Welcome everybody to my new all singing all dancing but fundamentally the same Transient Light website.

As of the beginning of January Adobe discarded its Plug-In Adobe Flash Player leaving me unable to play a rotating slide show of Transient Light images on my header page and also affecting the uploading of any new images.  Over the Christmas period I have been very busy working with my website provider transferring the old site into something a bit more modern that is able to offer the same facilities but with much larger and fully scaleable images that show off the Transient Light pictures on my website for whatever platform it is viewed on at a resolution pertinent to the hardware used, be that iphone, ipad, small low res monitors or all singing all dancing retina screen monitors. That has involved the removal of the smaller low res images and replacing them with the same images but of a larger size for much more enjoyable viewing, time consuming yes, incomplete, I'm afraid so, call it an ongoing process.

Some items will inevitably not link up properly.  Print sizes for the moment should be taken with a pinch of salt or at least queried by common sense clearly a square image should not be offered for sale as a 40 inch x 20 inch acrylic.  Please do CONTACT me if you want to purchase a print and what you see for offer makes no logical sense.

I hope you enjoy what you see and be assured I will try to iron out everything over the next couple of months maybe the lock down might prove useful after all.

Just a little bit more information on how to move around the galleries. 

Once you have selected the gallery that you think you might like to look at click on the image and you will either see further sub-galleries relating to that gallery choice, or you will see a page of images that you can then click on again to view.

Having reached that stage you should be confronted by an enlarged image and several options that allow you to buy those images beneath, and of course I will be delighted if you do, (I remind you of the caveats above). But lets face it most folk will want to browse other images or look at the largest available version of the selected image and that option, if available, (it will be in due course), is directly beneath the gallery image "Larger View".

One of the most pleasing ways to browse the selected gallery or sub gallery is to click on "view slide show", hopefully you will be seduced by a plethora of related gallery images and be so intoxicated that you will feel compelled to buy one, two or maybe more.  They do look amazing in print; well I would say that wouldn't I!

It is easy though perhaps not intuitive to migrate back to the gallery or sub-gallery of images at any time by stopping the slide show and clicking on that gallery image.

Lastly if you are looking for a particular subject, theme, area, region or name of a specific image it is helpful to use the website SEARCH system on the HOME PAGE, though I loathe key wording with a passion I am very grateful I did it right from the very beginning, as it works pretty well and it is a good way of tracking down a particular image inside my fairly capacious library of images.

Have fun and all the best wishes for a much improved New Year.

I am not a frequent blogger, nor do I usually feel the need to inflict my wayward musings on others, under normal circumstances I don't really have the time, but Covid 19 has changed all that with daily life still stumbling along between localised lockdown and an umbrella of uncertainty. 

True Moray is still largely unaffected.  There has been no Covid related deaths in Moray since the last outpouring of frustration (otherwise known by me as a blog).  It remains at 20 and has done since early June.  Never-the-less that under current of fear still reigns and the previous normality is far from restored.  So here it is, another blog and it centres around one extraordinary evening when I arranged to meet up with Jim Robertson a local landscape photographer for a wee evening excursion.  The location, date and time were left vague because the weather hadn't exactly been kind.  We had half heartedly agreed to meet up on Wednesday evening on 2nd September,  Jim was more enthusiastic than me, it was apparently clear and bright at Lossiemouth, whilst I at Forres was looking at another deluge.  After umming and aahing a bit longer we decided that Findhorn would be the venue and 6.45pm the meet up time with sunset around 8pm. It was apparent as soon as we got there that the sky was highly active with multiple layering of different types of cloud and even at this early stage I could see that the clouds exhibited an underbelly glow suggesting that a half decent sunset was at least a strong possibility.

Findhorn has an immensely large sandy beach and at low tide which had already been taken into account, we knew there would be multiple channels in which water would sit amongst rippled tan coloured sand.  Despite it's proximity to Forres it usually isn't very busy there so we hoped to have it very much to ourselves, we didn't - but Findhorn bay at low tide does have that ability to absorb people.  Findhorn bay looks North across the Moray Firth, it is famous for its dolphin population.  To the West is Inverness and to the East is the spit of land that forms Burghead.  The beach itself is backed by low lying dunes and the river Findhorn discharges over a considerable estuary to the sea West of the footpath leading from the car parking area.  Due to it's North coast facing position both sunrise and sunset can be enjoyed at Findhorn bay from late Spring to early Autumn, two bites at the cherry so to speak.

