I had a flying visit to the An Crubh  community centre on Sleat this morning and the early light was truly amazing, with broken cloud and sun rays everywhere.  I stopped overlooking Loch na Dal on the way home and captured these three shots, using my Zomei HD glass graduated neutral density filters to balance the exposure of the relatively bright sky against the deepest shade in the foreground areas.

This Saturday I joined three of my mates from the Lochalsh Photography Group on a trip north to the Lochinver area.  There was still a huge amount of snow about but the roads were clear, mostly, and the forecast looked to be good for variable light.  As it happened the weather was not quite as accommodating as we had hoped, but I still managed a good few images, with plenty of stopping at inopportune locations to grab the fleeting light on the magnificent hills of Assynt and Coigach.  The above shot is one of my favourite locations, having shot this old building with Suilven in the background on many occasions and in different conditons.  This was the first time I had the chance to get it with snow on the ground.

Here is a selecton of the best shots from the trip.

Over the last days of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 we have had some lovely frosty weather, followed by some heavy snow, by our standards at least.  Being on holiday I took advantage of the weather to get out with the camera, firstly with a trip to Dundreggan on the 30th December.  I had hoped to get some nice frosty landscape and woodland images, and anticipated a really good temperature invesion as Glen Morriston is particularly prone to them at this time of year.  I was not disappointed with the inversion, although was somewhat surprised by the relatively light frost.

The woodlands at Dundreggan did not disappont and I got some lovely atmospheric misty shots of trees, woodland and the river.

Yesterday we had ongoing snow all day and I had to go and feed the cattle at Kirkton.  While there I spotted some stonechats hanging around the silage, looking for some food, but I didn't have my camera with me.  I headed home and then after lunch I popped back down to the field and caught the following images of the stonechats and a robin (some good candidates for next year's Christmas card I think) and a nice one of an old ash tree in snow.

I had a great day out on Skye today, with a couple of fellow photographers from the Lochalsh Photography Group.  The day was cold but beautiful, with some spectacular light.  We went to Carbost and Talisker Bay initially, capturing a range of images, including some old boats on the shore at Carbost (see further down this post) and some long-exposure shots at TalisKer Bay, then after a cuppa we headed home via the shore at Waterloo where we had amazing late afternoon light as you will see at the end of the post.

The first shot was taken using my olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III camera in Hi-Res mode on a tripod, with a long exposure  of 1.6 seconds using my Zomei ND filters.  The Olympus Hi-Res mode takes 16 images in quick succession, moving the sensor slightly between shots, then blends them in camera to produce an 80 MP RAW image frm the 20 MP sensor.  The result is a large file with incredible resolution.  This process also creates a soft image when using a relatively long exposure, misting the water as you can see above, and incredible dynamic range and noise performance.  The effect is quite arty and I like it.

I tried the above image, converted to black and white to see how that worked as well, see below.

On the north side of the bay there is a lovely waterfall which today was almost dry as we have had very little rain recently.  I thought this made a nice composition against the rocks on the shore, and tried another long exposure shot.  The sunlight on the cliff was illuminating it very brightly compared to the shaded shore, making for a lovely contrasty image.

On the way to Talisker Bay we stopped at the shore at Drynoch and I captured this image of one of the boats and another of the amazing light on the houses across the bay.

I captured the next three images on the way back to Carbost from Talisker Bay.  The opportunity was just too good not to stop and at least try for something worthwhile.  I am not sure the moon image quite worked as well as it looked in reality, but it is still a lovely contrasty image.  The two shots of the Cuillins in the misty cloud work really nicely I think, caught with my 300mm lens which I quite enjoy using from time to time for landscape shots.

Finally, after a cup of coffee we headed back home via Waterloo in Broadford.  Down by the shore the late afternoon light was fantastic, and there were a few waders and ducks feeding around the water's edge, including this curlew and a redshank.

The very last image was captured on my Honor 200 Lite mobile phone in Hi-Res mode, reputedly 105 MP, but I don't think so!  Anyway, the setting sun was producing amazing light and I had my big lens on the Olympus and was a distance from the camera bag which I left in the car, so the only option was to use the phone as I didn't want to miss the shot.  I think it was worth it, and this only proves the old adage that the best camera is the one you have with you!

I had a great day in the darkroom yesterday, processing five 120 films, two of which were colour.  I had never tried develping colour film before and wanted to give it a go using my waterbath that I bought a while back for cheesemaking!  I had seen some videos on YouTube that suggested it was not that difficult if the temperature can be controlled, so decided to give it a go.

The above shot is the finished article after a process of development, scanning using my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark iii camera and the 60mm f/2.8 macro lens and a light box.  I then imported the images into Lightroom, set the white balance and inverted them in Photoshop before returning the inverted image to Lightroom for a bit of normal post processing.

