Originally unplanned, a friend invited me to go with him on a workshop in Scotland, Wester Ross to be precise. Looking at the programme, called "A Portrait of An Teallach", it actually covered aspects of the photographic process that I hadn't yet addressed such as printing images and preparing images for exhibition. I ended up driving to Scotland with all the gear, whilst he caught a plane! The workshop was organised by Open Studio Workshops in the form of Adrian Hollister and Eddie Ephraums, the outside photo sessions being led by Colin Prior.
Whilst very different from my previous workshop experience, it was a great learning opportunity. The aim was for each of the participants to create an image of the mountain or area of An Teallach and to develop that image right through the processes of capture, selection, image post-processing, printing, mounting and arranging in an exhibition. At the end of the workshop, all the prints were exhibited at Inverewe House (National Trust for Scotland) and viewed by many of the local population of Wester Ross.
There were 13 aspiring photographers on the workshop and the structured process with a definitive aim was a great way to organise us. We quickly became very focussed on our images and developing some text to support them in the exhibition. This time I found myself much more confident when taking images in the field, helped by the improvements in my gear that I had made since my first workshop. My eye for composition was improved and my techniques and use of the camera were much slicker. After three days I managed to come up with six images that I thought worthy of consideration. Then followed the process of selection, the opportunity of a dozen people critiquing my images was highly instructive.
From Eddie, I then learnt a great deal about preparing images for printing as well as a lot about the pitfalls and obstacles in successfully printing an image that I, as the photographer, was entirely happy with. It was quite an eye-opener and, as a consequence, I'll probably get my images printed by a professional printing house for the time being, until I feel that I have more time to devote to the art of printing myself!
All in all ..... a great workshop. My thanks to Colin Prior for sharing his experience and thoughts about how he sees images and composistions in his travels around the world and to Eddie and Adrian for the insights into the 'dark arts' of taking what I captured in the camera into something that I felt quite proud of hanging on a wall in Inverewe House.
Below is my image from the "An Teallach Workshop".
