2006 News

The winter of 2006 has been an eventful one, and the imagery taken reflects my growing interest in the surreal nature of night photography, as well as the manner in which the environment you see reflects your perceptions.

I am increasing my retail outlets across Scotland slowly. If you visit Mull, and go to the galleries listed on this website, the number of mounted prints for sale will be reduced from last year due to the degree of damage sustained. You will still be able to purchase the most popular images, and each outlet will have different prints, but not in the quantity on sale last year. Also there will be framed prints.

To compensate you can either pop in here to Killiemor, on the North shore of Loch na Keal, and choose a print which I can print out on the spot, or post it to you. I love to meet people and would welcome you for a natter.

Alternatively the retail outlets will have a complete contact print set mounted for you to choose from, and I will print and post, by tube the image you choose. Given the large library of images it seems to be the most practical way of making the full library available for sale, without losing so many prints due to damage.

New Work

I have had an interesting winter exploring the limits of vision in the night skies, and what affects this. Most interesting has been the Solar Minimum which has resulted in only one solar storm, and a mild one at that. Possibly as a result of this low period in solar activity the night sky has developed an unusual hue.

My interests remain with the challenge of innovation, pushing the boundaries of digital photography beyond what the camera manufacturers intend, to see how the world looks through a cat's eye.

The images are slightly larger and less compressed, but I still try and make sure that these images cannot be well copied, out of respect to those who make purchase. The library of images is now sufficiently large that many of the prints will only sell in very small quantities.

When you have the print on your wall, few will ever have seen it.

People have mixed feelings about these huge structures, I just love the challenge they represent photographically, seen in another light. There was an owl flying through the image; though it does not come out in the image, and the landscape on which they are sited at Cruach Mor, Glendaruel, is ecologically barren, a truly haunting atmosphere of hope among the debris of the past.

I get gently nagged for my concerns over the future, though when you see one of these structures spinning with a gentle swish, and know that it is generating the power of 11 cars, yet at ground level it was calm as a millpond, it really does make you think about our options in the future.

The orange glow is the light from its own power reflected from local towns.

This one is somewhat controversial.

In daylight from this position 2000 feet up by the transmitter mast, above Craignure, the view is quite outstanding. Yet at night, when the cloud base is low, the perspective turns into a reflection of humanity, and its need for light in the darkness. This light is now beginning to intrude over Ben More to Loch na Keal. While unflattering it makes you think about the matter.

Looking towards Fort William the view is even more stark at these levels of sensitivity of vision.

I find the careful use of artificial lighting intriguing. So I built myself some kit to allow me to explore this aspect of night photography, especially during the dark moon's phases when it is hardly in the sky.

The results are enjoyable if unusual, and can be very haunting, and atmospheric. Expect more of these in spring.

Night photography is not easy, you often get maybe only one or two pictures a month, since you depend so much on weather and the moon.

Full moon pictures look like daylight.

On a freezing night, with no moon, this Hawthorn tree struck me as fabulous framed against Orion.

I had never noticed how sturdy the trees are, even with huge wind damage they thrive on near sheer exposed hills.

This image was taken on the south side of Calgary Bay, on a night with no moon. I was exploring the extreme limits of night photography and getting nowhere, and cold.

Sometimes when at the end of your tether inspiration happens. I like this image for its unusual sense of solitude. That was how it felt at the time.

Saturn was setting, in the middle of the image, out over Tiree.

The colour of the sky appears to be real, though I have not explored so far into darkness, this may be due to the Solar Minimum, when the sun has no sunspots.

That's it so far, winter is not finished, though spring beckons. So few images for such a lot of effort is quite normal in natural night photography, one of the main reasons it remains an exclusive and as one writer stated aptly, an unruly area of photography.

The island saw heavy snowfalls this year I took a few images, and they will be on sale.

There is a deep moodiness in the work at the moment, it might be accidental, or due to the better quality lens I am using to reach deeper into the night sky.

I am honestly not sure.

This image catches the lights of Broadford on Skye, and Mallaig on the mainland, with the Ardnamurchan Lighthouse in a light solar storm. From the North of Mull

Fixed focal length lenses allow digital cameras to see beyond human vision, what you discover often surprises.

These two images show what lack of reciprocity failure means. Digital is a fast media, little buckets filling up. This gives greater sensitivity than film in night photography.

View to the North is a 2 minute exposure, Across to Coll, 30 seconds.

That's the difference between a dark sky and one that lightly glows.

These 2 images express the consequences; fast sensitivity at night brings surprising, some might say uncomfortable, results that you would not get with film.

I am trying to get used to this, I'd have preferred dark skies and less streelight glow. I never expected the view to the North to turn a stunning daylight perspective into such a daunting image. A reflection of humanity. Film would have caught this, but not quite the same way.