I’m just back from a nice workshop. Photo-workshop, for a change. Up to the Highlands of Scotland. Wonderful.
Ok, that’s the short version. To make it a bit longer: I went up to the small town of Glencoe, which is located in the western parts of the Scottish highlands, in order to participate in a workshop run by Ian Cameron (see his website here and his PBase collection here). I had been enjoying his photos for quite a while and I couldn’t resist the temptation of being taught a thing or two by him – in an absolutely gorgeous area, in which I already had been hiking before.
I underestimated a bit how long it might take took to actually go up there – roughly 14 hours door-to-door, starting at 4.30 in the morning, with a tram. Then another tram, a bus, first flight, second flight, overland bus, local bus. Yawn…The hotel that Ian selected was nice and cozy, close to some nice scenery and the food was good. Although I will never understand how people can cope with bacon, baked beans, blood pudding and kipper in the morning!.
Major problem during the workshop itself: the weather. Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to Swedish autumns (wet!) – but handling a lot of gear is somewhat problematic in a constant downpour or hailstorm. I actually managed to have a brand new B&W polarizer ruined by a passing lorry (sprayed with a nice mixture of water, gravel and diesel). Thanks for that. And my super-high tech wipes for my lenses didn’t cope. Mpf.
The area itself is simply wonderful: wide open, moors and hills. A landscape that takes some time of getting used to. But then: absolutely wonderful.
Getting to know Ian and his approach to photography was really a rewarding experience that I enjoyed a lot. He is approaching photography from a very goal-oriented perspective: carefully selected, highly specialized and completed set of gear (build around the Pentax 6×7) . And no time wasted on any unimportant side-tracks, such as regularly buying new cameras or lenses. Instead investing the time to do photography. Just take a look at his sites – his strategy certainly seems to work.
We were six people participating in the workshop, which I first thought as a comparatively small group. But during the course of the workshop I realized that it is actually somewhere near the upper limit. Maybe I’ll go for a 1-2-1 tuition next time. We’ll see.
Photos. Oh yes, I managed to get some. Please find the whole gallery over at SmugMug. And of course the head image of this post was also taken during the workshop.
The result was definitely worth the effort – #1 and #9 of the gallery are my favourites. And regarding the strenousness of the travel: I have made the experience that this can in a certain way “empty” your mind and make you way more receptive than you would be after leaving a stressful job and doing just a 2h drive.
Thanks Markus! Yes, an empty mind I definitely had. I guess, you may be right. Such longer travels prepare for the passage from job to… something else
And even though it was kind of long, everything still worked like a clockwork. Not a single tram, bus or plane was delayed or even canceled. Nice.
Hehe, that’s truly funny. Me leaving SmugMug, you joining them
It will be interesting to hear about your experience though.
Did you leave Smugmug because you wanted to collect everything on your server, or did you have any problems with Smugmug as a service-provider?