Scotland

January 5th, 2010

I’m not real­ly one for new years res­o­lu­tions, but I do have a few goals.
One of my goals for this year that I’ll do my best to achieve is to blog more.
I’d say about 50% of my book­ings I get are from word of mouth, the oth­er 50% is from blogging.
Peo­ple see that I’ve shot at a venue that they’re get­ting mar­ried at, they can relate to the pic­tures and imag­ine them­selves in the pic­tures, and they book me!

Now, blog­ging is fine when I’ve got plen­ty to blog about, but right now, things are still very slow.
I’m get­ting so many book­ings com­ing in, but I can’t post pic­tures of cheques or bank statements.
Bring on the sum­mer! I real­ly can’t wait to shoot loads of wed­dings this year!

So to keep my goal, I need to find mate­r­i­al to blog about.
So here goes…

In Sep­tem­ber Jes­si­ca, myself and some oth­er friends trav­elled up to the Isle of Lewis for a holiday.

Here are some of the more scenic pic­tures from the trip.

We flew up to Glas­gow, stayed overnight at a friends, then drove up to Ullapool.
Low cloud cov­er was the visu­al theme of the hol­i­day and “Wow!!” seemed to be the word that came out of my mouth the most!
Incred­i­ble scenery!

Enjoy.
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You see some hous­es and you won­der what inspired them to build there.
Then the answer becomes obvi­ous. They built there because it’s beautiful
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This was the first beach that we went to. The sand was a mix­ture of white, with black tex­ture run­ning through it from the pete.
As the black petey water ran into the sea, the sea was also black. Incredible.
Also, this beach was huge, and there were 3 oth­er peo­ple on there.
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Yes, I did get wet for this shot!
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I’ll be hon­est, some of the scenery was a lit­tle eerie.
Main­land Scot­land was far more beau­ti­ful, and had far more trees.
The Isle of Lewis was so windy that trees just could­n’t sur­vive. Instead there were rocks
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This was the windi­est day that I’ve ever expe­ri­enced, even windi­er than this pho­to­shoot
The locals said to us that we were crazy for being out in this weather!
Incred­i­ble weath­er, and lit­er­al­ly breathtaking. 
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This was an amaz­ing beach. Strange to have surf with moun­tains in the background.
I used to surf a lit­tle when I was younger but I’m not sure if this was normal…
The water was bit­ter­ly cold for me.
Thank good­ness I had my box­ers on!
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I was a lit­tle short on friends, so I made a new one! Hi!
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We vis­it­ed the stand­ing stones which are… well… stones that are standing.
It was an ancient bur­ial ground.
I attempt­ed a new pho­to­graph­ic tech­nique for this shot and was very hap­py with the shot.
Each of these stones was far taller than me
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On the last night, we went for a lit­tle star gazing.
Last time I saw a sky like this was in Hawai’i.
We laid on the bon­net of the car and freezed our arse’s off.
It was incredible!
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We stayed in Ullapool which is on the main­land, this is where the fer­ry leaves from. This was our view from our youth hostel.
Beautiful.
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I hope you did­n’t mind me shar­ing this with you!
We had an incred­i­ble time!

Now I just have to find more to blog about!
Shall I pub­licly say on here that I’ll try to post 1–2 times a week?

Let’s go!
Joseph

  1. Rory January 6th, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    Hi Joseph,

    Nice one on the blog­ging — keep it up! I’ve been lurk­ing here since last sum­mer some time, and enjoy read­ing what you say as much as keep­ing an eye on what you are shoot­ing. By the way you come next after Jeff Ascough and Joe McNal­ly in my RSS feed, so you are in good company!

    You men­tioned that you changed your equip­ment. What are you shoot­ing now? Just won­der­ing ‘cos I was shoot­ing the same as you for a while — D300 + Sig­ma 18–50 f2.8. I’ve recent­ly switched to a Nikon 17–55 f2.8 cos I found the Sig­ma was let­ting me down too much in low light. First wed­ding with the Nikon is this com­ing Sat, so fin­gers crossed it was a good investment!

    Any­way, keep up the good work — I’m inspired by your suc­cess in the face of the cur­rent finan­cial times! And your shots are great …

    Cheers,

    Rory

  2. Joseph January 6th, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    Hi Rory.
    Thanks for the com­ment, and to be list­ed next to Jeff and Joe (we’re on first name terms!) is quite some­thing! Both awe­some photographers!
    I used to shoot with a 70–200 2.8, but found it too heavy as I’m only small, and quite an intim­i­dat­ing lens, I sold that I pur­chased a 50mm f1.4, and 85mm f1.8, a pana­son­ic LX3 for ring shots and a set of pock­et wizards!
    I’m real­ly pleased with my change of equipment!
    I’ve got a bit of a love/dislike rela­tion­ship with my 18–50. I’m hop­ing to go full frame this year so it does me well meanwhile! =)
    I’m sure you’ll be blown away by the nikkor, I’ve only heard incred­i­ble things about it!
    Thanks again for the com­ment Rory! Means allot!

    Joseph

  3. Rory January 6th, 2010 at 9:52 pm

    I’ve been think­ing about that 1.8 85 — maybe I’ll trade the Sig­ma for it. Glad you’re also in love / hate with the Sig­ma (not just me then!). I’m hop­ing to go down the D700 route by the end of the year, with the 300 as back­up. I’ll prob­a­bly trade the 17–55 when the time comes. I hummed and hawed over it cos its DX, but I found one 2nd hand in Aper­ture in Lon­don (great shop), and its minty! Reck­on I should get most of my mon­ey back when the time comes. Any­way, it’s not the equip­ment, it’s the eye that counts :-)

    Rory

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