Sammi Minion speaks with Tom Clark about his beautiful Hebridean landscape photography, as featured in the August edition of Scottish Field magazine.
You clearly know the Western Isles inside out. Are you from there, or did you grow up somewhere else?
It’s a place I’ve only been going to since 2021. I’m from Dumbarton, down at Loch Lomond. When I got into doing landscape photography, Loch Lomond was probably the first calling place.
My wife and I had originally planned the Hebridean, Harris and Lewis trip pre-Covid, but when Covid hit all the plans were cancelled. The ferry was cancelled, hotels got cancelled and so it was only once Covid was over that I managed to get up to Harris and Lewis for the first time.
Although I hadn’t been there before, I’ve been three times now in the last couple of years. It’s an opportunity for photographs which is fabulous. So, whether it was the rugged Harris weather in winter or when I went there in April when we actually had blue skies, it was totally different.
At what stage did you start taking photos professionally?
It was about 13-14 years ago that I started seriously taking pictures. Before that I was always taking pictures, but not with the big DSLR or going for classes to understand photography properly.
[Before that] I worked for Allied Domecq [a wine and spirits company]. They’ve got a place in Dumbarton.
Where’s your favourite place in Scotland to take photos?
When I first started off, Loch Lomond was my favourite place, [especially] Milarrochy Bay. There’s a lot of the Milarrochy tree [in my early work], and in that Bay there’s an island there that has helped me learn photography – where I started using filters, for example, to slow down the water and slow down the clouds. So, Milarrochy is obviously the place that I used to go and practice and learn.
Then I discovered Rannoch Moor and that became a favourite after that. And Glencoe in the wintertime. That was a go-to place for quite a few years. Lately, it has been the Hebrides.
The thing about Rannoch was that I used to walk there in the wintertime. There was snow. But recently we’ve had very little snow in Rannoch, so it’s not [had] quite the same allure, whereas if you go to Harris you’ve always got the beaches and the crashing waves and the views.
Do you prefer to photograph beautiful beaches in summer, or crashing waves in winter?
I think I can appreciate them both. The colours in the summertime when we went [to the Hebrides] in April were stunning. To stand at the Seilebost viewpoint and just look at the colours and the water and sand, it’s just absolutely stunning. It’s the same with Luskentyre where it was blue sky, which is not great for photographs but it was stunning as well.
When you get the wild weather, like when I was at the Butt of Lewis or when looking at the Stac a’ Phris and the Mangersta, it’s all churning waves. That’s fabulous to watch as well.
When you go out to take these pictures, do you have a set plan in mind or do you just follow whatever catches your eye?
It’s a bit of both really. Obviously, when you’re up in the Hebrides you’re trying to capture as much as you can. So usually in wintertime it would be a very early rise. Make sure you’re up for the sunrise. And so it really depends on what the weather’s going to do that day, which way you point your camera. You can plan as much you want to, get the best tides and weather based on forecasts and apps that you can have. But once you’re there, then [the weather] determines what picture you’re going to take.
[In my picture] looking over Luskentyre, there are a couple of small white cottages. It was beautiful when the sun was hitting the foreground. But this huge black sky was coming rapidly towards us and in actual fact there are these hills in the background but you can barely see them because the clouds were that dark.
Is there a part of Scotland you’ve not yet photographed that you’d like to?
Yes, there are little bits of Scotland that I still want to go up to. In the North-East, Peterhead direction, there’s a lighthouse up there. And the whole way to Pennan there are a couple of small villages around there. I’m hoping to get up that way sometime. Also rather going across to Harris and Lewis, staying on the mainland and going round some of the North-West coast of Scotland.
What is it you’re trying to show people when you take photos?
It’s just the beauty of the place. Most of those, as you’ll see, all included water and that inspires me quite a bit. A lot of my pictures do include water, so something to do with the water around the landscape, I think. And the meeting of the two and the colours that you can get, from the turquoises of Harris to the churning white breaks of the Butt of Lewis.
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