This image was taken on the sandy beach of the Isle of Eigg in the Western isles of Scotland, UK on a workshop organized by the renowned photographer Bruce Percy. It was shot on Fuji Neopan Acros 100 II b/w negative film, using my trusty Hasselblad 500C with Carl Zeiss Distagon 50mm f/4 lens.
During my week here, I witnessed unusual Scottish weather: clear blue skies with lots of sunshine. Not what you would anticipate when traveling to this remote place. Still, we had to deal with the circumstances, and one of the first things I learned from Bruce was to leave the sky out of the frame as much as possible. Just focus more on the foreground. Fortunately, foregrounds are what this island is famous for, and I was not disappointed. These patterns change with every tidal change and offer you a completely new opportunity to make some interesting new shots. I wanted to emphasize the patterns and structure in the wet sand, and the film I used seemed to be cut out for this. I had the film developed by a professional photo lab, as I think they can do this better than me. The negatives I have digitized myself using my DSLR.
Further post-processing was done in Lightroom, Photoshop, and NIK Silver Efex. I mainly darkened the image, as I tend to shoot quite on the bright side, and enhanced contrast as the patterns in the foreground seemed to scream for it. All in all, it has become quite a dramatic image with harsh light and contrasts but I quite like it this way.