Little were we to know of  the visual banquet that Findhorn was about to bestow upon us on this particular Wednesday evening in September but suffice it to say those that were on the beach at Findhorn at and beyond sunset, (and very few people left until the end of the show), were standing looking, pointing or trying to shoot selfies skyward with mouths and eyes wide open.  It really was like a very fine three or four course meal, a banquet no less.  I have included a few of the images in the recent uploads but if you would like to see the full progression of images and how it develops from 6.45pm to around 9.00pm taken on Wednesday 02 September 2020 at Findhorn bay then you can view them HERE.  Included within that was the most bizarre and still unexplained lighting featuring inverted greenish crepuscular rays apparently from a light source on the horizon in the direction of Burghead, very rare mammatus clouds, (admittedly past their prime), a raging and turbulent sunset sky, extraordinary but genuine cartoonish coloured light and just before the end a spindle of rapidly rotating cloud (not pictured), which we both simultaneously agreed might well be a funnel cloud. 

I hope that you enjoy the photographs and to think we almost called it off lucky Jim was keen to give it a whirl, I have rarely felt more visually "stuffed".

Well nearly and possibly temporarily but for the moment there is at last an awakening of the dormant hedgehog, Scotland.  For the first time it's wee snout has sniffed the scent of summer air, wrinkled its nose, opened its watery eyes and sneezed, not because of Coronavirus but simply it's allergy to the great outdoors, hay fever.  During the first two weeks of July everything in the garden will be lovely and as such our glorious leader has announced that all is well, (though we do still have to prod everything with a 2m barge pole).  I have always been quite keen on statistics, my wife is after all a medical statistician.  Moray council has a hundred thousand people living in it, population density is not high and I daresay if you asked the general public to identify Moray on a map of the UK very few would be able to make a decent prod at it with the aforementioned barge pole. 

To be quite honest save for the quite correctly imposed initial precautionary lock down and the daily bombardment of media lead news, government statistics and the very vague and un-enforceable rules and regulations that the local Police long ago abandoned any hope of upholding, I could easily believe the virus itself was nothing more than a myth.  Moray and indeed most of Northern Scotland have seen very low infection rates and mercifully few deaths, as far as I am aware there has been 20 attributed to Moray and a total of 86 confirmed cases.  Highland too has been fortunate with very similar percentages, it covers a massive area and has a population of 235000, sadly 49 folk have died with 209 confirmed cases.

Heart warming it is not, but it does feel like its time to come out of hibernation, Scotland has always relied on its tourist industry and it needs to welcome folk back with diligence and care but welcome they must and should be.  It is time to come out from beneath mother's skirt of invincibility, life is for living and I cannot wait to start getting out to the mountains, lochs and coastline of the Scottish Highlands to once again confirm to the world that we live in a place with scenery that is quite simply world class and from 03 July I shall be doing just that and I doubt I will see another soul save for those that have snipped mother's apron strings.

I'm bored, very bored, so bored that this is arguably my first ever Blog.  Yes I know, that's how bored I am, and I guess you're bored too because your still reading this.  Since I can't go out much further than my garden other than for exercise I thought I would entertain you with my latest rabbit pictures.  Toffee and Fudge are 8 years old and absolutely adore each other.  Toffee the brown one is independent, strong willed and just a wee bit grumpy.  Fudge is the white and brown one she is very thick, licks everyone and everything and will happily sit on your knee, shoulder or wherever you put her for pretty much as long as you wish.  Where Toffee leads Fudge follows.

With the exception of a healthy interest in the purchase of Transient Light prints and a few other miscellaneous outlets business has essentially dried up.  We are I guess all sitting at least two metres apart confined in our homes, twiddling our thumbs and desperately trying not to succumb to the vacuum of day time TV or the stream of depressing Covid 19 daily death reports.

