2 weeks on Skye - the return

The Cuillin from Caiplach I
Nex 7 Lensbaby Edge 80

I have just returned from two weeks on Skye on the north west coast of Scotland. There I spent a lot of time reflecting and meeting some great people. I was with the family on our annual summer holiday, which has been spent in Scotland for the last 3 years.

I visited a lot of galleries - in the first week I went to some photographic galleries and in the second week I consciously avoided them. This was for two reasons. The first was that most of the images are very similar and the second is that I realised that I wanted a different type of inspiration by studying the eye of a painter or sculptor etc rather than another photographer.

To expound upon the first reason - in the past I have visited photographic galleries, looked at other sites on the internet, studied books and magazines and come to the conclusion that a lot of landscape photography is the same, or very similar. I assume this is because the artists are all trying to sell their art to survive and clearly the market  demands Cornish Pastiches, with the added saturated colour and sunrises or sunsets. Whilst this is clearly for many it is not for me. I wish to tap into my inner soul and project this in the images I create.

The second reason was to gain new inspiration. The painter can include and exclude and thereby simplify their composition. Their 'eye' creates the image and they develop the mood by the way they portray the landscape in front of them. The use of light by some is truly remarkable.

As I have written before I usually travel having done my homework and with some preconceived ideas of what I want to achieve. This time I prepared in a different way. Having been to Skye before I knew somewhat  what to expect. I had the Ordnance Survey maps and knew where our cottage was. This was all. I did not use Google Earth or The Photographer's Ephemeris. I had not even looked up the tides.

Beinn Dearg Mhor IINex 7 Lensbaby Edge 80

I had decided to be more spontaneous on this trip and therefore went with some projects in mind to drive my images, however these were very loose. I wanted to look at 'worship/religion' and perhaps tie this into history. I wanted to capture the essence of the weather which I knew was predicted to be poor, even though it was August. I wanted to try to show the contrast between the 'anger' of the mountains and the 'peace' of the coast, although living at the coast, I know that it is not always peaceful and can easily display it's own form of anger. These themes I remembered influencing me when I was last on 'The Misty Isle'. Finally I was going to have a rest and therefore I was not going to get up for one sunrise and I was on holiday with two young girls and I wanted to spend time with them and so I was not going to go out for one sunset. This was perhaps the hardest part of the holiday for me as I have been indoctrinated by the plethora of books and sites telling me that this is photographic sacrilege.

Now I have the pleasure/difficulty/disappointment of sorting and developing my visions. Now I am busy sorting and developing my visions to convey the mood/emotion felt at the time. What is fascinating to me is the transference of my mood in these images as the first and second week were very different.

Beinn Dearg Mhor IIINex 7 Lensbaby Edge 80

I am not sure whether they will make the final 'keepers', but they do demonstrate a point to me and that is that all the images here were made in the first week and are very dark. The second week's images were less dark and I made fewer blurred images. I will expound upon mood and image making in another post.