As part of my new found freedom, having finished up at the local newspaper, I went on our annual Easter family trip to the west coast of Scotland. Having hardly got my tripod out the cupboard for the best part of five years, due in parts to procrastination, having a young family and still getting my head around the fact I'm not living in the paradise of New Zealand any more, off we went! I managed to convince the kids they didn't need all their stuff, so I had more room in the car for all my camera gear! Actually not that much gear, it all fits in a small bag - my new 5D mkIII, cable release, 24mm, 35 - 80mm and 70 - 200mm lenses and my trusty old manfrotto tripod.

Now I shall be completely honest about this, landscape photography can be one of the most anti-social jobs of all. I prefer to be out in the best light, dawn and dusk. Dusk being the best time to enjoy a nice dinner, bottles of wine and a wee dram of whiskey and of course, dawn is that much harder to get up for, after such nice evenings. As it was, my body clock said get up early; I did and I was justly rewarded. With my thermos of coffee in the bag and gloves, to hold onto the tripod in the frost, I traipsed out onto the beautiful wee peninsula just a short walk from the house on Loch Melfort.

The camera was a joy to use, always using the mirror lock-up function, opening up the aperture to f32 - where possible. The resulting colour and depth in the images, I'll let you be the judge of. I captured the images in raw and small jpeg, these images shown are just the jpegs. Now back to the good part, the birds singing, the water lapping, the light - oh the light, the textures, the wiry old trees, balancing the tripod on slippery rocks and all, it just felt great!

A few things that could have worked out better, the moment when the sea otter popped it's head up feeding - I had my fishing rod in my hands at the time - it was fortunately not feeding on my bait, though the camera was sitting, painfully, five feet away! Then there was the time the deer turned up right behind me, I had the camera with wide angled lens, on mirror lock-up, on tripod and facing the wrong direction! I guess some things are best remembered aye? Then again I might have to do me some more of that wildlife photography, any thoughts?