#X-Thusiast

A Quest to Capture the Golden Hour: Wild Camping in the Lake District

By Mark Gilligan

Ah, the simple pleasures of life. They invigorate the soul! Changes and new experiences are great but it’s nice to do what you enjoy. It gives us you a lift. Genesis, my favourite band of all time, summed it up nicely when Peter Gabriel lent his unmistakable voice to, “I know what I like” and I am, sure many of you reading this will feel the same.

We are all ‘routined’ to a point and I suppose I fall into that bracket. Whilst I may be laid back I am never complacent. I regularly slip out of the ‘comfort zone’ and push myself, but if there is one thing I do not like to disrupt, it is enjoying a good night’s kip! A comfy bed with clean sheets, bit of a read, lights out and I am off.

I awake, have an invigorating hot shower, get dressed and breakfast. Then it is time to attack the day. I definitely know what I like and I approach my photography in exactly the same way. I love the mountains and great views. I will never tire of them but it would be easy to keep going along to regular haunts never being bored with them and marveling at what they give me. That won’t change. After 40 odd years of shooting professionally, I am still learning my craft and I enjoy exploring new ways to enrich my skillset. It was on one of my, “what can I do now?” days that I thought about wild camping. Read More

A Guide to Car Photography

By Jeff Carter

As a motorsport photographer I enjoy taking pictures of fast cars. As well as shooting cars on a race track, I work with manufacturers, drivers and sponsors photographing cars out on public roads. Working on public roads means you need to be more aware of safety considerations, for yourself, your clients and other road users.

I recently worked with Scottish race driver Christie Doran and one of her partners, the Leven Car Company in Edinburgh, who provided a Zenos E10S sports car for the photoshoot. Christie works for Leven Car Company on track days at Knockhill Race Circuit and other circuits in the UK and one of the cars she drives is the Zenos. The Zenos E10S is a road legal track car, built in Norfolk and with performance to put a huge smile on the driver’s face.

We took the Zenos out into the Scottish Borders for a day shooting in the countryside and here are my tips for anyone wanting to get into car photography.


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Here comes the sun – a guide to photographing sunbeams

By Chris Upton

Photography is all about the light and, as landscape photographers, we are constantly searching for the most interesting and evocative lighting conditions. Without it our pictures can be dull and lacklustre but when Mother Nature performs her magic, the landscape is transformed enabling us to capture some stunning imagery.

Some of my favourite conditions are shooting into the sun to capture those dramatic sunbeams, starbursts or beautiful back-lit scenes. Although this is counter intuitive to everything we are taught early in our photographic journey, this technique helps emphasise, shapes, lines and silhouettes to produce some striking images.

Here are some hints and tips to help you capture atmospheric sun kissed images. Read More