I am running a free Family Photography Day at Daingean Village on Sunday 2nd April 2023 - this is a drop in session where you can come along and brush up on your skills amongst the lost clearance village in Glen Gary:
Daingean Settlement
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1ujHan174kV4B3Mr9?g_st=ic
We are hoping to have some very special guests and currently plan on being on site from 10am until 2pm. No need to book, just grab a camera or your camera phone and come along!
Things have been a little quiet the last week or so, I had a burst of holiday let work and a couple of days research for the big project up the glen… then nothing much happening. So I have been spending a little time upskilling! I hope to put the new techniques to work on my next assignment to see how they translate to the Scottish Highlands from the LA Mansions!
I have had a couple of nice landscapes though, and a cracking aurora tonight to kick in the new week to come! Hopefully some work will crop up (I do have another day on the project scheduled in for Tuesday, so that is a good start!)
I have decided to move my gallery sales off the website and onto Etsy to see how that works out for me. I will pop a link up in a few days once I have decided on what I am stocking, how much I am selling for and all the rest of the ins and outs of the platform!
Otherwise it has been a pretty good week, after a worrying start! Hopefully we can keep the momentum up and get a decent month overall.
Loads going on at the moment, hopefully some of which will lead to some long term gains. More later.
So there I was, all set to forge ahead with an industry qualification/award - my set was chosen and certainly good enough to get onto that first rung of the ladder. It would have been a rush to get all the supporting documentation together, sure, but it was not beyond the realms of possibility as most of it is to hand anyway.
Then there was a presentation about the process.
And I decided to change tack.
So, I am not putting myself forward digitally for the Spring round, I am going to hold off for the Autumn and, I think, I may attend in person for the assessment rather than take a purely digital approach.
This will allow me to link my panel in with a commercial project that is just incredibly exciting in and of itself, but the photography that I can foresee for that project should also create something really quite special when presented as a panel. It also means I can make it a statement of where I am going rather than selecting pieces from the past, and to me that is important. I don’t want to be judged on where I am coming from but the direction I am travelling in, if that makes sense.
So this isn’t a rout, more a tactical retreat to regroup and come back stronger. If I can come back strong enough and attend in person then I have the chance to gain something better from the awards than a licentiateship (the base rung on the awards ladder) and that really would be a vote of confidence to (perhaps) quiet the voice that builds the imposter syndrome.
Last week was a crazy busy one - plenty of jobs coming thick and fast followed by the first meeting of a new arts and culture collective for a big windfarm funded project over the weekend! This week, fortunately, looks pretty quiet!
There have been some great photographs coming out of the last few days though and I feel that stylistically I have emerged now on the property photography side of things and my landscapes just keep gaining depth. This year I need to capitalise on both these factors!
I have finally finished a “not a rush” job for Polmaily House - following on from an autumn shoot we ran a Christmas addition, just a few decorated rooms plus a video with the seasonal change. As fate would have it, on the 17th December just after the decorations went up… we had snow! The result was everything we could have hoped for!
The video is in the newly re-instated “Video” section under “Photography” and features the Autumnal work merged into the new Winter footage. The plan is to do some more in the Spring and then the Summer to create an all-season piece for their website. It is a really exciting and fun project!
I also have some (now unseasonal) photos which are rather nice.
This year I think I will push much harder on the drone and video front as there seems to be a little more opportunity in that direction at present (and there are few operators up here using big DJI Inspire 2’s which helps differentiate somewhat!) I have just put the order in for some flyers that I am hoping some of the local estate agents will take to offer a specialised service even if they are not interested in upping their photography game.
Today I have been hitting the marketing hard and launched a new advertising campaign to boot!
There’s nothing like getting yourself ready to hit the run up to Spring like a series of marketing campaigns and special offers (coming soon!)
I was just doing a little comparison between a couple of jobs I have done, one from last year and one from this - almost exactly 12 months apart. They were similar jobs in that both had dogs ;-) Both were also lovely homes, although different in style and character.
They do make a good comparison of how my style and technique have evolved over the first complete year or working in the field though.
First up, a fairly standard shot in a lovely home. I used a fill flash and single exposure on this one and have retweaked it in Lightroom before uploading here to just balance out the shadows a touch more. It is a nice shot on it’s own, but there are things I would change where I shooting the same house again.
In comparison, this is the more recent shot. Both were agency jobs, so both paid the same… but the latter shot looks more “expensive” I think.
So… what has changed?
First up, I am approaching my interiors more like a landscape photographer now that I am more comfortable with the genre and what is being asked of me - so I am looking for lines, placing features in strategic locations in the frame where I can and making sure that the angles just “look right”! Now, I do like an oblique shot to convey space, bit slightly off dead on is not a good look, so now I will generally shoot dead straight with horizontal horizontals and vertical verticals when going with this kind of angle. I will usually try and get at least one oblique “corner to corner” shot per room too, usually more, but sometimes there just isn’t a composition there to be had!
