Publications
Outdoor Photography Magazine - May 2008
Knoydart peninsula, Scotland
Reproduced here by kind permission of
GMC Publications Ltd.
If you would like to read the article itself, please scroll down below the image for the full text.
Another summer, another Scottish island… This time we spent a week in May on the Isle of Colonsay, taking in a couple of low tide trips across to the tiny tidal island of Oronsay. Given the dismal weather last summer, we were incredibly lucky and enjoyed some excellent (if cold) conditions on one of the smallest inhabited Hebridean islands.
Of course size isn’t everything and Colonsay boasts incredibly varied and unspoilt natural habitats, with long sandy beaches, wonderful rock formations, rugged cliffs, ancient and cultivated woodland, peat bogs, meadows and farmland. Neighbouring Oronsay is minute by comparison and the whole island is actively farmed by the RSPB.
The challenge for the photographer, as always, is how to make the most of such an amazing location, particularly when sharing one’s holiday with family, friends and pet! This was my first trip with a really good digital SLR, not to mention a few excellent lenses and I really enjoyed the versatility offered by this set-up.
For the first time, I could choose from focal lengths ranging between 24mm and 420mm and excellent image quality at ISO speeds well in excess of that offered by the wonderful Velvia. Most of the images shown here rely on longer focal lengths than I had available with my trusty Pentax 645, not to mention faster shutter speeds than I could achieve with Velvia. Another advantage was being able to achieve the required depth of field for, say, the Oronsay landscape, without having to use a tripod. This is a huge advantage when the weather is changing every second and time is limited – stay too long on Oronsay and you have to wait for the next low tide to get back over to Colonsay!
Most of our time was spent on Colonsay itself and I spent a considerable amount of time on the rugged west coast, where the steep cliffs are home to vast numbers of sea birds. I’m afraid my birds-in-flight skills still have a long way to go but I still loved watching the birds fly past and spent many happy hours trying to capture them.
My favourite image from the week was taken on one of these cliff-top outings. My eye was caught by the pounding of the waves far below, where the furious motion of the turquoise sea and white surf made a stunning contrast to the orange lichen on the cliffs. Again, digital came to the fore as I was able to check each image to make sure I had captured the patterns and composition I had envisaged.
Further up the west coast is the beautiful mile-long beach at Kiloran Bay – this was very close to our cottage and became another favourite haunt – not least because our mad Tibetan Terrier loved to go walking here! No matter the weather, there always seemed to be something to catch the eye, something that just cried out to be photographed and I was lucky enough to have the equipment that allowed me to do just that.