I’ve been a bit remiss about keeping up with my blog posts on here. I keep complaining about time, or rather the lack of it these days as I’ve been busy with my family and work has been taking up more of my time than I’d like. However, I haven’t forgotten that this exists and I’m planning on using it more through the rest of 2018.
So, to kick things off again I thought I’d do a write up about a couple of my recent trips. I’d been trying to think of some new places to explore locally and see what potential, if any, existed for photography. There is one place that I’d heard quite a bit about but never visited and this is Burn O’ Vat and Loch Kinord out between Dinnet and Ballater in Aberdeenshire. I did an initial scouting trip out with my friend Jason of Icarus Owen Photography, to see what potential there is in the area, I was pleased to find some locations that I was keen to explore further. After this initial trip I then returned twice more on my own, once for sunrise and again for a sunset. The location works well at both times of day at this time of year although I do admit I was hoping for some snow on the ground, but you can’t have everything.
On the first of my solo trips I was aiming for sunrise at Loch Kinord. I was initially disheartened as the cloud cover was thicker than anticipated from the forecasts, I thought that it would be a write off and I had resigned myself to just spending time exploring the shores of the loch further and building up a better picture of locations and compositions. However, it did kick off with a really nice sunrise.
With an image in the bag as it were, I was much happier and started to further explore the banks of the loch. I then moved on and after a bit of walking I found a reed bed in one of the bays where I tried to find a composition as I really liked the subject. It was hard work and although I did walk away with an image it wasn’t what I wanted and I vowed I’d return in the future, preferably later in the day so the sun would be lighting the bay and reeds.
For my second (or is that third?) visit in near enough as many weeks I had a bit more of a plan in mind, in addition to a revisit of the reeds there were a few locations I had spotted on the previous visits that I thought would be worthwhile photographing. Unfortunately time wasn’t on my side and I lost the sun behind the hills far quicker than I anticipated – but I now have a better idea of how the location works and how the light plays across the landscape over the course of the day.
To find out more and to watch the ‘behind the scenes’ I’ve linked to the vlogs that cover both of these trips below. It’s a new(ish) idea to try and do a bit of video to complement some of my trips, I’ve been trying to dedicate a bit more time to it since the tail end of 2017 and I’d love to know what people think. Comments can be left on here or below the videos on my YouTube channel.