About big Alba

2006-06-06T10:33:20Z

I love the landscape. I love being in the landscape and I love to photograph the landscape. The more wild, and remote, the more I want to photograph. It's not that I don't enjoy people, or the life in cities and towns, its just that I don't feel the need to photograph it. It's the landscape, more, it's the way the light falls on the landscape behind us, or over our shoulder that inspires me. That's why mostly I'll try to minimise the impact of people, why these landscapes are, generally, though not always, empty of people. I'm just clearing us out the way for a bit to look at the landscape without us and I admire photography that does the same. I also admire photography that captures something of life, regardless of subject or technical excellence. I'm lucky to live in a country with an abundance of landscape packed into quite a small area. Scotland, for those that don't know, is part of the United Kingdom, or Britain, which is situated in the sea off northern Europe. It's one of the oldest countries in the world, both politically and certainly, geologically. We've been cruising the plates for almost 3 billion years and have the rocks to prove it. During this time, the country has experienced huge geologic and climatic change that has dramatically affected the landscape around us and led to a huge variety of stuff to wander about in and photograph. We also have weather, again in abundance and its common to have all of it in a single day, soaked and sunburnt at the same time. People have been here and left their mark since the end of the last ice age and you'll find archaeological sites that stretch back over 7000 years. You'll also find an abundance of human history scattered around and leading up to the present day nation of (generally) friendly folk with a strong sense of identity. Anyway, I was born in 1965 (work it out yourself) and live near Glasgow on the west coast of Scotland. I went to Glasgow School of Art and left with an honours in drawing and painting (which I don't tend to do anymore, but you never know) before embarking on a six year tour of artist hell. When I came to my senses I trained post grad as a teacher before going into the best job I ever had as a Community Art Worker. I then followed false gods for a year or two working again in a formal education setting before launching into the astonishing world of business as a landscape photographer and animated film maker. I've been making animation for a while and you can see some of my work using Flash at big Alba films. You can also see some recent commercial work at FPTV (look out in particular for Ferguslie Forever, Ferguslie Regenerates and both Info Zone films). As well as producing animated films and video projects, I'm also working on my first book, due for publication in late 2007. Provisionally titled 'The Ayrshire Collection', its a year long photographic journey through Ayrshire and hopes to capture some of the landscape,life and history of the county. My photographic work has been published in a number of national newspapers and clients include, Fort Publishing Ferguslie Park Housing Association Hebridean Princess Cruises Scotland on Sunday Renfrewshire Council South Lanarkshire Council Pulse Publications If you'd like to commission work from me or need any further information about my work then please get in touch. Kit I'm using includes, camera's & lenses Canon EOS 5D Canon EF24-70mm f2.8L Sigma 70-300mm APO DG Olympus C8080WZ supports Manfrotto Tripod & Head Manfrotto Monopod Jessops Tripod hardware iMac G5 software Photoshop CS2 Adobe Camera Raw Adobe Bridge Adobe Digital Negative HuginOSX

:: big Alba photography

About big Alba