February 2025
2nd February 2025
I haven't been into Divach Woods since the turn of the year, I know... I can see it over the field from my window... but the weather has been miserable or I have been busy... or I have just been way too lazy/wrapped up in my own darkness to think about it. Anyway, the weather, it would seem, really has taken it's toll. Many of the trees are down, there are multiple small landlips and the whole place is looking very sorry for itself.
The path is in a pretty poor state too, hopefully with the road closure and car park currently closed as a result, we won't have too many visitors falling down the ravine over the next few months whilst everything firms back up again!
I guess nature will take it's course and come back, but it is rather a shame that such an important and ancient woodland is currently in tatters.
1st February 2025
Well, the wagon was well and truely fallen off of. Hamish decided to come home from the party at 2am (so I had to go and get him) and then I was up at 6am to have a shower, make his packed lunch, get him up and ready and then drop him off to head to Murrayfield. We then went into town a short while later and watched the Chinese New Year celebrations… before heading for pancakes at the utterly wonderful “Wild Pancakes” at the other end of town.
With the wagon being well and truely fallen off, as mentioned, due to the pancakes, we then decided (or I decided) that we may as well burn that thing… so a chippy tea it was!
Tomorrow I shan’t have a weigh in - instead I will double down on the already gruelling Very Fast 800 and see how it all looks on Monday morning before I set off to a job on the far side of Skye!
8th February 2025
Today we took Roki (the dog) and Angus (the youngest) out for a wander on Rosemarkie Beach over on the Black Isle. We spent so long messing about on the beach itself that the plan to walk around Fairy Glen fell by the wayside as the light was fading and temperature was dropping fast… so that will have to wait for another day!
10th February 2025
It was a cold morning at Loch na Bà Ruaidhe this morning. The frost clung to the trees and the light was glorious! I just had to stop off en route to Beauly for this one!
12th February 2025
Heading home this afternoon and my eyes were drawn to the rays of sunlight cutting between the clouds over Loch Ness.
3rd February 2025
Today I was off to Skye, although I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to get home as some very stormy weather blew in, standing up was actually quite a challenge at times. Fortunately, the wind was behind me as I came back to the bridge and it speeded me over without incident!
I saw a whole load of wonderful scenes, but the wind and rain were coming down so hard that a lot just weren’t worth trying to photograph. There are plenty logged for a return trip though! Although to get to the place I was working today took about as long as driving to Glasgow or Edinburgh from here… yet I was still in Highland!
4th February 2025
A new location for me - just off the A82… although in the grounds of an old estate. I was working on a set of floorplans for a bungalow on the estate that is being converted into a holiday let when I spotted this waterfall on the Allt Coinneach - the falls the other side of the main road have been on my list to shoot for some time, but this is even better! The old bridge on the old road (pre A82) just makes this whole thing hang together!
Trying to get back on the Very Fast 800 wagon today, the weekend was a trainwreck on that front - exhaustion from no sleep on Friday night resulted in a very poor Saturday of eating EVERYTHING. Sunday was a little better, but not great… then yesterday with the 7 hours of driving… exhaustion set in once more and whilst I kept the eating down a bit - there was plenty of the wrong things consumed!
So today… back at it. And I have discovered Sweet Potato Wraps which are lowish in calories and rammed full of fibre as well as being reasonably low carb. So I am hoping that tomorrow will see the scales start to move in the right direction again. I am still shattered and very run down but will try and limit the caffine intake a little today in order to get a good night’s sleep tonight!
Tomorrow I am off to Elgin and Lossiemouth so I will see what I can find out that way!
6th February 2025
A busy old day - first up a shoot in town, then a quick exterior only shoot in Invermorriston where this was taken. It was back to the estate from a couple of days ago to get the photos as the weather wasn’t great earlier in the week.
The busy part - editing the house in town… that took 5 hours! It was an exercise in showing what I can do when necessary in terms of editing out clutter and the debris of life. It wasn’t perfect by the end, but considering the start point it was looking pretty good!
16th February 2025
Been a quietish weekend (for me, at least) the last week hasn’t been too bad in general. Work is still quite slow and hasn’t really woken up from the winter break as yet but fingers crossed we start to see some action soon. Perhaps everyone is waiting until the far side of the half term this week before really getting moving!
Anyway, this week I have a couple of big, higher paying, jobs rolling in on Tuesday so even with nothing else I should be hitting this years weekly target.. and I am starting to think about next year and setting some business goals for that too!
Tomorrow though - tomorrow is going to be about putting ideas together for some qualification panels….
18th February 2025
Our run of nice(ish) weather came crashing to a halt today… on the day that I was booked to head up into Sutherland! Today’s photo is, as a result, Golspie in the Murk.
