Making The Effort

My recent column for the local newspapers, was about making the effort to get better images. I wanted to expand a little on it, after another weekend of climbing and scrambling around to get what I needed. This is the piece I wrote initially.

I wanted to talk a little bit about getting the best from your landscape photographs. I see so many images from locations I know, and they are, well, very similar. I know this is a problem, especially nowadays with the number of images we are seeing online, from cameras and cameraphones, and there are only so many ways you can photograph the same location.

Sometimes I will be out driving or cycling and see a location for a shot, I’m sure everyone does it. The problem is we are only really seeing what is roadside, and the same view as everybody else can see. I’m sure we’ve all seen people taking photos from the same layby, hell, some people may even wind the window down, and others will actually get out of the car.

My point is, it is worth getting yourself off the beaten track, and looking beyond the obvious views of a location, which you have seen many times before, and have probably been photographed a million times.

Most of the material I have been shooting lately, for my forthcoming book on the North Coast 500, has been off the road. I have walked miles, and got my feet wet many times, to get the angles and compositions I wanted. In some ways I wish I had a camera crew following me to see some of the efforts I have gone to, although much of it would come with a warning of “do not try this at home”.

I’ve been climbing rocks, scaling down cliff faces, crossing rivers and streams using circus skills which I never knew I’d possessed. I’ve been stranded on rocks as tides came in, and had to get very wet to get back to the dry bits, but it has been worth the effort.

The image I have used here, was taken up at Stoer, in North West Sutherland. It is a stunning part of the country, and if you haven’t been, get yourselves over there for a look. I had already finished, or so I thought, when I decided to go a walk around the top of the cliffs to see what else there was, when I saw a beautiful little cove. The sun was starting to go down and was hitting the water down there. The light was just gorgeous. I took a few photographs, but then thought, I have to get down there. It was a bit of a battle to get there, and probably not very safe, but eventually I was down about 50 foot below, on the rocks. I then had to find my way across a very rocky shore, and the rocks were very slippy underfoot. I eventually found my way to the spot I wanted and I had got there just in time as the light was perfect. I still had given no thought to how I would get back up….

I got set up, and fired a few more images off then tried something different – shooting in to the sun – I know what a rebel, breaking them rules! This was shot with an ND filter on my 16-35mm lens and I just love the way the colours look in the sun, and the fact that I have managed to capture the sun in the shot as well. I have broken another rule, by leaving the sun flare in the shot. I could easily have removed it, but I think it adds to the feeling, and as I said – rules are there to be broken!

I eventually made it back up to the top of the cliffs, in one piece, but soaked with sweat, and I think it was well worth the effort.

So, this weekend I decided to head West. The bad weather meant I had to cancel my Saturday portrait shoot, and I decided to skip a Sportive down in the central belt – who wants to drive all that way, pay for a hotel, then cycle 80 miles in crappy weather? Well, not me, clearly. Anyway, the weather was pretty much what I hoped. Rain clouds, but sunny intervals. Ideal for moody landscapes. I was driving along and spotted a waterfall. After negotiating some bushes, and scrambling up some rocks, I got the perferct angle and got a couple of cool images. This set the theme for the entire weekend, as I was only a few more miles along the road, when I spotted another waterfall. This one had a stunning mountain backdrop, although from the road it was hard to say how big it was. Well, thought I, I am here anyway, let’s get up there and see what I can find. I parked my car – too far away it turned out – and set off up the hill. First rookie error – I was wearing my Nike trainers. I have walking boots but find they are slippy as hell on rocks. Trainers seem to be better in that situation. However the rocks were miles away. I had to negotiate a boggy, wet hill, freshly watered by the overnight torrential rain. Ah well….once they were wet, they were wet. I knew I had 2 pairs of shoes in the car, so I kept going. If it had been cold it may have been different. Anyway I eventually made it to the waterfall, although further down than the part I had seen. Now, I really did take a couple of risks here, because I had to get an angle to avoid the trees and bushes – I seem to be avoiding bushes a lot in this blog… But I got it. Stunning image with the peak of the mountain just rising above the waterfall. Was I happy with this? Na, time to climb further up. I made it up to another ledge and again it was stunning. Got some great images as the sun came out and lit everything beautifully. I could feel the spray in the air from the waterfall, and the sound of the water was just so relaxing, I could have stayed there all day. However I still hadn’t reached the part I had seen first, and now that I was closer, I could see it was pretty big. So I climbed some more, got wetter, sweated a lot, but eventually arrived at the most stunning location.

Bottom line is – I spent two days on the road. I came back with maybe 12-15 shots that I will use. Quality beats quantity every single time in this situation. Sure, you can get more shots, more locations etc in two days, but I have images that the average person driving the North Coast 500 most certainly does not have, and being really critical of my own work, I have actually produced images I am proud of. To be honest if I had brought back 2 or 3 per day I would have felt it was worth the trip.

Look for new angles, different views of the well known locations, and be unique. I’m not sying nobody has shot the places I did, but very. very few would have gone to that trouble. Oh and what a great sleep I had on Saturday night after that!

I am saving the best stuff for my book, so this is a phone pic I took up there, to give you an idea. Not bad for a Sony Xperia!