This could become a long running serial but I think it best to just keep it to two parts! I promised I would share another story from my recent trip to the Highlands of Scotland. My wife and I had specifically gone up there to try and get some great photographs of dolphins leaping out of the water. Of course I have seen many other photographers images of dolphins and you might say what is the point of capturing more of the same but that is a bit like asking a mountain climber why he goes to climb the same rock faces as everyone else. I think it was Chris Bonington who answered ‘because it is there’!
I just wanted to do it and have some of my own photographs to gain plaudits for. Of course like all such ideas this one did not go according to plan either. There are a number of places on the Scottish coast where I have been told you will definitely see dolphins, as well as otters, basking sharks and minky whales. I had seen a pod (you see I know the terminology) of dolphins last year out on the Inner Sound near Applecross but they were so far out it was a waste of time trying to photograph them. A friend had also recently told me he had seen several dolphins following the fishing boats returning to harbour just south of Aberdeen and when he had got back home and uploaded them to Photoshop discovered he had one photograph where a dolphin had a big juicy salmon in its mouth. But we decided we were too far from Aberdeen and opted instead for Fortrose on the Moray Firth. Now we had tried this location on a previous trip but when we arrived the gleeful watchers told us we had just missed them as they had gone through the shallows ten minutes before. Why is it people like to tell you what you have missed?
Anyway we were staying quite close to Fortrose so off we set one afternoon around 2:00pm. Just as we were drawing up in the car park next to the shoreline two dolphins went gliding by!!! I could not get out fast enough to catch them so sat there watching, thinking to myself there was bound to be more following. So having unpacked all my camera gear, tripod, big lens etc off I set down the pebble beach to station myself in the ‘best’ position ready for the next showing. About one and a half hours later, after standing still in sub zero temperatures, I decided it was not my day and set off back to the car (where my wife had kept nice and warm reading a book). I sat waiting for another half an hour when my wife suggested I should ring the fire alarm man back at home to organise a service for the unit. Deep in conversation with him I happened to look up and saw two more dolphins gliding by! I threw the phone to my wife, grabbed all my gear and ran like a madman down the beach trying to get ahead of them for a good shot. By the time I got there I was shaking so much from the exertion that I could not steady myself enough to capture the perfect image, so I ended up with two ‘shaky’ shots of a mother and its calf. I went back twice more to Fortrose waiting patiently for another opportunity but just like somebody’s well known law they never re-appeared. The only upside is that it is a good excuse to go back again for another holiday.
I have put one of the photographs below in the blog, not because I think it is a good shot (it isn’t) but just as a memorial to my efforts. The other photographs I took whilst out doing a pre wedding shoot. The couple didn’t mind!
In our Blog you will find Wedding, Portrait, Commercial, Family and some oddball Photography. We have been asked several times to define our style of Wedding photography and of course there is a whole host of words out there to describe photographic styles, photojournalism, reportage, traditional, documentary, fine art and the list goes on. We have come to realise that our (Ruth and I work together) style is based primarily around intimate images. We do all the other schtuff mentioned before but a common theme that runs through our work is 'intimacy'. The wedding is about the couple and the rest of us are there to observe. But ultimately it is about the love that the couple have for each other. That is what we seek to represent in the photographs we produce. You are the best judge of whether we succeed.
