The Camera Needn’t Lie

The question of the role and the importance of realism in landscape photography is one that keeps coming up over and over again. On the one hand we have the purists, holding onto old fashioned notions of truth, arguing that landscapes should be true to the land; on the other the free creatives, raising that millennia old question ‘What is Truth?’. And, broadly speaking, the former seem to have long lost the argument. »

The Fitzroys

My shoulder hurts from the seatbelt, plumes of steam bellowing from underneath the bonnet; I am sure I can smell petrol. Shaking fingers fumbling with the buckle. The driver side door won’t budge. Scrambling out over the gear stick. I put some distance between myself and the car, expecting it to burst into flames any moment. »

North Coast 500 — An Alternative View

The NC500 is a travesty. The idea of car touring holidays harkens back to the environmental ignorance of mid 20th century and is wholly unfit for these days of an unfolding environmental catastrophe. VisitScotland, the Scottish Government, and all those who lend their name to promoting this anachronism, should be ashamed of themselves. »

Let It Burn

A flame stretching up to heaven. The newsrooms can’t get enough, a journalist’s dream come true. You, me, everyone, glued to our screens, riveting stuff. (Honey, make us some popcorn, will you?) »

The ‘Truly Clean Green Energy’ Fallacy

A recent UKH Opinion piece dealing with the ecological cost of the forthcoming Glen Etive micro hydro, and micro hydro in general, includes this statement: ‘[we can] produce large amounts of truly “clean and green” energy ... through solar, offshore ... and tidal energy solutions’. I have come across permutations of this argument before, and it strikes me that our assessment of the environmental cost of renewables, and our understanding of renewables in general, is somewhat simplistic, glossing over what it is renewables actually do. »

On Delayed Gratificiation

Some of the photographers of old get rather upset when folk say ‘film slows you down’, so I won’t say that, but I’ll say it slows me down for sure. It’s not just the ‘on location’ pace, but also the time it takes before I get to see what I tried to visualise. »

Why I like Film Photography

Film is experiencing something of a renaissance these days, as attested on social media (#ishootfilm #filmisnotdead), and, perhaps more importantly, by the reappearance of numerous previously discontinued film emulsions—there is, again, money to be made from film. »

'18 through the Lens

I was going to write the usual annual retrospective, but sometimes life just gets in the way. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; perhaps it is, so anyway, here are a few. »

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Dr Beeching’s Unicorns

Glen Ogle. Most of the time a place on the way to somewhere else, somewhere more exciting. Yet, for me also a special, magical place where years ago my inner eye first really glimpsed the beauty of this land. »

A Prince Holding Court

I saw him as soon as I came over the rise. Hard not to, perched on a rock some hundred yards ahead, completely out of scale in this landscape. »