A little bit of news for those that don't know, I recently moved house, actually we moved quite literally the day before lockdown was announced.  We are fortunate to have a large garden of around 0.75 acres and our new (old) house built at the turn of the 20th century was the Old Excise House at the Dallas Dhu Distillery in Forres.  The distillery itself is no longer a working distillery but it does have a tiny visitor centre, runs the occasional tour and sells off some of the special reserve bottles periodically (not at the moment of course).  The distillery is a grade A listed building and as such nothing new is allowed to be built within direct line of site of it.  Some how our property which is within the curtilage of the distillery escaped listing, though we were subsequently informed it should have been as it too was deemed to have been built by the distillery architect Charles Doig.  This was great news for us as renovation was not subject to the minefield of Hysterical Scotland listed building constraints which would otherwise have resulted in us not buying the old house and likely as not seen it fall into total ruin.  As it is we have tried to keep its appearance on the outside as similar as possible to the original countenance and modernised the inside for 21st century living, with regard paid to the original quality features that were already there and in relatively decent condition.  We are very pleased with it and of course we hoped to be doing more work on it during the summer at least that was the plan before we were told even mowing your lawn or carrying out simple DIY is a risk too far.

With all the negative aspects of Covid 19 being constantly aired and wallowed in by the media I thought I might mention a few ironic positive things I have noticed.

Before the virus took hold there were only two things that the media held onto like a rabid dog with a bone, that was Brexit and saving the planet.  I suspect like most folk here in Britain you have had a belly full of the former.  Regardless of your own personal views, the political bickering, lies and point scoring showed all political persuasions during televised media interview and question time to be a total disgrace.  I have only ever voted for a candidate that I felt deserved my vote. Not one of them met that most basic criteria, I didn't vote.  Happily Brexit has for the present been banished from peoples minds.

Secondly there is that tiny little issue about saving the planet.  It appears human beings have been turning the Earth into a gigantic dustbin, understandably its a wee bit disgruntled.  Oh the nations of the Earth collectively say how terrible it is and their G7, 8 10,12, 20 (or whatever number we are currently up to), are all terribly concerned, except Trump of course at least he's genuinely disinterested.  Their representatives leap on to 1st class jets, quaff champagne, wine or beer, discharging great plumes of pollutants from their rear ends, (the aircraft, not the occupants, that's just hot air), they argue the toss for a few days and return having agreed to disagree about everything until the same time the following year.  Well the Earth it appears has had enough, it's been feeling pretty lousy for decades, "about time I took some effective medicine and got rid of this nasty infection, Covid 19 should do the trick".  Honestly, with far too much time on my hands and little to do other than applaud the NHS, it is difficult not to believe the planet is fighting back and taking care of itself.  You reap what you sow.

Apparently the air globally is already cleaner than its been for years.  Cities and towns are clear of smog and the usual clouds of pollutants, no cars, no planes, no trains, no industry, (Britain doesn't have much of that anyway).  We as a nation have rarely been fitter, those that are well enough to go outside are reveling in their permitted hour of exercise.  I now live adjacent to the Dava Way an old railway track which had been reclaimed as a public footpath.  Before Covid 19 I rarely saw more than a few folk amble by, now it's the equivalent of the M1, I have never seen so many people about and I seriously doubt there are two metres between them all.  Folk are running, walking, cycling, engaging with their kids indoors and out.  Junk food outlets are nominally closed, people are baking their own bread and getting creative with craft related projects courtesy of their excess toilet rolls.  Venice one of the most beautiful yet hideously polluted cities in the world has had an ethical renaissance, the water is clear and blue with jellyfish swimming by, (personally I could do without the jellyfish).

The above are just my musings and thoughts in one of several bored and admittedly frustrated moments where I feel imprisoned in a house and being told to sit on my arse when I believe I would be both safer and happier out with a camera alone in Scotland's great outdoors.  As you are doubtless aware the government ramble on about recovery and a cautious return to normality.  I do wonder if they have the faintest idea of how they are realistically going to achieve that goal or even if they should, perhaps this ought to be considered an opportunity to re-construct a new normality one that is not parasitic but symbiotic with its relationship to planet Earth particularly as it seems to hold all the cards.

