Isle of Eigg Workshops for 2021

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sold out
Isle of Eigg, Scottish Highlands
£628.50

2025, April 7-12, Price: £1,895
2025, September 8-13, Price: £1,895

Initial deposit: £628.5
2nd Deposit of £628.5 due six months before workshop start date

5-Day Photographic Workshop

Introduction

The small island of Eigg contains perhaps one of the most dramatic and photogenic beaches in Scotland: the Bay of Laig & the Singing Sands. With abundant geological features on each beach and the isle of Rum as a perfect backdrop, this location is a dream for any landscape photographer.

We spend all our time on two beaches, which are in walking distance from our accommodation. One is sandy while the other is rocky. To get the most out of this workshop it is best if you are comfortable working on rocky beaches. This trip is suitable for anyone who has regular fitnessand can walk with their camera bag and tripod for up to 30 minutes.

Date:
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I’ve just listed two more Scottish workshops for 2021 on my workshop page. I will be going back to Eigg (it’s a favourite place of mine that I have been running a workshop on for the past decade). The island is small, we spend all of our time on mostly one beach (which is highly photogenic).

We have private rooms, in small cottages but some of the bathrooms are shared. Eigg is a small island of around 85 people, eight miles long. So there are no hotels, nothing to spend your money on, and as such, it gives a unique Scottish highland experience.

To enjoy this trip, you should be fit enough to walk for 30 minutes over uneven and boggy ground with your camera bag and tripod. The beaches are rocky in places. To get the most out of this trip I would suggest you need to be comfortable being on rocky beaches (some previous clients have not been). We spend our entire time on just two beaches, both highly photogenic.

Re-interpretation

Before I begin my article today, I’d like to make a few points very clear:

  1. There is always a trade-off. When you gain something, you lose something.

  2. Sometimes we like something because we’re attached to how it is.

  3. The two images below, I don’t view one as better or worse. And hopefully you should get beyond this point also. ‘Like’ is a personal preference. It has nothing to do with the validity of an image.

I have just recently chosen to go back to some of my favourite landscapes in Scotland in 2021. Partly it is because I would like a change: It has been many years since I photographed my own home country, and I feel that there has been a big change in my style of photography over the past few years. I’m curious to see how I will approach / react / and photograph, since I am aware that I am looking for different things now.

This is the original image, shot circa 2009, in the Assynt region of Scotland. It is not of Stac Pollaidh, as many people assume.

This is a re-interpretation. I did it, just to see where I may end up based on my current tastes / aesthetics, etc. I realise I’ve learned so much in the past 10 years, so I was curious to see how I may re-interpret the same image.

Well I’m sure you’ve already studied the two images above : both from the same film-scan and reached your own view of which you like more than the other. This article today is not about this. I am not going to say ‘this image is better or worse because of…..’. Instead, I just wish to discuss some other aspects.

Point 1. Familiarisation makes it hard to see it any other way

I personally love the original image, but I’m really not sure how much of this has to do with familiarisation. We become set / stuck in our ways the more we live with how things have been. And this is just as applicable to our older work. Attempting the re-interpretation image has forced me to think about whether I’m attached to the original image because it’s good, or just because I’m overly familiar with it now.

Point 2. How radically different an image can be through editing

Editing / post-processing (I abhor this term personally), is a highly creative place to live. I have never believed that the work is to ‘get it right in camera’. And I’ve always enjoyed the editing / interpretive side of my photography. It’s interesting to know that an image can be edited in many different ways. Editing is an art, it is a skill. It is a life-long endeavour in learning to see what was in the image and bring out the main motifs. Editing isn’t done by learning Lightroom in a few weeks and that’s it. It can really take you places if you don’t mind departing from what was there at the time of the capture.

