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This is the first panoramic shot we’ve uploaded to the website. It’s a 7 frame (landscape) panorama from the top of Schiehallion looking down onto Loch Rannoch (left), Dunalistair Water (centre), and Loch Tummel (right). It’s a stunning vista, and one that rewarded us highly after climbing the many hidden peaks of Schiehallion. It’s also the first Scottish Munro I’ve bagged, so it’s a vista I am especially proud to have seen.

For me, it encapsulates the beauty of the Scottish Highlands and summarises why it’s one of my most favourite places on the planet – one we were lucky enough to live nearby for many years and one I miss to this day.

Check out our other Scottish panoramas in our Scottish gallery.

I love taking pictures on a farm. On many a holiday I find myself crawling into chicken hutches and hanging over dry stone walls, knee deep in mud and excrement to get the perfect shot. What I like best is that rare opportunity of time….with farm animals you have the time to get them acquainted to your presence, time for them to become comfortable with you and your camera, and then the opportunity for them to become inquisitive.

I love Highland Coos, these are my absolute favourite. So majestic and alluring, yet seemingly so clumsy with their huge horns …they are always in need of a good comb and as such, their shaggy hair always provides an opportunity for some atmospheric shots.

The thrill of seeing these animals in the local fields never wore off – even after 8 years living in Scotland. You can imagine my excitement therefore, when my mother in law moved into a house in the country right next to a farm with 3 Highland coos! I spent many a happy hour in my PJs and dressing gown in the garden, snapping pictures of the coos in the morning light, swatting away the flies and tickling the coos any chance I got. This is when I managed to get some great shots. Up close and personal with the nettles and coos, I was able to familiarise them to my camera equipment and get some great detail of their eyes, their hair and their huge horns.

I have added a new gallery with many of my highland coo shots…take a look and let me know what you think.

 

We have taken a leap these last few weeks and have entered one of our favourite photo competitions (I won’t say which so as not to tempt fate!). It’s daunting to think that our pictures could ever potentially be seen alongside those of our photo heroes, but we figured it was worth a go.

We have submitted some of our favourites, some that we feel are technically excellent, and then have taken a gamble with some of our more abstract shots, in the hope that they show the judges something a little different. It’s really difficult to choose which images to submit. When looking back over competition archives, so many of the places we’ve visited have been frequented by professional photographers and there are so many of the same images around these days. It’s getting harder and harder to get a unique shot.  Some of the best, in my opinion, are often those taken by amateurs who have taken inspiration from their own back yard, those who have found beauty when looking in places others overlook. This inspires me to think differently about my own photography and the opportunities I can create with my own camera. There are so many wildlife photography opportunities in the UK…you just have to know when and where to look. Which brings me nicely onto the fact that spring has sprung (at last!) and we’re already starting to see ducklings and goslings on the local waterways. We have our eye on one particular goose who has made a nest out of rubbish on the canal bank, and has not moved for weeks because she is tending to her eggs. I check n her every morning and evening, and I will be rushing out with my camera as soon as she hatches her eggs…watch this space.

 

This is not a great photograph, but it is the beginning of a journey.

In 2009, I started to fixate on space again. It was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, and the space shuttle programme was sadly beginning its swansong. I don’t know how fixated I was on space as a kid – I grew up in the awkward post-Challenger pause, and somehow drifted away from mankind’s greatest explorations, checking back in for a trip to the astonishing Kennedy Space Center in 2000 and then for the ebullient exploits of Spirit and Opportunity on Mars. Mars! I realised that I had no idea where our neighbour was in the sky, or anything, in fact, other than the moon, and even then I only knew where it was when I could see it.

On a chilly 8 February 2010, space shuttle Endeavour soared into the sky above Cape Canaveral, lighting up the night sky and sending crumples of thundering noise 7 miles to where we stood – barely – at Kennedy Visitor Center. STS-130 was the first launch I had seen, a glorious expression of our capabilities and our vulnerabilities. At once beautiful, but clearly violent and explosive, Endeavour reached orbit around the earth at a speed of around 28,000 km/hour, in less time than it took us to return to the car park.

That was it. Time to learn, time to explore. The result is blurry, imprecise, but I know it is a nebula, around 1,300 light years away, that is visible with the naked eye even with light pollution and atmospheric disturbance from the middle of a city centre. That’s only 7,642,000,000,000,000 miles away. Long walk to the car. This was taken with a Canon EOS 7D mounted to a Skywatcher 130P reflector telescope using a Barlow (turns out that the scope isn’t good for astrophotography as the focusing distance isn’t close enough for an SLR). M42 is the nebula in the centre of Orion’s sword, which hangs beneath the central belt in the Orion constellation. Far more beautiful images exists of M42, but this is where I begin, a blue smudge, but one utterly different than the pinpricks of light we all know. Over a thousand years ago, the nebula emitted light on a journey that arrived just in time for this photograph. I hope to see much more on my travels round the night sky.

I like this photo because it shows what you can do in your own ‘back yard.’ It was taken on the canal that live we by on one cold December afternoon. The water had frozen solid, forming a flawless sheet of ice. Ducks and geese struggled along the ice, slipping in their search for open water. At first glance, it looked like the ducks were walking on water.

Alistair captured this Mallard, framed by the reflection of the skies above. It’s a bit of a mind trick – making the Mallard look as though he is floating on the clouds. I like its simplicity and its innocence, coupled with the restricted use of colour.  It’s a reminder to me to take the camera out and about and start to ‘see’ what’s in front of me. That’s why it is my photo of the week.

