that the course had made something click inside me and, after subsequent field trips alone, I realise that it was true. I went to Eigg and stayed in that musty caravan that I think all photographers should stay in to get into the atmosphere of the place. I was on the beach at dawn, I slept, read and fed the chickens during the day and was back on the beach for dusk. I don't remember how I came across your website Bruce but I devoured it for months and was incredibly envious of the world you had seen while I was in bed. I was excited when I saw that you had started to do workshops and I signed up for the Outer Hebrides trip to Harris and was so pleased with whole trip. I'll never forget that week. The image below has been voted winner of the Classic View category at Landscape Photographer of the Year 2010. Awards and accolades don't make a photographer and I know I have a mountain to climb to achieve consistency but I'd like to tribute my award to you for being my inspiration. So Bruce, you are my landscape photography hero, mentor and, I hope, friend. (even if I talked your ears off before dawn on Harris!)