New courses will start appearing on my website shortly after the Christmas / New Year break commencing Sept 2020 up to and including early Summer 2021.  Apologies for the tardiness in presenting you with new and exciting workshops to join I have been quite busy this year renovating a property which we are imminently moving too, with the usual associated chaos that goes with it.

Jim Robertson and myself have joined creative forces to put on an exhibition of landscape photography at The Elgin Gallery adjacent to the library at the end of this summer. This will be our third shared venture together, hence Landscape 3. Our styles seem to complement each other very well so I do hope that you will be able to come in and enjoy some of the passion for Scottish and international landscapes that we share.

The exhibition begins on 31 August and finishes on 27 September 2019 around four weeks so plenty of opportunity to see both myself and Jim's collective works.

I am certain that both of us will be around at various occasions if you would like advice, help or just a chat. All pictures are for sale and during the exhibition you will probably be able to get reduced prices on other works available from my website.

Dates of Exhibition. Saturday 31 August - Friday 27 September 2019

Location. The Elgin Gallery within and adjacent to the Elgin Library, Cooper Park, Elgin.

Opening Times.

Sat. 10am - 4pm

Sun. Closed all day

Mon - Fri. 10am to 8pm

Note the gallery will have restricted opening between 17th September and 21st September. Please check opening times with the library during those periods.

Tel. 01343 562600

New workshops will be appearing on the Transient Light website over the next few months.  They prove very popular and tend to fill quite quickly as I tend to keep group sizes to just four or five folk ,so do keep an eye out for them.  They are all organised on a first come first served basis to give everyone an equal opportunity to join. 

I recently returned from an autumn workshop staying at the fantastic Stronachlachlar Lodge, a stay that was quite simply sublime. It is a great facility in a superb location and catering was provided by the Pier cafe who came in and cooked a meal for us every evening, whilst every morning after sunrise shoot we sauntered over to breakfast, a stroll of around 50m, such hardship. A huge improvement over last year where we were badly let down by the incompetence of the Buchanan Arms hotel in Drymen. It was one such morning where we ventured out for what must surely be one of the most stunningly beautiful pre-dawn shoots I can ever remember and believe me that is saying something when you consider just how often I am out and about. Loch Rusky a tiny and not particularly beautiful loch on the outer boundaries of the national park came up trumps featuring as it does some small pale blue wooden rowing boats for the local fishing community. We left the Trossachs in thick fog and arrived at the lochside in the same boat so to speak and understandably not another sole was there. From then on I think I exposed more images in one morning than I have ever done on any other single morning in my entire life, so I hope you enjoy them, either in my dedicated Loch Rusky gallery, or in the more generic Scotland / Autumn gallery with other associated images.  The pictures will begin to be uploaded very soon..

Whilst there we were treated to the most sublime light, gorgeous reflections and delicate misty tracery from the partially revealed perimeter trees, both with and without pale blue rowing boats.

I will certainly be organising another trip to the Trossachs soon so do watch this space..

From Saturday 04 August until Friday 25 August 2018 there will be an exhibition of some of my favourite Transient Light photographs hanging in the Elgin library gallery.

Elgin library is situated at

Cooper Park

Elgin

Moray

IV301HS.

It provides a large dedicated gallery space in which to enjoy the images at your leisure.

Opening times for the library and gallery are

Mon - Friday 10am - 5pm

Saturday 10am - 4pm

Occasionally the gallery space is utilised for other events so please ring ahead to check that the gallery is open to visitors

Tel: 01343 562600

It’s the New Year and I have started to add some new courses to my website. I haven't finished yet so keep your eyes open for them sporadically appearing on my WORKSHOPS page HERE.

