Hebridean Day Trip

After a most wonderful anniversary our flatmate wanted to go visit her favourite place. The hotel provides a staff car if you have a license to drive it.

On our way out we came across two fellas that were rocking out in the field, someone had a lot of fun with this. Next we saw giant wooden carvings from the Viking chess game (Lewis Chessman), Danny I got out of the car to take a closer look.

Making a pit stop for some snacks along the way at a local community shop which was filled with a varieties of goodies that you wouldn't find in Tarbert. One of my notable things was a mini wind turbine, since it is so windy on the Western Hebrides I would have thought for sure that there would be an abundance of wind turbines.

He looked so lonely.

Near Brenish somewhere,I promised that I would not disclose the exact location plus I slept during our drive up there. Was Vanessa's our French room mates favourite place on Lewis. Waves of magnificent measures due to the high winds crashed upon the rocks. I think we even saw a whale out in the Atlantic Sea.

Having some more time to kill we drove through a little town and passed  Cnip a camping/caravan site located on the beach. With kayak rentals and sorts of fun water sports, we crossed paths with wild deer!

Already on the road all of us thinking about dinner we drove up to Stornoway and then back to Tarbert. What a wonderful day, we avoided the rain until we left Stornoway. I hope you enjoyed the epic pictures of the ocean waves, I hope to return to this place again with the sea is clam and I could read a book without it catching a gust sending straight to the stars.

Laurie Campbell Photography Workshop

I had gotten a flyer a little while back at the front desk for the Isle of Harris Mountain Festival I was looking through the program for something that I could attend. I found a Photography workshop with Laurie Campbell a famous Scottish wildlife Photographer. I was amazed at the amount of work he has done on top of the quality of his pictures.

I booked in for the workshop and I went out today in hopes of nice weather. At 9:30am we all met at the Harris Hotel since they seem to be the only place in Tarbert with conference rooms. They promised tea and coffee on arrival but I think that was forgotten but nobody seemed to complain, I was hoping that we would get it at the end of the day any ways. After filling out our packed lunch form which consisted of just sandwich fillings Laurie started his presentation in regards to his work, history, techniques and what we would be doing today with a very nice slide show.



Everyone carpooled to a near by area about 10-15 minutes drive to Maaruig from the hotel to get some practice out in the field. First we worked on macro settings to replicate some of his close up works taking pictures of juniper. He very quickly was able to describe ISO, light settings, aperture, depth of field so we were able to apply it to our cameras, giving each of us a quick one on one demonstration.

The the rain started to come down, I got shelter from the film crew that was doing a documentary of People on Harris that will be airing next year on BBC. They even interviewed me. I got a chance to sit in Laurie's caravan since I was the only one without a car, plus my packed lunch was there. He even gave us bagged coffee  and coconut macrons both were a first for me. Yay for trying new things today.

After everyone had their lunch we were all ready to get onto part two of the day. We wandered a little bit towards a waterfall and Laurie taught us more about exposure times, setting up your tripod and working with the clouds and the sun. I couldn't really get anything with my compact camera with the lack of interchangeable lenses but in the end I learned lots. I wasn't lucky enough to see any otters this day, they are like unicorns. 4:30pm was when the workshop was going to end but Laurie was really into setting up his tripod showing us all the extra bits he has collected over the years of experience to make a perfect shot. At about 5pm I was ready to head on back to town since my toes were feeling cold and the dampness was finally getting to me. Two girls named Megan and Ann dropped me off back in Tarbert, everyone I met today was ultra friendly.

I would recommend this workshop to anyone with any interest in photography.

This photo was taken with my new macro skills yesterday.

Screen Machine

Seeing a movie in Tarbert isn't easy, you can't since there isn't a theater. Unless you want to make a drive up to Stornoway and back which I am sure some people do. Last week we saw a sign saying that 'The Dark Knight Rises' was playing at the Screen Machine. I myself haven't seen a film in the cinema since The Avengers, I was mighty excited.

This mobile cinema takes mainstream films around rural and remote places in Scotland like Tarbert! Tickets were sold online mostly but you can still catch a couple at the door for £7 we all got to watch Batman kick some ass in a lorry no less. This is the Hebridean way since everyone was like 'its in the car park'.

I was thinking that it would be cold inside this blue lorry and that it would seat very few, when I walked in to my surprise it was exactly like a real cinema minus the popcorn. It was clean, comfy, warm and was equipped with surround sound speakers that rattled your insides if you sat near the front.

After doing some research I found out that the manager who runs the Screen Machine doesn't make any profit from this. Its is just to bring the people newly released films throughout the western isles and the highlands.

If you ever see the Screen Machine see if they have any tickets for sale, remember they do movies in 3D too.