For the last few holidays we’ve been on we’ve taken to hiring lenses. At first we were reticent, calculating the cost of repeat hire and fearing that by the time we realised that we liked the lens(es) we could have put that money toward a possible purchase or even bought the lens outright. We soon changed our mind after renting the Canon L, 70 to 300mm for our Kenyan trip. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great lens and we got some cracking images with it, but we didn’t like the way it felt on the camera and struggled with its usability in comparison to our favoured 100-400mm Canon L lens.

For our Arctic trip to Greenland we hired the Canon L 28-300mm with IS and could not fault it for the image quality and the memories it allowed us to capture. I loved the range of the lens, it allowed you to move swiftly from landscape to wildlife shots. It was a perfect lens for the Arctic – allowing you to react to the unknown as and when animals surprised you, or when a stunning iceberg floated into view. It was a heavy lens – my neck muscles had a good workout for three weeks, but it’s surprising how quickly you get used to the weight and size of the lens.  What’s more, the IS (image stabilisation) in the lens helped to steady any shots – very useful when getting used to the weight and weighting on the lens on the camera.

For our recent trip to Boston we hired two wide angle lenses – allowing us to try before a possible ‘buy’ in the new year. We hired the Canon L 10-22mm and 17-40mm. By trialling such wide angle lenses for the first time, we were forced to reconsider shot composition and experiment with new styles of photography – a great way to extend our skills and learn more about different photography styles.

What we have found, is that if you are hiring to supplement your existing lens collection, it’s been useful to have multiple camera bodies with a lens on each – especially for wildlife photography – as it prevents you from needing to change lenses at a vital moment and possibly miss a shot.

If you shop around you can get some great deals on lens hire, including next day services, and two for the price of one / twice the duration for one fee. It might seem odd receiving professional lenses in the post for hire, but it seems to work well – and we’ve always managed to get the lens we want when we’ve needed it most. Whenever stock levels have not permitted us to hire our preferred lens, the company has always been great in suggesting alternatives – even offering a money back guarantee/ free hire should we not like their recommendations. It’s not only lenses that are available for hire, you can also hire cameras, video cameras .etc. – ideal for specific products where a purchase might be out of reach or you require access for a specific time only. We currently use www.lensesforhire.co.uk

I love the romance of this image. We usually steer clear of taking pictures of people – but there was something about this couple that made us break our rules.

The black and white cityscape against the seemingly deserted park where two lovers meet as the midnight bells toll… It captures a moment and an emotion in time. It was taken during our recent city break, in Boston Common on New Year’s Eve.

It perfectly embodies the sleepiness that is Boston city at this time of the year – we’d frequently find ourselves alone in various areas of the city with not another soul to be seen. It captures that feeling of romance, of taking a moment in time as if no-one else is around. That’s why it’s my picture of the week.

We’ve uploaded some new photos to our website from our recent trip to Boston in Dec 2010. The gallery features iconic images of the Boston skyline, winter scenes from New Year’s Eve 2010/2011 and a collection of images from Harvard in the new year.

Boston was a lovely city – very quiet indeed. It’s rare to have the opportunity to take cityscapes with no pedestrians or traffic in the images, but in Boston we were able to do just this. We spent evenings wandering along the isolated waterfront and financial district, spent undisturbed mornings in Boston Common and spent a lovely sunny afternoon with Harvard practically to ourselves.

It’s a great place to visit and photograph, with many tourist sites to occupy your day. Our Boston gallery is available for review and comment now.

I love this photo. It’s iconic, evocative and immediately takes me back to Jordan – a country I fell in love with when visiting for the first time.

Petra was everything I imagined – and more.  I could stand and stare at the Treasury all day. It’s a magical place, cloaked in intrigue. We were lucky enough to spend two days there, exploring the hills and hidden templates. It’s one of the first places I have fallen in love with that was not wildlife focussed. It was rare of me to enjoy photographing landscapes so much, especially those that require me to wake and then hike at 4am for the sunrise. But Petra is different – it’s intriguing, unusual and every corner presents a new vision and a new angle for photography.

The light changes constantly, and if you are keen on obtaining that iconic photo, you need to devote a lot of time to watching the changing shadows, waiting for the dawn pink light to turn to orange, red then russet towards dusk.

It’s advisable to get to the Treasury for dawn to see the sunlight bathe this iconic structure in a beautiful pink light. I found a spot below ground level to the right of the Treasury as you emerge from the Siq. Here, I could manoeuvre freely and take shots that looked towards the top of the building to emphasise its height and take full advantage of the sunlight kissing the top of the minarets.  It was a location I returned too at sunset, and again later in the evening during a walking tour of Petra – this is when I took this shot which is now my ‘photo of the week’.

I can highly recommend the walking tour of Petra at night. If you loiter slowly at the back of the group, you can fall behind and have the candlelit Siq to yourself. The narrow walls are cast in dancing shadows by the flickering candle light that marks the path down to the Treasury.  At the end of the Siq you met with an astonishing and haunting image of the Treasury bathed in the light of a thousand candles. Here, you have the opportunity to explore the area and set up the perfect shot. This image was taken on Canon EOS 30D, at 18mm focal length, f2.8 at 30s and with ISO 125, no flash.  We also used a mini tripod to secure the camera.

Additional images of Petra are available in our Jordan gallery.

I love this photo for its humour and irony. It features a tourist whale spotting boat, upon which several passengers scan the horizon, binoculars glued to their eyes in search of humpback whales. Unbeknown to them, there is a humpback teasing them under the bow of the ship, repeatedly breaking the surface of the sea. Time and time again this huge whale pops up barely a meter from the passengers but they are oblivious. On the second whale spotting boat, Ali and I stopped rolling around with laughter long enough to capture the moment.

This image reminds me of how unpredictable nature can be, and how much fun you can have with wildlife photography. That’s why it is my photo of the week.