Tokavaig to Portree

July 20, 2025

A few years ago, when we were still based on a pitch in the Cairngorms, we’d jump in the car (at that time, we had a nondescript Kia Rio as our daily drive, it was a little corker and we loved it) and head up to Skye for our dose of mountains, moody skies coastal walks.

The visit previous to this, we’d camped at Glenbrittle in a tiny tent and been eaten alive by midges (see the photos in this post), which we didn’t fancy repeating and with it being more towards the winter end of the year, we booked ourselves a nice, civilised AirBnB. Always take advantage of those off-season prices when you can.

A night in a cosy cottage, with a hot bath (absolute luxury when you live on a campsite and only ever wash in public showers) then a day of wandering and walking, firing off a roll of medium format film between Tokavaig, Ord, and all the way up to Portree.

Short trips like this, I find, are absolutely vital for me. I love the novelty of new surroundings, being inspired to get my camera off, but being able to get back to my tiny home and my routine after just a couple of days. It’s all about balance.

Rust & Sun

July 07, 2025

It’s taken me two years to get around to writing something to go alongside these shots. I’m slowly trying to fill in any gaps in my journal here… dedication to the plan of writing a few words to go with every roll of film I shoot. So here we are, a few summers later, and even a few more trips to the Isle of Raasay later. These were taken on my first day on the little island, during a camping trip to Skye from our then pitch in the Cairngorms, back in 2023.

Raasay is a funny place… I found it to be a super interesting place to photograph. Lots of unused buildings, cars left to rust, forgotten caravans… but with a backdrop of coastal mountain views, single track roads and a surprising amount of trees and woodland. On our more recent visits, we’ve headed out a bit more on foot and found some really lovely leafy parts, which feel like such a huge difference to its larger neighbour, Skye.

I think the bottom photograph, the abandoned building, may have been an old toilet block. I slowly poked my head around one of the doors, and remember seeing that a few sheep had made themselves at home. The caravan next to it, very clearly unused, had a little black lamb sleeping in the shade beside it.

Mountains & Grain

June 22, 2025

For a long time, I was content to just shoot with my golden combo. The Mamiya RZ67 and Portra 400. To this day, that is still ‘it’ for me, although I do tend to use Kodak Gold because let’s be honest, Portra is a bit ridiculously expensive.

I wasn’t always so uniform in the way I shoot… I went through a phase of buying cameras, trying new things constantly, using different film stocks, putting 35mm film through medium format cameras, and honestly, I’ve started to miss all that experimenting. I remember being given a panoramic 35mm camera as a wedding present. I took it on our honeymoon to Holland and shot most of the roll of film in Rotterdam and it was so interesting seeing the photos from it. I’ll have to hunt those out from my hard drive and share them again. I do still have all my negatives from these experiments, but they’re boxed up in a garage hundreds of miles away.

So, for someone who has pretty much primarily shot colour for over a decade, these grainy black and white photos from my point & shoot were a joy to view once the scans dropped into my emails (scanning is another thing I kinda miss, but I simply don’t have the room for the extra equipment in the caravan). There’s something about those Skye mountains and lochs in these photos…. they’re so barren and almost intimidating (to me, anyways) and the lack of colour and sharpness adds an extra layer of other-worldly to them.

Other things you’ll find in this roll…

Fox, on various walks, being kept hydrated and looking handsome.
Some work stuff… woven pieces hung on a croft gate to dry.
My spinning wheel on the ‘deck’, which is actually just a pallet.
Boats, long drop sheds, boat sheds and highland cows.