Sutherland Photographic Trip

In my last blog post I mentioned how I had started the year with the resolution that I would post blogs about my photography more regularly to update folks as to what I have been up to. As you may have noticed, I've already fallen behind on my resolution—this is only my second post of the year, and I'm clearly late with updates.

This update is about a week I spent in March over in the flow country in Sutherland. I hadn’t been in this part of the world since I was a kid, and my parents headed there for a holiday. I have wanted to get back to the area for some time because of its majestic mountains, such as Suilven and Stac Pollaidh and its mystical lochs and lochans. March seemed like a good time to go as the days were sufficiently short to enable me to get out and about for sunrise and sunset, plus as it turns out there were some interesting weather patterns which facilitated some interesting day time shooting.

As some will have seen from most of my photographs, I like to have water, either sea water or that from a freshwater loch, in my compositions and I pretty much always use neutral density filters (mainly Lee filters) to calm the water and produce a more minimalist and peaceful effect. I also like using ND filters when it is windy and there are interesting clouds in the sky. You can see some of the effects of this in my most recent photographic posting of some of my Sutherland photographs in my new ‘Highlands’ Collection.

Although I like all of the photos in this new collection, I am particularly fond of the one called the lonely tree. This was inspired by a photograph that the Scottish landscape photographer Burce Percy posted on his web site some time ago of a lone tree in a loch in Sutherland. I’ve gone for a different tree and the one I photographed is in Loch Assynt. It was a rainy and misty day, and this essentially wiped out the background landscape to give the dreamy effect of a tree floating in space.