Target Practice

June 05, 2025

I’ve been thinking a little more about what I’d like to focus on photographing during my time on Skye…. there are so many photographers taking similar shots here, and I can see why. I do it myself too. Cliffs and mountains and waterfalls, lone bothies in dramatic landscapes. It’s a very photogenic area. But, I think I’m leaning towards some sort of blend of ‘street’ photography and landscape, with a hint of documentary in there. I recently stumbled upon a kid’s bike, the ones with no pedals that they just cruise along with using their feet, abandoned at the side of a quiet coastline. My husband was a bit ‘why are you photographing that’ but it’s the exact thing I want to do. An abandoned toy on a famously beautiful beach… a reminder that people live here and it’s not a barren, uninhabited island.

Something else that really jumped out at me too was the passing place sign that’s been used as target practice. The obvious scenario I jumped to was local kids, bored of the quiet evenings, or not wanting to go into Portree during busy season. Maybe they were on their way to camp on the coastline just down the road. I hope they had more luck than us going that way… we were cut off by a herd of cows. If there’s one thing I don’t mess with, it’s cows.

A Bad Interaction

May 19, 2025

Just coming up nearly a year ago, we took a drive up to the west coast to do one of our favourite road trip loops. We booked the campsite at Glenshiel, spent the night in the caravan there, and then set off in the morning to drive the mountain road towards Glenelg, and specifically, the Glenelg ferry.

The ferry crosses the shortest gap over to Skye, it takes less than 10 minutes, but the fun is in the fact that it’s the last manually operated turntable ferry in the world. You drive on, pay your fare, and watch the ferry guys use their strength to turn the back of the ferry off the slipway. You might even be lucky and spot one of the ferry dogs doing the journey with you.

We took the scenic route back to the campsite, making plenty of coffee stops along the way, driving some new back roads and stopping to lug the big Mamiya camera out of the boot to fire off some shots here and there.

I don’t know if this is necessarily why it’s taken me a year to write words to go alongside this roll of film, but I had a pretty negative experience while taking the shot of the dilapidated tin house. We all know I love a wriggly tin building, and so do thousands and thousands of other people if you look at the extraordinary amount of members of the ‘Corrugated Iron Appreciation Society’ on Facebook, so obviously I was overjoyed to spot this building on a quiet little single track road, somewhere on the drive back.

As I jumped out of the car, camera in hands, a man was in his garden in the house next door, so I caught his attention thinking I’d be polite and ask him if he minded if I photographed the building next door. I know residents in the highlands can get sick of feeling like a theme park for visitors, so I wanted to assure him that I wasn’t taking photos for any nefarious reasons, even telling him about my Little Tin Houses website. This man was so dismissive and did his very best to make me feel small. I can’t remember his exact words, but he basically called what I was doing ridiculous, and wanted to shoot down any excitement and joy I took in photographing the house. It was a strange experience and left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the day.

I try to be very careful when I take photos out and about, never to invade anyone’s privacy or give anyone any reason to think I’m up to no good, but this interaction was a reminder that not everyone will get it, or you always run the risk of catching someone on a bad day.

The photo came out great though, what a corker.

A Good Combination

May 07, 2025

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’ve always regretted selling my 35mm Nikon fm2. It had an all black body, lovely black strap, a wider lens (28mm I believe) and I loved the photos I took with it. On one of my notorious ‘I haven’t used this in a while so I’m selling it’ splurges, I sent it off to a new home. Obviously, as always, a few months later I had the urge to shoot 35mm again.

I temporarily eased that urge with my little point and shoot, which I can’t deny has given me some good shots, but I missed that feeling of having a nice little solid camera hanging from a strap around my neck.

I searched around online and found a very good condition ( and all black!) Olympus OM10. I used one of these as my first ever film camera so I have really fond memories of it, and honestly, I should have stuck with it. I love this roll of film, light leaks and all. I probably won’t even get the seals fixed for a while because there’s something about the imperfections and grain of 35mm that I’m really into at the minute.

I tried a new film stock too…. Candido 400 from the Candido Collective. A little pricey, so it won’t be my regular, but I’m super happy with what it’s given me and it might be a little treat to buy another roll here and there in the future.

So here we go, the first roll through my new sidekick, the OM10, and my first shot with Candido. Personal favourite, the dead crab on Steven’s shoulder. And the thatched roof cottage in Plockton. Oh, and the little old tractor.