The final images are not great because I was having a bit of difficulty wth colour balance when shooting the negative scans, and I got some of the settings on the camera a bit wrong as well, so they are a little grainy, but I can do it again as the negatives look pretty good.

Here are the various stages of development leading to the final image above:

Here are some of my other images created in this way:

First real snow of the winter over the last couple of days and I found I had a little bit of time to get out on the estate with the camera to try and capture this relatively uncommon phenomenon.  I was hoping to get some wide contextual landscape shots but also to zoom in on some of the details, so went out with my 40-150mm lens, giving plenty of scope for different compositions.

The following couple of images were taken looking west towards a small outcrop with birch trees along its summit, with an amazing dark brooding sky behind and strong afternoon sunlight coming in from the left, making for a dramatic composition.

On my way over to Duirinish I stopped and took the next couple of shots, the first looking along Loch Alsh towards Carr Brae, where the light was playing nicely on the snowy hills and highlighting the three old pine trees above Reraig; and also at the Horse Park looking north towards the Applecross hills and the Bealach na Ba, always a favourite of mine.

Finally, and by no means least, I stopped at Badicaul on my way home to capture these two shots of amazing light and snowy clouds on Beinn na Caillich above Broadford.  The two were taken from the same spot with different amounts of zoom, I think I prefer the slightly more zoomed in version.

The UNESCO Man & the Biosphere (MAB) programme is an intergovernmental scientific programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments. It combines the natural and social sciences with a view to improving human livelihoods and safeguarding natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sustainable.

The UNESCO Wester Ross Biosphere is approaching its tenth anniversary and has just launched a Crowfunder appeal to ensure it has a future supporting sustainable communities and the environment across Wester Ross.  The organisation, established in 2016 has worked for nine years with virtually no public funding, apart for delivery of some specific projects.  In response to the lack of public funding the Biosphere has established a social enterprise, Wester Ross Consulting, offering a range of community support services and other consultancy work, always linked back to the core function of the UNESCO designation.

So, this is a plea to support the Biosphere by clicking the link below and making a donation to the campaign or sharing this with your friends and social networks.  Without your support the Wester Ross Biosphere cannot continue to work with communites across Wester Ross to help protect this wonderful place and promote a sustainable future for everyoen who lives and works here.

Thanks

Back the Biosphere Campaign

What a beautiful late afternoon/early evening it was yesterday.  I had a walk round the circular coastal path from Duirinish Station to Port an Eorna and on to Drumbuie and back to Duirinish.  The sun was low in the sky and eventually set beyond the horizon, lighting up the few clouds that were present.  I was trying out some long exposures with my ND filter kit, which results in beautifully smooth seas and soft skies.  This is something I plan to try out more, especially when there is a bit more movement in the sea and more interest in the sky.

Here are some more images captured during my walk.

So, the 'Best camera is the one you have with you' is a quote often attributed to photographer Chase Jarvis, and I have to agree.  In these days of incredible technology it is easy to get dragged into the never ending cycle of upgrading your kit to keep pace with development and innovation.  However, the quote remains absolutely true, in that sometime you just need to stop and capture a scene or subject that appeals to you and you don't actually need to have the latest hi-res full frame digital camera, or a Leica, or Hassleblad....  I find that my mobile phone, while actually representing just the more portable version of modern tech I am referring to, is always with me and I resort to using it more and more as a result.  In truth, even with its apparent 105MP hi-res mode, the images are nowhere close to being as sharp as those I can get on my Olympus OM-D E-M1 camera, but it does fit in my back pocket, and the results are not bad if you are not expecting to print them at any size above A4.

Anyway, this evening, on my way home from a pizza and beer run to the local Coop, I just had to stop and behave like a tourist as I left kyle of Lochalsh.  The reason is shown above, with amazing dramatic cloud patterns hanging over Loch Alsh.  I strongly suspect some interesting weather this way comes!

So Mr Jarvis, I agree totally with you.  If you don't have any sort of camera you will certainly miss the shot, so use whatever you have, and always have one with you, even if it is only a phone.  That being said, I also had my Praktica BMS 35mm film gear, so I shot a couple of frames using that.  Only time will tell if they come out as well as this one did.

At the weekend I had a couple of days camping in Coigach in the most splendid weather.  I spent the days travelling around Coigach, Assynt and NW Sutherland as far as Durness.  The above shot was pretty much the climax of the trip with a walk up to the Falls of Kirkaig and a little bit further to this wonderful viewpoint looking towards the south side of Suilven.  The Fionn loch wends it way into the distance providing an excellent leading line and the little patches of sunlight on the slopes of the mountain add just enough contrast to make the image interesting.

I have put the rest of the images in a slideshow below, rather than set them out individually as usual, I hope you enjoy looking at them.