The other big change is that the first one was as prescribed - single frame, shot with flash. Wham bam thank you mam type photography… and it sucks. The flash kills the atmosphere, kills the natural light and makes the room look flat. These days, even though I am not being paid to go to these lengths, everything is shot natural light and often using HDR techniques. The result is a more more natural looking photograph which is more three dimensional and, to be honest, just more inviting. It also looks way more expensive… because it should be!
So… looking at the obliques next, here is an old shot from the same house:
Now, I am actually pretty happy with this all in all - modern houses do take flash photography better than old ones for some reason, but this room held up particularly well. I had already adapted my style by this stage from the very early shots anyway, but there was still room to improve and try to capture some of the atmosphere and just the general “feel” of the house.
And the current oblique. What has changed? Well, the lights show up and provide some nice patterns which would have been overcome by the flash, there is a softness and welcoming feel imparted too. The only aspect that I am less keen on with this HDR shot is that the window has not retained as much detail as I would have liked. Perhaps another exposure would help, or a slightly wider exposure spacing would help? I have another technique I have yet to try which is to blend the natural light exposures with a flash exposure to gain the best of both worlds… but that really is pushing things to the extreme for the low rates that agency work pays per house!
Just for the sake of interest, here are two shots from my very first job, the living room and bedroom for sake of comparison!
Again, not bad shots - I think I tried a little too hard in this instance as I turned up with portable studio lighting, and for the bedroom that seemed to work nicely holding the softness of the natural light and just helping a bit with the flash - the living room was completely overcome however!
So I have learned a lot, I feel like I am getting into the stride of things now and I feel like I am developing my own style. This year is going to be all about growing both my style and technique, becoming more confident in my approach… perhaps allowing myself a little artistic flair… and building on my reputation and business!
It will be interesting to see where we are next January!
For 2023 I have decided to simplify our pricing structure, which is now live under the Services menu option.
I feel that we are still one of the most cost-effective suppliers for photography and drone operations in the region whilst also producing as good or better content than others. We work with private individuals and businesses equally so if you have any photography needs then, please, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
This week has been very, very quiet.
I did have a few jobs on but the snow pushed most back to next week, along with a cancellation who just couldn’t wait quite that long so decided to use someone a little more local and hence less impacted by the significant snowfall!
On the plus side it did transform the glen into something even more special than normal!
I did manage to get out to a couple of properties that needed photographing though, one I was really desperate to get done as the owner needs to get things moving to secure the house they are looking to move too so that really was a priority job. The week wasn’t a complete washout work wise as a result, and would have been more productive if the Jeep was back from repairs, but the parts aren’t due in until mid February making it a 3 to 4 month repair job!
Last week was hectic! I didn’t shoot a vast number of properties, but I travelled quite a lot! Monday was Gairloch, Wednesday was a double return trip to Culloden and Thursday was back to another property in Gairloch! The two properties in Wester Ross were absolutely stunning and the drive out west is always something to enjoy… even in the Fiat Panda courtesy car!
Things are looking quieter for next week as it stands, which is a good thing. I have a load of images to edit for Polmailly still and a B&B to make arrangements for a half days work just down in the village.
I will add some of this weeks shots into the “Latest” album!
The first workshop of the year is up - a small group, early Spring event on 5th March!
There will be plenty more to come, I am still planning everything at the moment! I am also thinking about running a short multi-event course (probably Sunday Mornings once a month for 4 months as a single bookable course to concentrate on a different area of photography each week).
The residential workshops may start in the Autumn, there is a plan to run them from Drumnadrochit and our own on-site accommodation but there is a lot of work needed first to make that a reality!
Here we are, 2023 is underway and things are already looking better than November and December of last year in terms of booked work… not that this would be hard! One thing that is starting to look like a trend though is people moving into Inverness from the surrounding areas, often a result of a push rather than pull. The cost of fuel and the regular closures of the Kessock Bridge are both driving forces it would seem from my non-scientific research (I suspect the latter is a product of the former on reasons if I am honest - government policy really is not helping the Highlands at all).
So… what are my plans for the year ahead then?
First off I want to build on the foundations laid last year. I am no longer an “unknown” in the market and am starting to build a little recognition - so this year I will capitalise on this. Towards the end of 2022 I made a decision to follow my own path rather than that prescribed and shoot property using natural light and HDR rather than a single frame and fill flash. I think this gives a much classier end product myself, although it is more resource hungry. For the low paying agency work this means automating as much of the process as possible, which is still giving really good photographs for the client… just perhaps not quite as good as running the whole process by hand and tweaked for each individual final picture.
So the hope is to build the property side over the coming year to provide a reasonable basic income. The other side of the plan is to slowly start on some other income streams which may or may not make much of an impact this year… or even get off the ground…. The first is to develop the tuition/workshop/tour side of the business this coming season. I think I will start small to begin with and then build on from there as we have quite a lot going on at home over the coming year so time may not be on my side. Secondly there is more of a passion project to get going which will involve photography, whisky and writing! I have done a wee bit of concept work for this already and have a touch more to do before I start embarking on the project with any degree of vigour, but it is pretty exciting and hopefully will be interesting enough to generate some commercial interest as it starts to get going.
There are a couple of other projects and events going on this year and next that I am involved with, or hope to be involved with, but I will talk more on them as they happen.
