Time for some pruning

Applecross, 2004​

“it’s been a great summer Kevin, hope you’ve managed to get some good photographs?”

Long days, sunshine (well some days) and blue skies. How could it get any better? It surprises most people who ask that my answer to the question above is no. Well, a qualified no.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s endless possibilities out there and for a few months, the Sutherland landscape turns from russet browns to a patchwork of greens. But high summer is not my chosen season. So for me, much of the summer is spent in the gallery and workshop keeping a good selection of framed prints on the wall and meeting some really interesting visitors. Another task has been on the ‘to-do’ list for too long however,  a thorough ‘pruning’ of my image collection.

A print seen displayed in the gallery is often the result of many visits to a location and usually dozens of variations shot experimenting with different compositions and different settings. Due to my enthusiasm to review the results, this often leads to these images remaining in place on my computer, even the ones which didn’t quite work out - yes there are many of those!

So I’ve just come to the end of the process which I started at the start of the summer of reviewing approximately 13,000 images dating back more than ten years. It’s always a good feeling to have a clear out of any sort but in this case, a further bonus was the opportunity to revisit some long forgotten images. The overall result, a catalogue of just over 3,000 images and somewhat increased storage!

So, it’s now time to get out with the camera and make the most of the dramatic skies, hoar frost, temperature inversions, maybe some snow . . . .  adding lots of new growth for next year’s pruning or thinning out as I go?