Day Out on Mull with Islandscape Photography

Mull is a photographers paradise, but with so much to point your lens at it is sometimes difficult to know where to start. This is where knowing someone with local knowledge comes in handy.

Over the years we have been visiting the Isle of Mull I have got to know Sam Jones of Islandscape Photography very well and I booked her services once again for a tour of some of the places I hadn't visited before.

The beach at Langamull on the north coast of Mull

Our first stop was Port Langamull on the north coast of the island which boasts one of the best beaches on Mull.  It is at the end of a long track from the road between Dervaig and Calgary and this means most people head to the beautiful beach at Calgary which is more easily accessible from the road.  The advantage for us is the beach is almost deserted.

The first order of business was to decide on what to shoot first.  I always like to capture the area first and then try for some detail shots afterwards. 

The beach at Langamull

Looking across to Ardnamurchdan lighthouse with the Isle of Eigg in the background

After Langamull we headed to Loch Na Keal.  After the blue skies at Langamull we were greeted with a lot of cloud coming off the mountains in the centre of Mull.  For me this is an advantage to give some interest to the sky.

The yellow gorse bushes and grass provided some great foreground interest as we watched the clouds scudding across the sky driven by high winds.

We then headed to the south side of Loch Na Keal to the oak trees that have grown in strange shapes due to the high winds.  I had seen a lone tree perched on a little hill and decided to clamber up to get some shots of it with Loch Na Keal in the background.  

I also decided to try some off camera flash to pick out the tree against the underexposed background, which highlights the deep grain in the bark of the tree.

Our final stop was a waterfall a little bit further up the road.  The rain clouds had started to form up over Ben More so I had to wait for the showers to move through before shooting the scene with a Lee 10x ND filter to give me a 30 second exposure.  The result was a very dramatic image to finish off our day before heading back to Tobermory for a talk about the images I'd captured.

I can highly recommend an Islandscape Photography tour if you are visiting Mull. Sam caters for photographers of all abilities and can give each person the attention they need to come away with some images of Mull you might not have otherwise captured.  Everyone goes away with a sense of achievement.

Sam Jones behind the camera at Loch na Keal

The Nikon D800 at Langamull set up to take the first shot in this blog post

All images taken on a Nikon D700, Nikon D800 or Fujifilm Finepix X100

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