365 in 72

I am glad to announce that the new 2009 Caithness & Sutherland Calendar is almost ready. It shows again 12 wonderful panoramic images of those two counties and another 60 additional superb views.
This is the third year running that I am producing this calendar and each year it proofs more popular. As this is a limited edition people will have to move quickly to get a copy of it to avoid disappointment.
Those calendars are popular with locals and ex-pats alike and last year they shipped all over the globe.
I am very proud that this product is so highly sought after and that my work is hanging in so many homes.

Now is the time to say a big "THANK YOU" for that!

Here is a little sneak preview of what to expect in 2009...

Photography close to the edge...

This morning we went to this absolutely stunning location on the Caithness coast. A canadian client requested a shot of this ruined castle, former home to his ancestral family, for his new music CD.

When you stand on cliffs with a sheer 30m drop, it makes you think very carefully where to plant your next steps. This is surely no location for scaredy cats, no wonder it is not advertised as a tourist attraction.

As photography gets more and more competitive, it`s absolutely vital to have a very own style "close to the edge"...

Out and about...

Yesterday evening was the first summer outing this season with the Thurso Camera Club.

About 10 more or less hardy peolpe went to Strathy Point in Sutherland. Although the sunset sky could have been much better I got some shots that might be worthy to enter in the one or other competition...

The lonely (haha) photographer.... is Garry

No photographers have been harmed by processing those images :-)

Your Mission this Month...

.... was my mission this month, well, last month really. As I have mentioned earlier on I have entered a handful of images in a magazines monthly photo competition.
Unluckily none of them won me a smart photo rucksack, but two of them were good enough to be shortlisted and printed in the June edition of Digital Camera Magazine.

This month I have entered only one photo and we will see if this one does well to, watch this space!

Here are the two photos that impressed the magazine people:

The long way down: "We liked Martina`s classic composition and subtlety of HDR use. The image almost looks like an oil painting."

Between a rock and a hard place: "The detail in this Scottish coastal is fantastic and the whole image has a sense of drama about it."

SWPP Gold awards April 2008

Once again this months` scores are announced and I am pleased that I got another "Gold Award" again, which brings it up to a total of 7 in 2008 and a total of 25 since March 2007.

This time I felt that the scoring was done quite tough with lots of images getting "Bronze" and "Unqualified". But on the other side I suppose that not every image can be a winner...

Out of the 11 photos I entered this month 1 got Gold, 7 Silver, 2 Bronze and 1 Unqualified. Yet again, the images I liked best didn`t get Gold and the ones that I thought they maybe will get a Bronze got Silver...

Toppsy-Turvy world :-))

Here is my "Gold" winning entry in the category "Monochrome", one of my favourite rocks in Caithness

The surf is up!

Thurso is hosting an international surf event, the O`neill Highland Open at the moment, with the creme de` la creme of the international surfer elite attending.

After some surfing at Brims Ness because there was no propper surf in Thurso (sort of pancake flattness that only happens once a year) the contest finally made back to town with some whopping waves going on at Thurso East.

I contacted a fello photo buddy and off we went. After some long huha, I finally convinced him not to be a chicken and to go out on the rocks to get some good photo shots done. We braved the slippery seabed and kelp covered rocks and got a good view point not too far from the shore.

I was lucky enough to see the reigning word champion, Sunny Garcia from Hawaii and some other top surfers. Here are the fruits of my brave effort featuring Sunny Garcia, Michel Bourez, Adam Melling and Renato Galvao.

Next year I will be back with some wellingtons though....:-)

Judging

Today I recieved a letter asking me if I would like to judge the photo competition of the annual Caithness County Show in July this year.
Unfortunately I have to decline this tempting offer due to family commitments. I would have loved to do this as there are many talented photographers out there who might show their work.
Ironicly last year I would have been able to accept... but nobody has asked me then :-)

Excercises

I had four very good photo trips in one week, wow, thats an excellent outcome when you think that something is usually not wanting to cooperate. Light, clouds, mood and weather were perfect on each shot and location.

To me as a landscape photographer this was fantastic news, and made my heart go boomboom...

Finally I got round to process the photos on the pc and thought I give it nice and moody B&W treatment. I find it quite difficult to get B&W right, so I do practise a lot! There is so much that can go wrong... contrast, brightness, shadows... you name it.

For me there is no all in one treatment with some photoshop actions, I process every photo individually and you might see this in the outcome..... now and then :-))

At the beginning ot the month I have entered a competition in a national photo magazine. They wanted to have readers best HDR photos. I thought I give it a try and I am very curious what the outcome of this will be... watch this space...

Time to reflect...

Arent reflections in the wather just gorgeous? Whenever I see a nice reflection there is no stopping me... Over the last week I have captured two of the most superb refelctions I have come across in years and I thought I am gonna share them with you...

SWPP Gold awards March 2008

I am absolutely delighted to see that I have managed to get yet another three of the hard to come by SWPP Gold awards in March.

This time the judging was a lot stricter than last month with lots of images getting Bronze, a few getting Silver and only a handful getting Gold.

Since I became a member of the SWPP in March last year I have managed to get 25 of those awards. The desire to get more of them drives me on and on to go out and get better images...

Here are my awarded pictures: Fine Art, Monochrome and Science & Nature