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.