Harris deep green

I love inclement weather, and often shoot in the rain, but there is a limit to what my camera, and myself can handle.

When I was on the isle of Harris a year past October (2020), I had one day where the weather was so rough and dark, that it was almost impossible to make any photographs. But I was keen to pursue working in such bad weather because I have been thinking for a while, that there is a mood and an atmosphere to this kind of work that is seldom explored.

Contast, and the lack of, can be a positive tool to own in your photographic vocabulary. I’ve been exploring tonal response and relationships now for about a decade, and I think that low contrast, is often underused. Most of us tend to go for the higher contrast look because it appears to be striking. Good images in my view, often contain low contrasts as well as high contrasts. If the entire picture contains only high contrasts, then I think it becomes fatiguing to look at. Everything is too loud, everything is vying for our attention.

Low contrast work on the other hand, can be too quiet, too boring, and covey a sense of disinterest. There has to be some kind of ‘contrast within the contrasts’ used in a picture.

Right now, I’m really interested in exploring the darker moods of Scotland’s landscape. I’ve lived here all my life and even as a young boy, I was aware of the low-mood days, and how the landscape can feel as though the it’s the end of the world today. It’s just part of the highlands moods I think. And I’ve not really explored that avenue much at all.

But I think this photo made a year ago, has this quality to it. Just by looking at it, I can feel as though it’s a bad stormy day, with very low light. And it conveys a side to Harris that isn’t often photographed. I’d like to explore this some more over the coming year or so.

Forewords

I’ve been meaning to write for the past few months about two books I have been ‘distantly involved with’.

Around April this year Anthony Lamb asked me if I would write an intro to his book. I had known of Anthony’s work for about a year, as I had been researching Dubai as a photographic destination and I loved his images.

About a month later, Hans Strand asked me to write an intro to his new book as well. Wow. I seemed to be very popular last April I thought !

Then in the summer the publisher Kozu books got in touch with me to tell me that they were printing both books. So I just want to be clear that this all came around organically, and I don’t even know if Kozu knew that both photographers had asked me to write an intro to their books.

Sand - by Anthony Lamb

Anthony Lamb has been making intriguing images of the Dubai desert, and his book (which I now have a beautiful copy of), is really nicely printed by Kozu books.

I found the roads seemingly going to nowhere intriguing. And it was really refreshing for me to see a desert that hasn’t been photographed much done really well. There is a hue and softness of palette to Anthony’s work.

More info about the book can be found here: https://www.kozubooks.com/books-new/sand-by-anthony-lamb

Beyond Landscape by Hans Strand

The second book is by Hans Strand. I’ve been a long time admirer of Strand’s photographs from Iceland. In my view, Strand deftly intermixes close up landscapes with aerial shots. Whilst looking at the work in his book, I was aware that there is an intentional ambiguity in the work. A shot that I may think is from overhead may actually be a macro section of a stream, when I thought it might be a massive sea. He understands texture and the graphic.

Hans’ book is also available from Kozu books: https://www.kozubooks.com/books-new/beyond-landscape-by-hans-strand.

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I’d just like to finish today’s post by saying how honoured I was to contribute to these fine books. I love photographic books and I encourage keen photographers to buy as many monographs as they can. You can immerse yourself in another world with a book in a way that isn’t possible by staring at a website.

Being the producer of photographic books, I am a strong advocate that photographers should publish their work in book format.

In my view, images are never finished until they’re printed.

Congrats to Anthony and Hans for two very fine books.

The Scottish Landscape

It’s been a while.

I haven’t photographed Scotland with any particular ‘focus’ in a long, long while.

It’s not because I didn’t care for it. It’s just that I had spent over a decade in my more formative years of my photographic life making pictures in Scotland. I had found that certain landscapes like the Bolivian altiplano, the pampas of Patagonia, and the Icelandic landscape offered me ground to grow and learn.

I’ve learned a tonne from visiting these places. Bolivia was perhaps my first introduction to working on reducing down my compositions into something more distilled, simple. Iceland taught me about extreme tonality and working with not just the much darker registers of tonality, but also the more hi-key range of tones as well. Hokkaido was more like a concentrated on building on top of what I’d learned elsewhere.

I had no space in my life for the Scottish landscape. Because when I returned home from all the travelling I did: I rarely had any energy left in my batteries to go out and work here in my own back yard. Until now.

But before you think I just wasn’t interested in the Scottish landscape, it’s really not that at all. I assure you. I’ve been hankering the thoughts of working on a set of images of Scotland for a book at some point. The desire was there, but the free time to do it was not.

I was also a little apprehensive. The Scottish landscape is complex. There’s a lot going on, and I feel I’ve become extremely spoiled in going to landscapes where they are more quantised down, more reduced and more simple to work with. I wasn’t sure if I could approach the terribly busy landscape of Scotland with my style of photography. How would it work? Have I changed enough and learned enough elsewhere to know what to do?

