News

Our calendars have arrived and are available for sale.
Price of £8.95 plus P&H

Our shop at Kilchurn Grazings (The home of Kilchurn Castle) is open with a large range of beautiful new photograhy for sale in many forms.
We look forward to seeing many visitors throughout the year and some lovely conversation and sales.
The Cows are waiting to have their photos taken as they chill behind the shop.

Island Images/Kilchurn Grazings has had a busy year with wedding Bookings to get married. This coming year sees our calendar filling rapidly.
So,if you are planning your special day and would like to get married on our land at Kilchurn Viewpoint or Kilchurn Castle, email your contact details or visit us via our website www.island-images.net and leave us your contact details and we will come back to you asap with availability and cost.
Getting Married/Vow renewals or having your wedding photographs must be booked.
A further contact phone number is: 07426743226
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Tips for effective landscape photography
• One or more foreground objects will give the impression of three-dimensionality, and can help to frame the scene. Depth is achieved by combining foreground, middle ground and background objects.
• Compose the image so that it contains a centre of interest - an object that draws the viewer's eye into the picture.
• Placing the centre of interest off-centre, in accordance with the Rule of Thirds, will create a harmonious composition.
• Placing the horizon a third of the way down from the top or bottom of the frame is usually much better than having it in the middle of the scene.
• Scale can often be important to the understanding of a landscape, and can be achieved by including an object of a known size in the scene.
• The quality of the light is perhaps the most influential attribute of a successful landscape. Waiting for interesting lighting that is moody, dramatic or diffused usually pays off in a memorable photograph. Top landscape photographers will often return again and again to a location until lighting conditions are just right.
• Ensure that your camera's flash is turned off when shooting landscapes, unless you require it to brighten a foreground object. Flash in a dusty, misty or foggy scene may cause flare by reflecting off the droplets of moisture or dust particles.
• Use a tripod to ensure sharpness, especially in low-light conditions.
• In very low light, be sure to select a fast film speed or a high ISO sensitivity setting in your digital camera that will permit proper exposure and good depth of field.
• Watch for unsightly or unnatural elements such as overhead wires, hydrants, poles and garbage cans, especially in the foreground. If you cannot easily move them, reposition yourself to a camera angle that eliminates them from the frame.

• Don't let the weather stop you from capturing an attractive landscape. Rain can add a degree of softness and peacefulness to a scene. On an overcast day, be sure your scene has an area of colour in it to counteract the overall dull lighting.
• Keep the rules of composition in mind when framing a scene. Lines, in particular, can be a strong factor in making an interesting landscape. An awareness and the judicious placement of planes in the scene can also be factors in improving your composition.
• Landscape photography is often more horizontal than it is vertical, presenting the opportunity to shoot a panorama. If you are faced with a wide vista and your camera has a panorama mode, this is the time to select it. Cropping afterwards can achieve a similar purpose.
• When the wind is blowing or water is moving - waves, waterfalls, a tumbling brook - capturing that movement by using a slow shutter speed to create blur can add great interest to a landscape. When selecting a slow shutter speed, be sure you retain proper exposure by also appropriately adjusting your camera's aperture. Many cameras will do this automatically for you in Shutter Priority mode.

See the world around you and capture it with whatever camera you have, or just capture it with your mind. When you start to see images around you and try to figure out their settings, you are learning. I walk around and try to guess what the settings would be for the room I am in, along with what lenses I would use. Training yourself to see the world that is around you will allow you to get your settings correct when you do have a camera in your hand. As I said, capture the world with whatever camera you have. No matter whether it’s in a cell phone or a top-of-the-line DSLR, a great image is a great image, no matter how it’s captured.

A lot of people are surprised at how blurry their pictures come out when going for a close-up, or taking the shot from a distance. To minimize blurring: If you're using a full-sized camera with a zoom lens, hold the camera body (finger on the shutter button) with one hand, and steady the lens by cupping your other hand under it. Keep your elbows close to your body, and use this position to brace yourself firmly. If your camera or lens has image stabilisation features, use them (this is called IS on Canon gear, and VR, for Vibration Reduction, on Nikon equipment). Better still, use a tripod or monopod!

A landscape is a section or portion of scenery as seen from a single viewpoint. Scenery is the subject of a landscape image. Typically, people and animals are not shown in a landscape, unless they are relatively small in the image and have been included in the composition to show scale. Some photographers argue that the sea coast, the city and man-made structures in general should not be included in a landscape, and images that do contain them are more accurately called seascapes or city scapes. From a purist perspective, they are probably correct, since a landscape is a picture of the land and its aggregate natural features. However, if natural scenery dominates an image, it can probably be accurately termed a landscape, even though there may be a farmhouse in the distance, a city skyline on the horizon or a road or path in the foreground.
The term “Urban Landscape” describes photographs of the city taken in the manner of a landscape, using buildings and other man-made features as graphical elements of composition that are treated in the same way the photographer would treat mountains and trees.

One or more foreground objects will give the impression of three-dimensionality, and can help to frame the scene. Depth is achieved by combining foreground, middle ground and background objects.
Compose the image so that it contains a center of interest - an object that draws the viewer's eye into the picture.
Placing the center of interest off-center, in accordance with the Rule of Thirds, will create a harmonious composition.
Placing the horizon a third of the way down from the top or bottom of the frame is usually much better than having it in the middle of the scene.
Scale can often be important to the understanding of a landscape, and can be achieved by including an object of a known size in the scene.
The quality of the light is perhaps the most influential attribute of a successful landscape. Waiting for interesting lighting that is moody, dramatic or diffused usually pays off in a memorable photograph. Top landscape photographers will often return again and again to a location until lighting conditions are just right.
Ensure that your camera's flash is turned off when shooting landscapes, unless you require it to brighten a foreground object. Flash in a dusty, misty or foggy scene may cause flare by reflecting off the droplets of moisture or dust particles. Use a tripod to ensure sharpness, especially in low-light conditions. In very low light, be sure to select a fast film speed or a high ISO sensitivity setting in your digital camera that will permit proper exposure and good depth of field.
Watch for unsightly or unnatural elements such as overhead wires, hydrants, poles and garbage cans, especially in the foreground. If you cannot easily move them, reposition yourself to a camera angle that eliminates them from the frame.
Don't let the weather stop you from capturing an attractive landscape. Rain can add a degree of softness and peacefulness to a scene. On an overcast day, be sure your scene has an area of color in it to counteract the overall dull lighting.
Keep the rules of composition in mind when framing a scene. Lines, in particular, can be a strong factor in making an interesting landscape. An awareness and the judicious placement of planes in the scene can also be factors in improving your composition.
Landscape photography is often more horizontal than it is vertical, presenting the opportunity to shoot a panorama. If you are faced with a wide vista and your camera has a panorama mode, this is the time to select it. Cropping afterwards can achieve a similar purpose.
When the wind is blowing or water is moving - waves, waterfalls, a tumbling brook - capturing that movement by using a slow shutter speed to create blur can add great interest to a landscape. When selecting a slow shutter speed, be sure you retain proper exposure by also appropriately adjusting your camera's aperture. Many cameras will do this automatically for you in Shutter Priority mode.