Point 3. How much I have changed

I don’t know if I have it in me many more to do deeply saturated colour work. I’m wondering if I may return to it in some years to come, but I’m certainly aware that the original image from 2009 isn’t something that I would do any more. There is always a trade off in your own development. I see things in the original image that I love, but I couldn’t do that now if I tried, because it’s not where my aesthetic leanings are. I’ve lost some aspects to my image making, but I’ve gained also. As I said, there is always a trade-off.

Which leads to my last point:

Point 4. The original capture was made by a different me. Edited by a new me. Perhaps this doesn’t work?

Yep, the guy who made the original shot was the ‘Bruce-Percy-2009’ edition ;-) We shed skin, we move on. I’m not too sure it’s a good thing to return to older work that was created by a different you. Because there is in some way a disconnect. I think I would shoot this scene differently now and I think it would be done differently with an aim to edit it a particular way. These days my editing and composition skills are intertwined. Where I once just went out to make images and then see what I could do with them later on. I think that when I compose shots in the field now, I already know what I’m going to do with them when I edit them.

I think if one wishes to return to older work to re-edit it. There has to be a reason. For example, if you ‘see’ something in the work that you can bring out, or enhance then I think it’s valid to return to it. But if you are trying to ‘update the work to match where you are now’, I’m not convinced it will work.

This is what I tried to do with this image. I attempted to edit it to ‘see what I would do with it now, based on who I am now’. And I’m not sure it’s a success. My reasons are, there are too many distractions in the foliage that I probably wouldn’t have shot it this way. So I’m trying to start on an image that isn’t at the right starting point for where I am now.

Conclusion

It’s fun to go back and revisit older work. You can really learn a lot about yourself in the process:

  • How far have you come?

  • Would you shoot the work this way now?

  • What distractions in the work do you see now that you didn’t see at the time of the original creation?

  • Do I want to return to the same places now, that I feel I am looking at things differently?

For me, the last point is the salient one. I am very curious to find out how I will approach photographing in Scotland now that my style has evolved. Will I find some common ground? Will I see new things?

Landscapes can teach us so much about our photography and about ourselves. Find the right landscape in your own development and it can move you forward in ways that other landscape won’t. Returning to a well known place many years later can be very interesting because you will most likely be looking for different things and you’ll therefore see it in a fresh and new way.

I’m aware that my work is always in a state of change. Nothing is ever finished. There should be no rules. Do as you please, return to older work if it’s what you feel you need to do. Re-interpretation can teach us so much. I just don’t think it will always yield better / improved results, but you’ll certainly grow from the experience.

Colour management for book production

I’ve been busy working on the image selection / sequencing and text for my forthcoming book. I’m really pleased with how it is all going. But I am now at a stage where I want to print all of the 100+ images.

I don’t trust monitors for image review.

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As much as I am very confident that my monitor has been calibrated correctly, and profiled well, I still find that when I print, I’m forced to see things in the print that weren’t so obvious on the monitor. For one, luminance levels of a print can easily be misread on a monitor because our eye is highly adaptable. What may appear bright after staring at it for so long may appear much darker in print. So printing the images out allows me to get a real-world grasp on how the luminance levels are on the print.

That’s one reason to print. But there are many reasons to print and those reasons only become apparent once you have a print in your hands to review. So many times I’ve noticed colour casts, fine detail distractions that weren’t so obvious on the monitor, but once printed, I now notice them - both in the print and more interestingly, on the monitor as well.

Our eyes are highly adaptable, which leads us into tuning out colour casts ‘in our head’. So I’m always looking for a way to force my eye to see things that it has become blind towards. The more you stare at a picture on the screen, the more desensitised you become to it. It’s like tunnel vision of a sort.

So I definitely wish to print out all of the images that have been selected for inclusion in the book. But I want to go one stage further: I’d like to simulate how the images will look when printed on standard proofing paper:

“Standard Proofing Paper has a Fogra 39 certification, which is becoming the European standard. Offering the widest colour gamut available for accurate colour reproductions, this paper provides a base colour, weight and gloss level designed to match colour-critical commercial offset, press applications. Optimised for proofing applications, when used with our Epson UltraChrome K3 Ink with Vivid magenta, this media delivers outstanding short-term stability”

So this week I’ve been printing off some targets to get measured, so that I can have a custom profile built for this paper.

