UK Workshops

Due to the vaccine roll out here in the uk going so well (over a third of the UK population has been vaccinated) there is now some light at the end of the tunnel, and it seems that I may be able to resume my workshops later this year - with perhaps UK clients at least.

If you live in the UK, and are looking to do some photography workshops with me, I am in the process of setting up some more local trips.

The first trip I’ve set up is to Assynt this October. If you live in the UK and want to come, then now is the time to book :-)

Please check the workshop page, as I am in the process of setting up some more workshops for the rest of the year and into 2022.

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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Sound of Snow Deluxe Edition Still Available

Thanks to everyone who bought the book so far. It has meant a lot to me at this time, since I am unable to run workshops or tours right now, the book contributes greatly to my current income.

The standard edition of the Sound of Snow book is now sold out, but I still have copies of the deluxe edition available- which comes in a soft white cloth slipcase and a choice of one of three prints.

Sound of Snow is now available for advanced orders

Just to let you know that my new book ‘The Sound of Snow’ is available for advanced order (shipping this June). Please note that the book is an extremely limited print run of 340 copies.

There are three variants (click on the respective one for more details):

Evolution

I’ve been working on a portfolio development class this past few months. So far I have three hours recorded, and the content is a fly-on-the-wall view of myself working on a set of unedited images to final completion as a portfolio.

In my view, this is the best way I can illustrate the processes and thinking behind my own work. And how my work has a stylistically strong angle to it. I’ve been told many times over the years that my style is strong but I also know myself well enough, and feel I have a good handle on my abilities to know where I am in terms of ability and style.

I have one more video to do, which is really about finding one’s style. Many photographers I meet ask me how they will find their style, and I think the first step is to curate one’s own work. If you spend a bit of time reviewing what you do, and do some exercises such as :

1. collect all your best work into a folder

2. try to reduce it down further to the absolute best work

You can gain so much insight into your abilities and also your failings. Style does not come overnight, and in my view it tends to surface slowly. Yet what most do not understand is that if you have a style to your work - it is often present from the very beginning. When I look back at my earlier work I can see it was there, but it was diluted by so many other distractions in the work. Looking back, one can often see the path that we’re on. And this is what you need to do with your photography, if you want to become more aware of where you are as a photographer, and where you may be going.

Creativity is about letting go, and in that way, looking at one’s work, you should try to be as agnostic as you can about it. Let go of personal failure, of feelings of inadequacy or feelings of pride. Just see it for what it is. Be objective. Be honest. It’s an extremely hard thing to do if you are insecure about your work. But I think you must overcome insecurity and just be able to see it for where it is, and be content knowing that you do it for the enjoyment it gives you.

I have always maintained that art is not a competition. It is not for bragging rights. You do it because you love it. And if you are able to tap into who you are and where you are with your work, that awareness alone is hugely beneficial in seeing where you want to go next.

Portfolio development update

I’ve currently got 3 hours recorded for my intended portfolio development class.

I thought the best way to illustrate how I put a portfolio of images together, was to work on a set of images that I have never edited before. So in this class you will see me select, edit and review images from shot on my 2019 Bolivia tour.

I’ve just been watching some of the recorded sessions in ‘fast forward’ mode, or if you like - time lapse and it’s fascinating to get a much clearer idea of how my work tends to evolve and surface. Starting with around forty rolls of film and whittling it down to around ten images to select and edit, how the portfolio takes shape.

There is just one more hour I wish to record, and this is more intended to look at personal style, how to figure out if we have one, and how portfolio development can help us recognise and shape our own style. I think many of us believe we need to find our style and then that will inform how we choose to edit and develop our work, but I think certainly for the first while (perhaps many years) it is the other way around - we ‘discover’ our style while attempting to put portfolio’s together.

There are no rules. Just an empty canvas of possibilities. I hope that by showing you how work tends to ‘surface’ and a picture of how it all fits together isn’t obvious to start with, and only becomes more obvious as the work itself directs me, rather than my trying to direct the work - will be useful.

With anything that is creatively involved, there has to be a willingness to ‘let go’, and ‘go with the flow’. I often do not know where the work I am editing is going when I start. I give myself permission to screw up, to get it wrong, to experiment, and to back track if I feel something isn’ t working.

Often the work tells us how it wants to be edited. It gives us clues, and I think that there is often an internal battle between what we wish it to be, and what it is.

Letting go, is vital in allowing work to surface, but I think in this modern age of schedules, and expected outcomes, we are always looking for guarantees or proven results. That is not how creativity works, and it is a long challenge for many of us to stop trying to control things too much.

Amazing

Nice to see something in the news that isn’t Covid related.