Glencoe was particularly fruitful last year both the winter and the autumn courses and as they are proving justifiably popular I have included one autumn course and two winter courses. The Trossachs too produced a glut of superb and varied images at the peak of Autumn colour and this year I have been lucky enough to secure a truly stunning place to stay which should appeal to both photographer and non-photographer alike. Check out the ever popular Harris and Lewis course at the beginning of October staying at the Harris hotel in Tarbert. The ferry is included as are breakfast and evening meals.

More courses will appear as soon as I can get in contact with the various hotels and secure bookings.

Due to un-forseen circumstances one of my guests has had to withdraw from the forthcoming Autumn Glencoe course running from 20th to 23rd October 2017. It is a very popular workshop in a stunning location and as ever it is available on a first come first served basis. A deposit of £200 (UKP) will secure a place on the course the balance being due on or around 20 September 2017.

Commencing 10 October and ending on 13 November 2017, Jim Robertson and myself have joined forces to bring you an exhibition of some of our finest landscape work.

A great many pictures will centre around Moray and undoubtedly there will be other familiar and not so familiar locations displayed in all shapes, sizes and finishes upon the gallery walls adjacent to the Elgin Library at Cooper Park Elgin. Contact the library to check on opening times and accessibility to the gallery and please do sign our visitor's book. I hope to be around at the gallery on a number of occasions particularly at weekends that I am not running a workshop or masterclass and I will be delighted to meet you, answer any questions I can and of course offer advice on any of the pictures, cards and books on sale.

One place has just become available on the October Harris / Lewis workshop.

Bookings are as usual on a first come first served basis. If you are interested in this course please either contact me directly or pay the deposit which will reserve your place. The full balance is now due.

To paraphrase an old classic, I too am now out of Africa.

For a considerable time now I have been mulling over the disturbing possibility that the human trade in such products as ivory and rhino horn and the general indifference on display in respect of animal conservation, typically trophy hunting of some of the most spectacular animals on planet Earth, could mean that my children and future generations might never get the opportunity to see such awesome animals as lion, giraffe, elephant, leopard and rhino outside of the sanitised and false environment of a zoo.

Twenty one years ago my wife and I underwent a backpacking trip around the globe lasting a year and a half starting in South Africa shortly after Nelson Mandela took charge. We marvelled at our encounters with these animals which weren't just on show in game reserves, but just as likely witnessed at the side of a road. In Britain the largest animal we regularly come across is a red deer stag, but even so homosapien is undoubtedly king. Now I don't know about you, but if a large bull elephant were to amble across the road in front of me I personally think it sensible to defer to the elephant and that would hold true in respect of any of the so-called Big 5 and a few other beasts beside. Man seems a just a little bit insignificant and in the case of lion and leopard a bit further down the food chain.

So earlier this summer commencing 23 June my wife and I decided that we would once again visit Africa and this time travel overland for 21 days through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe to give our children the opportunity and thrill of seeing some of these endangered animals up close and personal as we did so many years before, wild camping in the Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park to mention just two.

We did indeed walk with elephants in hushed heart stopping silence beneath the cool splendour of a pink twilit sky and we thrilled to the subsonic bass roar of lion outside our tents whilst barely daring to breathe cursing silently at the noise our furiously beating hearts were making.

Please do have a look through the Africa galleries, I used the little Fuji XT-1 and 55-200mm lens for most of them and the landscapes were largely done on the Pentax 67II film based camera

Now that my two children are growing up and getting involved in more and more activities and I find myself having to chaperone them and drive them to various events, it is only natural perhaps that I will end up taking a few snaps along the way.

The picture on the left is of my wife Hilary training on a short incline on one of Forres many woodland trails.

My 14 year old son Ben is a keen runner and bonkers about mountain biking and quite talented at both, his 16 year old sister Lauren, and my wife Hilary, both enjoy cross country and regularly train and compete in various events dotted around Scotland. Lauren also enjoys gymnastics and performs pretty well in local competitions often winning her disciplines. Since my collection of images is growing I have placed pictures of them, and other competitors and friends in a couple of hidden galleries on my website you can find one that relates to RUNNING and another that relates to CYCLING & TRIATHLON separate from my primary business of landscape photography.

Please feel free to browse. More images and reports on various events will be added time permitting.

