The time of the course was over Christmas though I did stay for the New Year, so the weather was going to be quite changeable and cold; I made sure that I had the right winter gear so I could stay warm. The travelling side of things ran very smoothly I flew by BA from Heathrow to Aberdeen and then a Flybe flight to Sumburgh; that flight was a first as well I flew on a Jetstream.
I was picked up by Lee and taken to the Orca Country Inn of which he and his wife Jane run; the drive was about thirty minutes to the hotel in Hoswick. Lee said that we would need to have breakfast around eight thirty because it doesn’t get light until nine o’clock, for this time of the year the period of day light was very short from nine until around about three so you don’t have much time to play with if the weather is good enough.
Before I went to Shetland I decided that I needed try to bring a new dimension to my photography, and try to get to grips with the artistic side so I was looking for a good opportunity to do this. I had a good feeling I would, though; I needed to get some of the basic stuff right as well, so I needed to get the mind in tune.
Most of the mornings started overcast so you had to go out and try to predict what the weather was going to do, and try to work round this. Lee seemed to know what to do; I suppose that is experience for you he was right on most occasions. With his experience I had some very good days.
On Christmas day Lee said that we should try and get some shoots of the sea because it would have a good swell with the wind being as it was. I said lets go for it, though it was not raining you still had to wear your waterproofs it was bitterly cold you had to wear them all the time. Once we parked the walk was about half a mile to where we needed to go.
Once I was setup the sun started to break through the clouds making the scene rather softer; the light was amazing I did use a granulated filter to try control light in the sky.
One thing was that the light was amazing which would make the final results very good. Lee said that the light had not been this good for some time, I said well we have made the most of it them! we spent the morning there by which time I was ready for a cup of tea, I did say to Lee that this was the best Christmas Day I have ever had.
There was another day were again luck was with us, the cloud didn’t break up until really late on, Lee was getting rather worried that the day was going to be uneventful. The problem now was to get to a suitable area to setup the tripod, Lee spotted a place which was on the shore line, and there was no wind so you could get a good reflection off the water, there was a building so that made the shot more enchanting.
The time spent taking a number of shot I did do some bracketing, the light was fading fast so there was a need for long exposures. By the time it was time to call it a day I thought I had achieved a number of good shots. The light had been fantastic.
I found that trying to take shots of the sea birds was a quite hard you had to try and workout what the birds were going to do. I did manage to get a number of a good shots of them taking off and landing, I was quite please with the capture of the movement. I think it makes the difference. I did take some shots looking over some cliffs; using a big lens I caught the birds with their wings in the soaring positioning. Because I was shooting at f2.8 then you know that the back ground isn’t going to be too dominating, so you get them standing out more clear.
The artistic side came about when I was chatting to Lee; we were looking at the sea there were some rocks with the water crashing against them in the distance. I said the shutter speed to capture the water with a milky effect would be quite slow. Lee replied with this light it would be. We stopped what we were doing and moved along down to shore line were we could see what was going on.
The light was fading fast with the clouds moving in, there was no need of using a ND filter. I setup the tripod with the cable release and got closer to the water, I got the focus by using the large stones that were just in front of me. “I thought this is the opportunity I have been waiting for.”
I took a number of shots the light meter showing one to five seconds, when I focused for other shots the light was that bad I had to do it manually. The results of the shots were quite good; I did get the effect that I was looking for; and the depth of field was ideal.
One of the best moments I had in Shetland was on New Year’s Day, I had a walk from the inn and made my way to the hill at the back over looking Hoswick; I took some shots the light was rather flat, so I decided to make my way down the hill, I thought that the beach would be a good bet. The weather was fair really though cold; once on the beach I stayed as quiet as I could, there was really no one about just people taking their dogs for a stroll; you could see that they were really walking their hangover off.
After a time the sun decided to appear and that made the bay come alive; there was a seal he was being nosey. There were a number of divers Shags and Cormorants moving round; I did take some shots but they didn’t come close enough.
I was looking out in the bay I thought I could see the seal diving around; the creature I saw wasn’t a seal. I realized that it was an otter it was an away too far out. After awhile I couldn’t see it; it was getting late now so I put the camera back in the bag, what I did now was I just sat quiet and watched and waited and low and behold, I saw a movement in the corner of my right eye. I saw the tail of the otter it was just metres from me by the rocks, I kept still the otter swam across my front diving looking for food. The otter did look at me a couple of times; by this time the light had faded and trying taking photographs of the otter was pointless.
Well I think that the stay in Shetland was wonderful, I was made to feel welcome by Lee and Jane did everything in their power for me to enjoy my stay. I can commend the food the menu was excellent, I can recommend the fish soups.
The return journey was with no problems really, though I did go to the airport to early. It was shut I thought there was something wrong bad weather somewhere! After a phone call I had an answer, it opened an hour before the first flight which was mine. I flew back via Edinburgh.
Roger Plummeridge.
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