Landscape Photography – why?
Landscape photography is a strange game. You spend ages sitting watching a rock waiting for it to do something interesting, then suddenly it lights up and you’ve got a photograph. Or you drive out of town towards the hills in perfect conditions just for it to turn flat grey and boring as soon as you open the car door on arrival. Sometimes times it feels like there isn’t a good photograph to be had in a hundred miles. Other times it feels almost too easy.
It can be almost as much of a psychological game as it is a visual craft. read more…
Landscape Photographer of the Year 2011
At the start of the year I submitted a handful of my photographs to the Landscape Photographer of the Year competition – I guess I wanted to see how I measured up. If you have never heard of the competition, suffice to say that it’s one of the biggest in the country. I’d forgotten all about it in themonths in between, but last week I received an email telling me that one of the photographs from Glasgow has been Commended This means that not only has it been included in the book but it will also be on display in the National Gallery in London between the 5th December and the 28th Janurary. read more…
Through the Pinhole (just for the hell of it).
I spend my life photographing all sorts of things: weddings, air festivals, climbing, landscapes, more weddings, kids, weddings…. I even just finished a project for the ESRC on adolescent self harming. I love my job: I never know what I’ll be doing next! I noticed recently though that I no longer tend to tend to just pick up the camera of an evening and go for a wander to see what I can see: just shoot for the sheer fun of it with no agenda other than going home with a good image in the bag. read more…
Windermere Air Festival
I defy any man of any age not to regress to an excited child at the sight of a Red Arrows display…. If that display is performed over Lake Windermere instead of a strictly functional air base then all the better! Add to that a visit from a Hurricane, Spitfire and a Lancaster Bomber flying formation for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and then the gut wrenching, body slamming roar of the last flaying Vulcan and it all adds up to a pretty damn good weekend. read more…
Golden Oldies Hockey Festival
The last few months have been good and busy: lots of corporate events, live music and the like, not to mention the Beginner Photography courses that have been running regularly! This week was spent through in Edinburgh covering the Golden Oldies International Hockey Festival. read more…
Photo Article in TGO Magazine
A few months ago I submitted a short article on my trip to Patagonia last year along with some of my favorite photos to TGO magazine. The article has finally made it into print as an 8 page feature in this month’s edition, which is in the shops today!
Portrait session at the Keswick Mountain Festival
One of the most entertaining things about event photography is that you never really know what’s going to happen through the day. I went to Keswick all psyched up for the climbing, biking, swimming, running, hiking… you get the idea. I hadn’t expected to find myself with five minutes to produce a group portrait of Sir Chris Bonington, Lesley Garrett and Ray Mears, but that’s exactly what happened late on saturday afternoon. read more…
Keswick Mountain Festival report
Keswick is a funny place: despite the fact that 90% of the population are permanently encased head to toe in Gore-Tex, the first thing they do when it rains is go to the pub. Or a tea room. For some reason, this didn’t seem to hold true this weekend, and despite the near cataclysmic weather the Keswick Mountain Festival carried on regardless.
Well, almost.
It would inaccurate to suggest that the weather didn’t have any effect on the weekend, and indeed when we arrived on site on Sunday morning the wind had done some serious damage to the site overnight. The ground was saturated, the gazeebos had been gazunked (yes, i made that word up) and the main marquee in particular was in pretty poor shape. With the weather having wreaked such havoc you would have been forgiven for thinking that the game was up for the weekend, but you’d have been wrong!
The runners still ran, the bikers still biked and the triathletes put in an incredible effort in exceptional weather.
All in all, it made for a slightly surreal day: triathletes making their transitions while workers dropped the marquee and delegates recovered their stalls. All the events that could be relocated or rescheduled were, and there was even a lecture going on the corner of one marquee while we hastily filled it with the contents of another that had been damaged…. I didn’t meet one person that appeared in the least bit phased by the whole thing.
All in all I think that sums up a lot of what mountain sports are all about. Nature is always going to be the boss, but when she decides to give you a bit of a scolding you pick yourself back up and get on with it.
See you all there next year!
Gemma and Colin Baird – 14th May 2011
I don’t normally post blogs about wedding shoots, but I thought that I’d make an exception for Col and Gem’s wedding. They are both keen sailors and decided to get married at Kames, or more specifically, on a beach not far from Kames. read more…
New online store!
Exciting times – the Leading Lines Photography store is now open for business! In the shop you will find a collection of prints and limited edition prints for sale. I have posted some of my most popular and my favorite images, including landscapes from around Glasgow, Scotland and further afield.
read more…