Portfolio Development Video Class

Just a short note today, that I’m almost finished developing a new portfolio class.
If you want to learn how to go from here:

To here:

Then this class will be of great benefit to you.

More details about this class in a forthcoming newsletter, in the months ahead.

To be as authentic as I can be

Life events have sometimes forced me into considering where I am, what I’m doing, and what I want in the future.

My new book ‘The Sound of Snow’: Six years of winter. Six years of working towards something.

There have been life markers where I just know I’ve transitioned from child to adult. The recent loss of my dad is such a marker.

When you change career at 40 and start to run photographic tours as a living, you’re more aware of the transient nature of life. Being self employed you realise that:

Nothing.

Is.

Guaranteed.

You have to adopt a healthy dose of belief that things will just continue to work out.

You have to learn to live in the present moment more, and try to hold off worrying about the future so much, because the present is all any of us have.

You begin to understand that control of our futures is just an illusion.

I have never felt more alive than running my own business. It has always been a huge inspiration to me to find that things just have a way of working out, and ideas can grow in to solid reality.

But the last year has thrown many of us. We are all disorientated. For me, I think all the time ‘off’ has meant that I’ve become more reflective. Perhaps too much so. and I seem to have been going through a ‘life-review’ over the past nine months as a result.

It has not been something I intended, nor wished to do. But with all the free time, and the uncertainty of the future, I think it’s inevitable.

The thing that has surfaced for me, is that the most important thing for me to do while I am here:

is be as authentic as I can be.

I think that is what drives most of us when we are creating art. We all may think we want to make nice pictures, of win competitions, or whatever, but underneath it all: is a quest for something that matters. Something that means something.

Our own truth.

I lost my dad

Four weeks ago I lost my dad. I have not experienced loss like this in such a long time. It reminds me that grief is always new, each time it visits.

My dad was my best friend. I often found we had more a friendship relationship than the ‘father and son’ one and he often mentioned it to me.

I’m aware that my grief is filled with love for my dad. When I am hurting I know it’s because I loved him so much. I would not normally write about something so private to me, but the world is so sad right now, and I do not feel sad for my dad. I just feel a huge love for him, and I know my hurting is because of this.

I am filled with lots of happy fun memories these past few weeks. I am reminded that life is about living and when we live truthfully, we build strong and fruitful relationships. Life isn’t about material wealth, it is about emotional wealth.

I wish you all much comfort in these times.

me on the left, my dad on the right

New book coming, Spring

I’m fortunate that I’ve been working very hard over the past five or six years. I’ve built up a large collection of images from my travels, from which I can choose to publish books from.

Hokkaido is somewhere that I’ve had scheduled in my mind as the next book after Hálendi (my Iceland interior book) for some time. Since the pandemic has halted most of my income and work, I’ve had more time to complete the Hokkaido book than normal.

We’ve broken the format a little with this new book. It does not say ‘Hokkaido’ in Kanji on the cover. I’ll leave it as a surprise for you all to guess what it says. More concrete details about the book in the next two months if the schedule goes according to plan.

Thanks to everyone who wrote to me about Hálendi. Many of you told me it is my best book to date. Which I must admit to being taken by surprise at. Each book has its own birth where you simply cannot control how it will turn out. The Hálendi photographs have been part of my photo life for the past five or six years and I had not looked at them since we finished designing the book.

I wasn’t sure if everyone would like the book, as I have found that my style of photography has become ‘too minimal’ for some, and I’m aware I’ve lost a percentage of my audience. But this has been replaced by new followers who are into the style of work I’m doing now.

I think this just proves that you should never try to please an audience. Your audience knows what it wants and if you are true to yourself, you’ll surround yourself with the right audience. This is true in life: be authentic in everything you do, and you’ll be surrounded by others who are like-minded.

I won’t deny that things are extremely difficult right now for me. As I am sure are for many of you. I am not running workshops, and this had been at the core of my income - almost 100% of it. So offering books, and some on-line video tutorials is keeping me afloat.

The pandemic has offered some positives for me. I often find it takes more than 1 year to get a book complete. I’m not talking about making the images: they are made over a five or six year period for the last two books! But the design, concept and sequencing. It is often slowed down by being away a lot on workshops and tours, and then having to pick up the pace on the book once I return. But with no work to do right now, I’ve been able to focus more on completing the books as I intended. For the past 3 years or so, it’s been a plan to publish Altiplano, then Hálendi and now the Hokkaido book (as yet untitled). Next one, if the Hokkaido book sells, is a retrospective. Which I am in the process of writing right now. There will be a lot of text in this one, in addition to lots of images from some of the portfolios on my website that have never been included in a book before, and going back 10 years.