2014, First to Last.

I'm sitting here on the 3rd of January after what can only be described as a year of big changes wondering what 2015 holds for me. One thing I am sure of is that 2014 was a good year for the quality of photographs I took and presented.

2014 started off with a visit by a friend from Australia and a trip around Edinburgh's Old Town on New Year's Day. We stopped off on Victoria Street to park my car and in a bit of good fortune this photo looking down to The Grassmarket.

In an effort to show my work to wider audience I joined several pages on Facebook and after posting this photo I was contacted by Jason Thompson who was raising money for Yorkhill Children's Hospital in Glasgow. He asked if I would donate a photo to his fundraising which included getting to the top of Mount Everest in September. I was more than happy to donate and am pleased to say the photo raised  around £100 for the hospital.

 February was a month of luck and amazing luck where I visited the Bridge to Nowhere at Belhaven Bay in the middle of the month to catch an amazing sunset as the tide went out. However, it was the 27th that produced a night to remember. The Aurora strength gradually built up until there were reports of it being seen in Fife. This resulted in a mad dash from Edinburgh out to East Lothian and North Berwick in particular to hope for luck. Needless to say I was rewarded with 25 minutes of stunning views and several stunning shots (the above one is my favourite).

March was a quiet month but I managed to get out to capture some different sights. First up was Seacliff Beach in East Lothian. The beach is located down a private road and is a little gem with views out to The Bass Rock and along the coast to Tantallan Castle. 
At the end of the month a friend and his wife came to Scotland for their honeymoon and a group of us took her to Rosslyn Chapel. I took this shot through the railings whilst we were waiting on the Sunday service to finish.

I can't remember why but April was a quiet month for capturing photos. However, I did get out to South Queensferry to catch this lovely sunset.

May was a mixed month for photos. After 36 years living in Edinburgh and 5 years taking photos I finally went to Newhaven Harbour to try and catch some sunset shots.

At the end of the month I spent an afternoon and evening in Glasgow and I visited the Science Centre hoping to catch something special. there are many photos of the centre on the internet and I noticed the view above had not been captured before. Timing it right I was able to capture the suns reflection off the centre as it dropped towards the horizon.

June saw the start of massive changes in my life and this meant the opportunities to get out to take photos dropped to one evening and a trip to St Monans in Fife.

St. Monans is a fishing town that is home to an impressive and well photographed zig-zag harbour wall and I really wanted to get a good shot of it. However, that evening I knew I had to capture the view from the wall looking back to the town as the sun lit up the sky.

If I thought June was bad for photo opportunities, July was a one shot wonder. My other half was offered a job teaching in Aberdeen starting in August. This meant we needed to find a place to live in three weeks as we were going on holiday to Devon at the Beginning of August. After many false starts we found a place to rent in Inverurie which is small but cheap to heat and run.

After the stress of July we headed off on holiday to a holiday cottage just West of Bideford (10 hour drives are not recommended). As you can imagine I was researching places I would like to shoot from and Hartland Quay was high up there as it was 10 miles from the cottage. I went there as the remnants of a hurricane battered the coast providing me with massive waves and stunning light over the coast line.

The biggest surprise though was the view and sunsets from the cottage itself. I honestly believe I could shoot from this spot every day for a year to catch the changing light.

After another long drive home from the holiday I set about exploring Aberdeenshire and headed for Bow Fiddle Rock on the North coast. I caught this shot and then spent the remainder of the month gaffing with my life.

September was a month of little photographic action until I was returning home from a fencing competition just outside Edinburgh.

I had decided to head to Dunottar Castle on the drive back, but I realised I had missed the light so plan b of Deeside became the plan. I headed over with the aim of catching The Falls of Feugh, but the view below stopped me in my tracks and made me jump out the car to catch the sunset over The River Dee.

I posted this photo to Facebook and Twitter, what followed blew my mind. I ended up with over 1500 likes and 360 retweets making it my most popular photo by a long way.

At the beginning of October we were guests at a wedding in Glencoe. On the day of the wedding I took a drive up the glen to get a photo, it was freezing and I got soaked.

On the drive home we stopped off at The Falls of Pattack to catch this lovely view.

The following weekend I took a drive to Deeside to catch this shot and then headed up the coast to catch a sunset, but I ended up shooting a field full of bales.

At the end of October we headed off to the Yorkshire Dales for a week and I am not ashamed to say it was a week of shooting rivers and waterfalls with a couple of exceptions.

Throughout the week I managed to shoot Aysgarth Falls, Hardraw Force, The Ingleton Waterfalls (in the rain giving my new Lowepro camera bag a very good test which it passed), Richmond Falls along with a couple of landscape shots of Wensleydale and a lone tree at the nearby army ranges.

November was a quiet month and I got out twice, once to capture the lighthouse at Rattray Head and the other to have a little trip to Spey Bay.

Finally we arrive at December which was a very very quiet month for me, not least due to the stitches in the right arm following a minor op to remove a lump and tendonitis in my left arm. 

We spent Christmas in Cambridge and took a little trip in to The Backs as I was hoping to get a photo of The Bridge of Sighs. It turns out Cambridge University do not allow you to use tripods to take photos on their grounds. Oh well.

I was lucky to get one shot over the river towards one of the colleges that I was happy with and it seems fitting that it was the last photo I took of 2014.

Anyway I have made it to the end of my photographic year and I am grateful for the support you have all given over the last year.

I hope to show you all some great photos in 2015.

Thank you.