It wasn’t a wasted day though, with two good (and well paying) jobs on the table it was always going to be one of the best days in a long while anyway… but I also had a chance to explore a couple of areas that I haven’t really been into much. In doing so I have found a good few new places that I want to shoot, and which may be useful for future workshops once we get everything up and running on that front.
Tomorrow I have a ton of photos to sort out and edit, an invoice that I made a bit of a boo boo on to be resent and today’s work to be billed too! It’s also the last day of the half-term break but I suspect getting the boys to do anything would be a step too far (and Angus is going to Holiday Club for the day anyway!)
20th February 2025
It's a bit bleak out today - the view over Urquhart Bay was suitably dramatic though.
This photo was to form the basis of an experiment into processing “a la social media vogue” that has formed part of this week’s video on You Tube!
5th February 2025
Today I felt a little warmth to the sun, that first tantalising glimpse of the changing seasons and winter coming towards an end.
That said, February and March can be the harshest months, so I am not counting chickens just yet!
14th February 2025
Today’s photo is a still from a video that I shot this week - I am still working on my video shooting as I have plans, so my video blog/guide/whatever it is has become a vehicle for trying out some ideas in terms of shooting and editing my work.
I decided to try and expel this fug with a little bit of rock and roll today! It even made it onto a YouTube post that I have been putting slowly together all week too!
7th February 2025
A lovely, frosty, start to the day today.
It’s Friday, so the boys finish school at lunch time - and since I don’t have any work on today I am catching up with socials and website posts. I have a video to finish this afternoon too!
These cows down by the school were looking particularly frosty though so were the photo for the day!
9th February 2025
Today has been a little on the miserable side... just as well we went out yesterday!
11th February 2025
Snowdrops - the first hint that spring is on the way!
13th February 2025
It's been a stunning day in the Highlands - blue sky, if a bit chilly still.... but I have been sinking into a real fug for absolutely no discernable reason. It will pass... it may just be the latter part of winter grinding me down.
I popped over the hills from Inverness into Strathnairn as the landscape over there is stunning and is filled with remains of past life in an attempt to jolt myself out from under this dark cloud. It didn't work, but it was worth a try! It is a lovely area and probably one of my favourites in the immediate Inverness area.
15th February 2025
Soft mist over Drumnadrochit this evening.
17th February 2025
Today has been quite chilled - the boys are off for half term until Thursday, we are on a 4 term system here so their half term breaks are really long weekends rather than a whole week as in many other parts of the British Isles. Whilst I am working, today has been all about tweaking the website to make my property portfolio a little more organised as I intend to update the portfolios constantly moving forward to keep everything fresh! We did have a break for lunch at the marvellous Cafe 82 on the edge of the village though!
Tonight it is off to an RNLI Ops meeting, then tomorrow I am booked in for a couple of nice high end jobs - first off is in Golspie and then a second near Lairg. The weather is not looking too bad either so it should be a good day out.
Been thinking about those we have lost of late recently, I say of late… really my Mum, brother and friend Matt have all featured in my thoughts quite strongly. I don’t really know why, perhaps I am not feeling quite so centred as I should be just now though.
19th February 2025
A busy day of editing today... and testing some new software in an attempt to streamline complex edits. Not entirely sure I have it fully worked out yet, but if I can get it to do what I want it could potentially save a lot of time on the big jobs!
As a result I have barely been outside today, so instead we have an extreme closeup of Pickles' nose!
The software in question was on a big discount already, but The Society of Photographers threw an additional code to make it REALLY cheap… and I thought I may as well have a look! There are photographers out there doing some very dramatically processed landscapes and from my brief play I suspect this is what they use… particularly when I notice that their images have the sun in a location that it really could never be in ;-)
More on this later, my brain is cooked now, I haven’t had any rock and roll time today and my creativity has been poured into work photos!
21st February 2025
Another wet day in the Highlands. But this morning has been productive, I have set up a nice day on Monday work wise, the car is in for service and some attention on Tuesday and I have Friday spoken for too… so just need to find something for Wednesday and Thursday to make it a very productive week!
Yesterday I was somewhat blind-sided by a large bill that has now scuppered plans for a lens replacement this month so I am hoping that I can get back on track before the end of March so it goes in against this years income rather than next. My 14-30 is needing a little TLC but I can’t send it off without a replacement as it is my main workhorse lens! If I can replace that (probably with the faster 14-24) this year then next I can concentrate on a standard zoom, main body and at least one drone upgrade… plus there is a course that I rather fancy going on (for a little professional development), I need to check when that is running and perhaps schedule it for a quiet time work wise so that I am not missing out on too much!