January 2024 - My first month as a driving landscape photographer
Hello everyone I hope you are keeping well.
For this blog, I thought I would go back and look at January, as it is the beginning of a new phase for my photography and I've restarted the 52 project, a project where I take and publish my favourite image every week on my website. (You will see the first of the February images there too)
You can find the project here - https://www.justinlaidlaw.co.uk/52project-1
January has been good. I got out with the camera five times in total and have got quite a few photographs I am happy with. I have visited places I have been to before in good conditions but I have also explored places I have never been to before. I have driven about 350 miles / 563 kilometers to and from photography locations this month. One thing I need to work on is that I have exclusively shot sunrises, need to start going for some sunsets too but driving on dark lonely roads has been fun!
Now let's talk about the images.
Forth road bridge at sunrise - 01/01
Image 1 - Forth road bridge at sunrise - The best of an okay bunch of images, I was definitely out of practice and the conditions were okay, I was quite conservative in location choice as it was my first ever drive for photography but I do like the image and it was a decent way to blow away the cobwebs!
Impressions of Geese at Blackness
Image 2 - Impressions of Geese at Blackness - This was a good shoot, a great location with interesting conditions and I was excited as I had never been here before, I couldn't have really planned the shot shown as one, I had never known the Haar was going to be there and how could I predict where the geese where going to fly? Lucky shot! I also like a few of the images taken this morning too, some will end up in the calendar vote too.
Pre-sunrise at Loch Ba, Rannoch Moor
Image 3 - Pre-sunrise at Loch Ba, Rannoch Moor - Apart from nearly crashing the car due to black ice, this was a fantastic morning, I got to see Glencoe in the winter coat I've never had the chance to photograph before! I proved to myself I could visit cool places and still get home on the same day. I love this image, and I will 100% be putting this into the calendar vote.
Pre-sunrise at St Abbs Lighthouse
Image 4 - Pre-sunrise at St Abbs Lighthouse - This was another one of the locations I have never visited before but has long been on the list, apart from the technical difficulties with the image editing I got a good image in the end! Jogging the 40-minute walk was unplanned too but it was all in good fun!
So, I wonder what February will be like?
By the time this is posted, I have already been on another decent sunrise shoot and may have been out for sunset today. I have got the next two weekends available for photography and then the final week of Feb I will be on Skye for a full week, so I reckon it is going to turn out decent!