I’ve always printed my images out to verify them, and to give as a hard-copy to the printer. I was advised years ago that having a hard-copy is the ultimate reference when getting someone else to reproduce your work. I’ve been pretty happy with the colour reproduction on the last two books. But this next book will be a test of sorts, because we are working with some extreme edge blacks and off-colour whites.

I think that my optimising of the prints will go a lot smoother, and will be much finer if I am printing them on a standard kind of proofing paper that is close to an off-set press.

I realise this is perhaps of little use to many of you, but I suppose the big message here is - your photographs are never finished until you have them printed and verified. I always find errors and inconsistencies in my work once it’s printed, and if I tune the print to look good, then I know it will also look good on the monitor also. But not the other way around.

Assynt, Scottish Highlands Workshop, February 2021

Assynt & Inverpolly, Scottish Highlands
sold out
Assynt & Inverpolly, Scottish Highlands
£1,257.00

Price: £2,095
Initial deposit: £628
2nd Deposit of £628 due six months before tour start date

5-Day Photographic Workshop

Date: March 10 - 15, 2025

Introduction

In the far north west lies some of the most distinctive mountains of Scotland. Stac Pollaidh, Suilven, Canisp and Cul Mor dominate the landscape, yet there is an abundance of wide open space. This is real highland countryside with some dramatic coastal scenery to boot.

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I thought that it would be nice to spend a bit more time in Scotland during 2021, for some of my trips.

I’m pleased to let you all know that I will be going back to Assynt / Inverpolly region of the Scottish Highlands in February 2021.

This region of Scotland has some of the most distinctive mountains, and lochs.

We should have a lot of nice light in February and maybe many cold-snaps / frost.

It’s been a while since I’ve been here, and I’m really looking forward to it. Especially in February as it is often one of the more ‘frosty’ months in Scotland.

Just click on the image to go to the respective page, if you’d like to learn more.

The three core elements of a good landscape photograph

There are three core elements to a good photograph:

  1. good light

  2. good composition

  3. good exposure

Probably in that order.

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If you get those three core elements in one picture, then you’re almost done. Of course, cameras don’t see the way we see, so I always think that a degree of editing or ‘grading’ is required to bring out what we envisaged. But the same rule holds true for this also: if the material you’re editing is good, it will tell you clearly how it needs to be edited, and you shouldn’t find yourself working so hard.

I believe that if we find ourselves ‘striving’ or ‘struggling’ or ‘putting a lot of work’ into trying to get something to look right, we’re probably working with something that isn’t such a great idea to start with.

That goes for editing, but it also goes for what I choose to shoot out in the landscape also. If it isn’t working, your creative flow will jam up, and you’ll just find it’s like pulling teeth. If the idea is a good one the composition should just flow and it should come together easily.

In the past twenty years we’ve seen a lot of developments in technology. But one thing has remained constant:

Garbage in = Garbage out.

A great idea (read that as a great composition, with great light and a good exposure) is still at the core of good image making.

Nothing has changed. Thankfully.

Screen Grab

Today I was image selecting for my forthcoming Hálendi book.

I had already made a rough sequence of the images for the book, but today’s task was to dig out the master PSD files, and collate them.

And here are some of them. Badly named I might add.

I have maps of Iceland laid out on my desk, and like a detective, I am piecing together where each of the 100+ photos were made. It is bring back memories, and I am realising that the location of an image may not be where I had thought it was.

Once I have them named, I will need to sequence them. And once I’ve sequenced them, I will need to print each one of them out for review.

And no doubt, I’ll need to fine-tune / optimise them for print. That’s going to take me some time, but I am finished my workshops and tours for this year, so I now have plenty of time to work on this.

