Exploring Orkney

Part of my ongoing #ThrowBackThursday series

Lives in a van. Bimbles with a camera. Often pointing his pixel box at scruff. Has been known to run long distances. Would consider cake as a form of payment.

Recovering.

A few weeks ago, in one of these #ThrowBackThursdays I talked about our time exploring Shetland, which was amazing. The month there was book-ended by two 2-week trips travelling throughout Orkney, which, while perhaps not as dramatic as Shetland, was itself a wonderful location to explore.

From those first few days walking the windswept sands on the main island, Fuji X100T in hand, trying to see beyond the obvious. The various colours of the rocks strewn on the deserted beach, washed smooth by a restless tide. Fleeing moments of light, a passing squall producing a faint rainbow. Isolation. Dramatic. Beautiful.

48 hours on Hoy, which was of sorts a bucket list location for me, having been introduced to the place by the images and words of one of my favourite landscape photographers, Joe Cornish. Sadly, however, our trip to the island coincided with one of the worst outbreaks of midge that whole summer, and my time trying to make images on the incredible beach was somewhat hampered by the wee beasties. My last memory of that evening was having to quickly evacuate camp, driving by a hapless family who had simply accepted their fate - standing motionless each with their own beard of midge. Pretty sure they are still there, encased forever in their itchy hell.

Hoy, like so many other locations I’ve felt a connection to, needs to be revisited. One day. One midge-free day.

Finding strange sea creatures washed ashore, and now left stranded until the returning tide pulls them back into the deep. Sand patterns made by nature and tiny stones that to my eye resembled shoals of fish swimming through the ocean.

Taking the world’s shortest commercial flight, and making it part of an interesting 10km run - we even got a certificate from the captain.

And the final evening up on the Yesnaby cliffs, a raging sea far below, evening light painting the scene a glorious yellow-orange.

Orkney was absolutely fantastic and, given the ease of access from the north coast of Scotland, along with the reliable inter-island ferries, should be on your travel bucket list.

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Other corners of the inter webs you can find me.

• The X100 Diaries

• My Portfolio

• Bimbles magazine

Thanks so much for allowing me a few moments of your time. I hope you have enjoyed my words and images, and if so a quick share amongst your own community will help spread the word.

And if you really enjoyed it you can even consider throwing a few pennies into the tips jar. It helps most with diesel costs for the van to keep me on the road making images.

Until next time .. Happy Pixels …