So… Happy New Year, and lets hope that this is a good one for everyone!
We have made it through my first full year as a full time professional photographer!
The career change finally kicked off in the autumn of 2021, and I pretty much instantly won “Property Photographer of the Year 2021” which was a fantastic confidence boost! I haven’t really put the work in to the awards this year so haven’t really made much headway in retaining the title for a second year - 2022 has been all about building my style and confidence in shooting commercially in the property world. I am quite happy with where I am given the early stages of the career, and people are now recognising my name and my photography which is a pretty big achievement for such a short time!
What is 2023 going to bring then?
Well, the first job is to build on what I have done so far. Continue working to enhance my reputation and gain recognition in the region particularly and to a lesser degree nationally (Scotland) and potentially into the wider UK. This is going to be through a big focus on property work - both residential sales and lettings as well as the hospitality industry and perhaps making a move into commercial property too if I can find the right opportunities. This would seem to offer a good core to the business that will provide regular and reliable work - and it is something that I have found I am actually rather good at!
The second area to work on is more of a passion project (or two). The main one is the Whisky Project, which is currently untitled and the scope is just being narrowed down at present. The basic premise is to photograph all the distilleries in Scotland in their widest sense - hopefully including the landscapes they are set in, the sources of their water and try to capture the essence of what makes them unique. I have made some early enquiries and got a couple of distilleries on board and hopefully as I work with these contacts more opportunities for privileged access will open up elsewhere. This will, hopefully, spawn some saleable products, but more on all that later in the year as the project really gets underway.
The third area to develop will be the workshops, tuition and guiding business that has been planned for a long while but never quite got off the ground. We will hopefully have the huts starting to go in this year too which will facilitate more development of this side of things too.
So whilst 2022 has not been the most financially rewarding of years it has laid some solid foundations that can be built on over 2023 and beyond. My Dad, whom I learned a lot about business from in a totally non-traditional sense (he is way more of a secret socialist than I think many would imagine) always felt that it took 5 years to really become established in the market. We were chatting through it a couple of days ago and I think I am on track to perhaps beat that! His business ethic has certainly rubbed off on me though - to always provide the best possible service and outcome for the client no matter on the scale or value of the order. So whether it is an agency job paying peanuts or a high value commercial job I will always strive to over deliver!
So with all that said, I would like to wish you all a wonderful Hogmanay and I will be back and working hard in early January to make 2023 a real break-through year.
I have been through my photographs over the year and chosen my favourites from 2022!
Enjoy!
Best of 2022
December has been fairly quiet, as expected - but we have big plans for 2023!
More on that later!
For now though, Happy Christmas and all the best for 2023!
What a fantastic morning shoot that was today!
A 4 bed house in Cannich, and the weather gods smiled on me after a rough start to the day - dark clouds, cold, and snowing turned into something really quite special!
Awesome!
There is no denying it now, winter has landed in the Highlands in traditional form. Last nights snowfall was only a sprinkling here but I am hearing reports of a considerably more dramatic event elsewhere in the Highlands and Aberdeenshire.
I love it!
Although it does make some aspects of working trickier, particularly as I am still waiting for my Jeep to be repaired! My next job today is to chase that up and see if they have an eta as yet for getting it back to me.
Things are still quiet on the work front, I suspect that I will see an upswing in bookings in the New Year - but houses are selling still, perhaps price expectation needs to become a little more realistic, but that isn’t really my area of expertise.
We finally have the planning through for the next stage of our plans, which is a massive relief. There is a troublesome condition attached which I need to get resolved (and has been one of my key focusses this morning so far with emails being sent out) Hopefully we can get everything lined up to make a start in early 2023 though!
The whisky project is also needing a little bit of an injection of motivation, I will get back to the planning for that shortly (possibly this afternoon) - and tomorrow is a wee job out in Cannich so long as I can get there through the snow! I am wondering if I will have time to pop out for some whisky shots in the snow afterawards as Glen Ord isn’t so very far away….
Last week I was on a mini marketing course, and one of my main takeaways from this was to refocus on one area of the business for the moment and push that, as a result I have stripped a lot out of the website and we are redoubling efforts on property photography side of things for the moment.
Landscapes stay, along with aerial, as they are next on the list to build (and aerial covers a fair bit of property anyway), then… once we are a little way into the new project I will put up some galleries relating to that too.
So all go here then!
As it happens, yesterday I was at a huge property just outside Inverness for a big shoot that took most of the day!
We are running a special offer until the end of January - 20% off ALL our prices for Property Photography, Videography, VR Tours, Floorplans and Aerial Footage!
Remember, the new legislation comes into effect in Spring 2023 - why not have some new, high quality images for your website and sales materials done along with the floorplans you are required to submit ahead of the deadline!
Standard House (up to 4 bedrooms) was £200 - now £160!
VR Tour was £200 - now £160!
Drone Footage was £200 - now £160!
Floorplans (only available with photography) was £50 - now £40!
(Additional cost for larger properties at £50/bedroom for interior work)
DOUBLE OFFER! Book by the end of November and there will be no additional travel charges for the Highland region!