Well, I love asking myself these kinds of questions. One of my participants on a recent workshop told me ‘you’re probably very reflective about what you do’. Yes, that’s me. I tend to think and feel it. And I love noticing the connections and the growth.

To me, these six images from the Ullapool / Assynt / Inverpolly region this October allowed me to see that Hokkaido was still there. But so too was Iceland’s dark tones as well. And a distillation in composition has become so part of me now, that I think it’s just who I am.

As my good friend Steven Feinstein said to me when I met him on a workshop ‘Bruce, you seem to be able to go anywhere in the world, and make the same photographs!’. I took it as a compliment. I hope it was meant that way! But I think the more I work anywhere, I just see myself come through. And it’s nice to feel it’s come full circle. I’m back in Scotland, where this little journey of mine all began. And I’m loving it so far.

It's freeing to throw it all away

Have you ever been working on something that you start to tire of? Perhaps you’ve begun to really hate a photograph that you’ve spent hours, days or weeks editing? Or a location you went to and found out it wasn’t working for you? Try as you might, you can’t quite get the composition to work.

The solution, is to abandon the work. Throw the pursuit of it away.

I’ve found that when something isn’t working, it’s usually due to:

a) being tired, and therefore unable to be receptive to it.

b) it isn’t a very good idea.

Often it is b), more than a). And learning to recognise that the idea you’re frustrated with, isn’t going anywhere is a skill that we all have to work on. Knowing when to hit the eject button, or discard an idea, particularly when you have invested so much time in it, is hard.

But when I do abandon something, I often find that it is liberating. I becoming ‘unstuck’.

Spending too much time with the wrong company means you aren’t spending time with the right company. Similarly, spending time in the wrong job means you aren’t spending time in the right job. Same for photography and for creativity in general. If it’s not working: leave it.

Because when you do, you open yourself up to the opportunity to find something that does work. I know this because there have been many times when I have realised that the idea I’m working on has no future. Even if I’m unsure of whether it has no future or not, by simply walking away from it, I have often found that this gives me the chance to find something that does work.

The composition I felt wasn’t working, If I stayed put and persevered with it: I wasted time on something that was going nowhere. By walking away, I have often been very pleasantly surprised to find something wonderful to photograph only a few feet away.

So if there is one bit of advice from this short post today, it is this: keep moving. If you get stuck, take that as a hint that something isn’t working. By moving onto something else, you give yourself the best opportunity to become unstuck.

Creativity is all about keeping things fluid. To do that, you need to become less precious about what you do. That means being willing to radically change it. Abandonment of the work can either mean ‘throwing it all away’, or simply ‘redoing a lot of what you’ve already done’. Nothing is permanent, and accepting that impermanence is part of our work can be extremely freeing and liberating.

Subject separation

I am a big believer in buying the tallest tripod I can. I now own a Gitzo Series 3 XLS, a Series 4, and also a mammoth 9ft tall series 5 Gitzo. I have always used the full range of height of each of these tripods, because sometimes the best shot is much higher than I am, or in many circumstances, when the tripod is on a slope or a tight area, I need to extend the leg way lower than where I am standing.

But sometimes no tripod height can help, and I’m seeking something that will allow me to get much higher.

In order to shoot this:

I had to do this:

If I hadn’t doe this, the background row of trees would have crashed into the foreground group of trees. This is the only time I have been on the roof of a car to make a photograph (or do anything at all!), but it does illustrate the point that sometimes, cameras need to be much higher than we are.

So I do recommend a really tall tripod. I have an old blog posting about it here: https://www.brucepercy.co.uk/blog/2017/9/24/gitzo-giant-tripod

Biblioscapes Interview

Euan Ross, from the most excellent Biblioscapes podcast interviewed me about my book ‘The Sound of Snow’. I hope you enjoy it.

Check out Euan’s podcast. He has interviewed many fine photographers.

When to know you're being complimented

I don’t take compliments very well. There’s something in my upbringing, or perhaps in being Scottish, that prevents me from glowing in any form of adulation. It is something I personally abhor - anyone seeking kudos of any kind in my book, needs to be avoided. Because those that are genuine, do whatever it is they do, because they can’t not do it. You don’t do something for praise or reward, you just do it because it’s part of who. you. are.

I don’t wish to be anyone else either. I just think the best thing we can all do is be ourselves. Sounds easy, but how many folks do you think you know who are busy trying to ‘not’ be themselves? Trying to find something else that is far removed from where they are?

Fjallabak-Sept-2017-(12).jpg

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realise that my past is so important to me. The friends I have, some of them since I was at high School, are so important to me, because we share something that cannot be bought at any price: memories, a past, a sense of ‘where we come from’.

This week I was in Iceland, and I bumped into Daniel Bergmann. He’s a well known Icelandic photographer. Daniel has worked as a photographic guide for a long list of well known landscape photographers over the past few decades. And I have a tendency to bump into him when I am out in the landscape.

Compliments, if they are genuine, tend to come at you when you least expect them.

I was sitting in the Highland centre, just off the F26 highland road when Daniel said ‘we should award you honorary Icelandic membership’. I hadn’t been fishing for a complement, but it meant a lot to me when he said it.

