AdrianWaterworth.com

Tag: photography

  • A good photograph…

    A good photograph…

    …is knowing where to stand. Or so Ansel Adams is supposed to have said. And I don’t think I can imagine any more apt turn of phrase to introduce another absolutely brilliant photographer whom I have been fortunate enough to meet since moving to Scotland. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Phil McMenemy.

    When not grabbing cheeky selfies in front of enormous stones, Phil works out of his own gallery in the lovely little village of Laurieston, just a few miles north-west of Castle Douglas. He is a fine art landscape photographer, a past winner of the Scottish Nature Photography Award and if there is anyone I would describe as “knowing where to stand” it is this guy. Not only that, but he has the patience (or obsession, call it what you will) to search out the right places to stand, at the right time, to take some of the most beautiful and evocative landscape photographs that I have ever seen. His feel for the landscape and the light is fantastic, while his eye for composition is second to none. But that’s not all. As well as capturing large-scale landscape scenes beautifully, Phil also brings his own creative sensibility to his work, producing images that focus on smaller details, reflections and more abstract views of the world around us. All in all, it’s a winning combination as you can see from examples like these…

    And this is just a randomly selected tip of the creative iceberg when it comes to Phil’s work. If you ever find yourself in the area, do visit his gallery (The Gallery at Laurieston) to see his stunning photographs in real life – I can guaranteee you won’t be disappointed. You’ll also find that he’s a great guy, does a good line in tea/coffee and cakes and the gallery often includes exhibitions of other artists’ work. What’s not to like?

    Alternatively, if you can’t quite stretch to visiting in person at the moment, or you’d just like to know a little more, you can find Phil’s own website at http://www.pmcphotography.co.uk You can also see many more examples of his beautiful work at https://philmcmenemy.smugmug.com while the Gallery at Laurieston also has its own Facebook page to allow you to keep up with the latest news.

  • Between the sea and the sky…

    Between the sea and the sky…

    Very occasionally, people ask me why I chose to move to Scotland (generally) and why I chose to move to the rather remote end of Galloway (specifically). Well, a full discussion of the various personal, political, social, economic and other assorted reasons could take up a few pages and bore all but the most dedicated reader to tears I suspect. However, what it all boils down to in the end is that Glenda and I really wanted to live somewhere beautiful, close to the sea and on the west side of the country. And we like Scotland. We considered a few different places (Kintyre, further north into the Highlands and Islands, etc.) but finally, like Richard Hannay in The Thirty-Nine Steps, we “fixed on Galloway as the best place to go.”

    Of course, there are sometimes challenges living in rural and remote areas, but we’re not really too far off the beaten track here compared to many other places. And, in return for being here, we get things like this…

    This is West Tarbet bay. It’s maybe a mile or so from the very south-western tip of Scotland, where the Mull of Galloway lighthouse stands on the cliff-top, looking out over the Irish Sea. At this point, the land narrows, squeezed between East Tarbet bay on one side and West Tarbet bay on the other, the two almost cutting off the Mull of Galloway altogether. At high tide, an accomplished cricketer or baseball player with a good arm, standing on the road above the two bays, could probably throw balls into the Irish Sea to the west and Luce Bay to the east. It is a breathtakingly beautiful place and if I feel troubled or weary, I only need to go to West Tarbet – or any of the other amazing spots on the Galloway coastline – and live and breathe for a while in that magical space between the sea and the sky.