The galleries work on a tiered basis of sub galleries in a similar manner to the main website.

Over the past few months I have been finalising the selection of 20 of my images to make into square format Fine Art Cards.  The process reached completion about a month ago with all proofs tweaked for colour accuracy prior to being made into the final product.  The first batch of completed samples have arrived and I am absolutely delighted with them.
 

Although the main shipment of cards will arrive in a month's time, the initial batch is now on sale in the Transient Light Shop section of my website.  Please do take a look...

The cards are approximately 150mm square, printed in full colour on high quality matt white card, they are complete with a matching white envelope and sealed inside a clear cellophane package.  The images are themed into four sets of cards, The Seasons, Mountain Splendour, Magical Moray and Highland Moods.  Each and everyone of the feathered edged selected pictures is intended to give the impression of looking at the scene through a cottage window at the beginning of a new day... one that makes you feel grateful to be alive!!

I hope they leave that impression with you.. 

At present I can only supply them in individual sets containing five cards of which there are four.  Future plans are to place them in a number of Scottish retail outlets. 

I am very pleased and proud to announce that I will be visiting the fair city of Nottingham to present a Transient Light lecture.  

Nottingham & Notts Photographic Society the largest Photographic club in the East midlands are hosting the event which will be open to the public.



The admission charge is £7.00 and the event will begin at 7.30pm on 12th January 2010 at the

Richard Herrod Centre,
Foxhill Rd
Carlton, Nottingham,
NG4 1RL

Contact Adrian Manhire for admission tickets and further information HERE 

The event will include a short audio visual of my work followed by the projection of some of my medium format landscape transparencies of scenic Scotland.  I will also have a selection of calendars, Photographic Workshop/masterclass brochures and my recently published Transient Light book available for sale on the evening of the show.  I hope that some of you will be able to make it along to the night.

After last year's successful launch of eight limited edition Transient Light prints timed to coincide with St Andrews Day, Lidls has once again elected to follow it up with another edition.  This year eight new and carefully selected images have been turned into 80 x 60cm canvas prints and will be released for sale at an incredible price of £9.99. 



With prices as sharp as these it is perhaps not surprising that something has to give and ultimately it is clear that they lack the clarity and colour fidelity of my hand printed work, however they still represent an inexpensive opportunity to own a Transient Light print, so I trust you'll enjoy finding them in your local store.

My understanding is that these prints will be on sale in every Scottish Lidl's store from 23 November 2009 (don't quote me on that!!), and that a further launch will take place in Ireland. 

I am delighted to be working with Lidls on this venture once again and hope they prove every bit as successful as they did in the first year of launch where some stores sold all copies of the prints within 5 minutes of opening and reported significant queues forming outside the store prior to opening the doors.  I should probably advise everyone that I do not have any copies available for sale save for one courtesy set of prints. 

This single set of canvas prints will be personally signed by me in the bottom right hand corner of the print and they will be available for sale from my website on a first come first served basis for £29.99 + Postage. 

Two new exhibitions of my prints will be rolled out during the summer months. 

The first is quite small of the order of ten to twelve of some of my finest large format Scottish landscape prints.

These will be on show in the first floor cafeteria section of the North West Outdoors shop in Ullapool as part of a series of photographic exhibitions.  At the very least you can get a decent brekkie and some great gooey chocolate cake, so do pay it a visit if you are in the area or on your way to Lewis and Harris.

Opening: 20th July 2009     Closing: 30th August 2009

The second exhibition is considerably larger and follows on from a very successful show at the Elgin Gallery three years ago.  I will be displaying approximately 35 of my finest Scottish landscape prints and during the first and second week I will be available to discuss photography in addition to signing copies of my 2010 Transient Light Calendars and my new Transient Light landscape photography book.  I also anticipate being able to show short digital audio visuals of my work.  

Address:  Elgin Library, Cooper Park, Elgin.

Opening: 5th Sept 2009     Closing: 26th Sept 2009

Mon-Fri   10am - 8pm   &   Sat   10am - 4pm

I would advise phoning ahead as gallery opening times are prone to alteration without warning.  Tel: 01343 562600