Loving it. It’s like a review of sorts. It’s a way of checking in on where I am, and where I have been.

Luminous Beings

It’s good to have both visual and also audio stimulation. I personally can’t live without either.

Book update

I’m pleased to say that all of the text for my next book is now complete.

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I will be spending next week working on the sequencing of the images, and printing every single one of them out for evaluation purposes. Those of you who follow this blog may have read me talk about this before, but images are never finished until they are printed. For one single reason: verification. You can’t evaluate an image on a monitor successfully. No matter how accurately profiled your monitor is, there is still a ‘reality-distorition-field’ at play. Printing allows you to see the smaller issues that the monitor doesn’t show so easily until you print. Once you print and notice the errors in the print, you begin to see them on the monitor also.

So this is what I will be doing next week: printing over 100 images and then ‘re-mastering’ them so to speak. Tying up the discrepancies in order to bring them to where they should be.

I find this part of the process fascinating. When you’re forced to review your work in such a way, you do it with a 3rd-person’s point of view. You see the work as if someone else created it. It’s a learning process about yourself.

I also find it hugely enjoyable printing my work, and above all, sequencing it. Sequencing is a way of telling a story.

I’m sure once I’ve completed the sequencing, I’ll probably want to write more text, more things to include as pauses between the sequencing. We will see……

I hope to publish the book around Summer next year. But that is all dependent on other things outside of my own control such as the printers, shipping, etc, etc. Let’s see.

Stark beautiful landscape

Yesterday I just announced my September 2020 photographic tour to the interior of Iceland. We visit vast black deserts, deep canyons and many roads less travelled by others. The interior has been a passion for me for the past few years to explore and to work with more stark landscapes.

It is a highly graphical landscape, one of extreme contrasts.

Iceland's Fjallabak - The Remote Interior

 

Date: 20th - 29th September 2020

Price: $7,995 USD
Deposit: $2,158 USD

Remote & Wild, Interior Black Deserts, Volcanic Craters & Lakes
10-Day Photographic Adventure

 

This trip takes us from Reykjavik into the heart of the remote central highlands of Iceland - the Fjallabak nature reserve (behind the mountains).

Fjallabak is a spectacular highland wilderness area - a place of contrasts from vast black sand deserts to rhyolite covered mountains. It is a true wilderness, not so often photographed due to its inaccessibility, but highly worthy of any time spent there.

Authenticity as currency

Do you know authenticity when you see it?

Do you think you know when someone’s work comes from an authentic place? Or perhaps you are good at spotting when someone’s work is contrived, created only to generate an income?

I think that being authentic is a highly undervalued currency. Authenticity is hard to judge.

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But how do you know when someone is being authentic? How do you know when their work is coming from the heart?

In my view, it’s not easy to know. Because even as an artist, sometimes you only know how much you really cared about the work long after you made it.

In my own case I’ve gone to review work I created a year or so ago only to find I’m disappointed in it. I can see that I was just trying too hard. Other times I look at the work and think ‘wow, I was actually tapping into something at that time’.

Wish I could tap into ‘that something’ whenever I wanted, but the truth is - I think genuine creativity is an elusive thing.

You see, I think it’s hard to know when oneself is being authentic, let alone whether someone else is. It is only with some hindsight that we can get clarity what we’ve created.

But ultimately: does it really matter?

If others love the work, then surely that’s all that counts? Surely if the work was highly-contrived, generated to make money, but people still loved it, then it’s good, right?

Well in my view it’s up to the individual. But I think when an artist’s heart isn’t into it, most (but not all) folk pick up on it. Most smell a rat.

That’s where I think authenticity wins. As the saying goes:

you can fool some of the people some of the time.
But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

And I would like to add, with respect to how we feel about the work that we create:

We can fool ourselves some of the time.
But we can’t fool ourselves all of the time.