I have never wanted to be anyone else but me, and I am extremely proud of being Scottish. As I’ve grown older I have realised that my roots, my past, and my parent’s Scottish highland roots are very important to me. My parents are from Sutherland. I feel more Scottish now than I did when I was younger (I think that finding importance in our past and roots becomes more important as we get older).

But I do love Iceland, and I have found some kind of aesthetic affinity with the landscape there. So when Daniel gave me his complement, it stayed.

I think he sees me as someone who has been working the Icelandic landscape for a long while. It has been 17 years since i first went to Iceland. My relationship with the landscape has grown over the years and the country has had a lot to teach me about luminosity, tone, blacks, whites, and how weather is so important in working within the landscape.

Iceland’s landscape is not too distant from Scotland’s, but it can be more stark, more wild, more raw perhaps. Scotland’s landscape is an old one which has been worn down over the millennia, while Iceland’s is still a relatively new one. When we look around Iceland, we are able to glimpse how most of Earth looked at the beginning of creation.

But somehow, In my heart, Scotland and Iceland are inseparable brothers. They share an overlap, or subset, of weather, geology and beauty.

In any event, what Daniel said left an impression upon me.

So thank you Daniel. Thank you very much.

Assynt February 2022 Workshop

I’ve just set up a second workshop for Assynt (north west region of the Scottish Highlands) for February 2022.

This is one of my own personal favourite locations in Scotland, and February can often be one of the coldest months in Scotland. So there’s a good chance of finding snow on the mountains around this region, as well as interesting winter light.

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.

Add To Cart

Postpone another year?

I bet you’re keen to go travelling with your camera.

I’m just wondering if you’re one of the many who are thinking ‘give it another year, and things will all be back to normal’.

My view is that things aren’t going to go back to normal any time soon. Not in the next five years at least. My reasoning is that I’ve noticed a trend. We’ve all been thinking ‘give it a few more months, and things will be better’ since this all started 18 months ago. It’s a constantly shifting time-line with no end in sight.

So my view is: if you are going to keep postponing until everything is more reliable, less uncertain, you may be squandering valuable years of your life. I’d suggest just trying your best to get out there, and go travelling.

Since August, I’ve been to Iceland twice. I am there right now. Apart from the red-tape (more an effort in my view to be seen to be doing something, with a dash of politics thrown in), I’m here. I’m having a good time. And no, I’m not going to die from Covid, and I’ve probably got a lot less chance of catching it in the wilderness of Iceland’s landscape, than I do frequenting the supermarkets of my home town in Scotland.

But that isn’t the reason why most of us aren’t travelling. It’s the uncertainty of the rules that are stopping most of us. That we could get stuck somewhere. Or even catch covid and have to go into quarantine in a foreign town.

Heaven forbid.

Well my thoughts are: I’d much rather take that chance, than sit at home doing nothing for the next few years of my life.

So are you up for postponing for another year?

I hope not. Because very little is going to change.

Best to get out there. Now. Even do something in your own country is better than not going at all.

All we ever have is the present moment. The past is gone, and any control we have over the future is just an illusion.

Book has shipped

I’m so pleased to finally ship my new book ‘The Sound of Snow’. I was very happy with last year’s production ‘Hálendi’, and this year’s production is up to the same quality.

I had always planned to do this book on Hokkaido, but I thought it would be a few years before it was out. I had not anticipated that a pandemic would halt my workshops, and send my business into nose dive.

The sound of Snow was accelerated, because I had the free time to work on it.

I have been very fortunate to have a large portfolio of images to rely on, and although producing a book does not make me rich, it has helped contribute to keeping me afloat. I am aware that for many of my workshop participants, they do not understand the economics of my business model, but suffice to say that I wasn’t sure I could get to 18 months of lockdowns, travel restrictions, and still be here.

This book has become more important to me than I would have ever thought. So I would like to thank those of you who bought a copy.

I have also received some lovely emails this week from some of the buyers of the book who have now received their copy. This is just great to hear, as each book project is always fraught with problems. When the book finally arrives I am always holding my breath to see if the production quality is up to what I had asked for, and this book is certainly there.

Comments so far:

What a beautiful book! Just wanted to say thank you for your obvious efforts in compiling such an inspirational book. Beautifully thought out and presented. Wonderful attention to detail and in my humble opinion, your best book so far. Excited to hear about the retrospective!

Neil Brayshaw

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New book arrived today and the printers have done a great job - beautiful photography and publication.

Euan Ross

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Hi Bruce hope you are well just to let you know i received you latest book today and must say the pictures are beautiful and really like your minimalist capture.

David Gaunt

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Just to thank you for the safe delivery of my book. Absolutely over the moon with it! 

Charlie Robinson

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Dear Bruce,

Your book arrived yesterday and I love the pictures, especially considering the conditions you must have faced. Thank you also for sending it so well packaged – much appreciated 

Best Regards,

Chris Chate