I am proud and excited to announce that the Madagascar project has been (finally) published in GEO Magazine across Europe. The 16 page article covers an extensive project I completed in 2009 uncovering Iogging activities and their international connections to Europe and the US. My personal goal as a photographer is to produce images that draw public attention to sustainable issues but working in partnership with The Environmental Investigation Agency was a notch up. Our evidence is being used by US Federal Agents in an ongoing prosecution of Gibson Guitars in Nashville. First reported HERE.

Nestled on the bank of Loch Ness lies Foyers Hydro Plant. The pumped storage facility can go from standby to “full-gen” in less than 15 seconds allowing the potential energy of water to be converted into electricity and feeding the National Grid during peak demand. It is hoped that with the increased development of wind hydro can help “smooth” the fluctuating output of wind power by being on fast response.

From the exterior Foyer’s seems a non-descript industrial building. However the main hall contains 2 excavated shafts over 120 ft in depth. The base houses some of Europe’s largest turbines and valves that require nothing but gravity and the pressure of water to generate 300MW of Power comparable to the average coal-fired thermal station.

I spotted Tarbet Isle off the coast of Loch Lomond whilst driving from Sloy to Shira. At only 40m long and 60m offshore its collection of trees resembles a perfect bonsai scene. (Or a perfect bonsai scene resembles it??) I settled in for a long night to try my hand at lighting up the island.  I don’t want to give too much away but it took an 800W tungsten lamp and more than a few hundred Elinchrom flashes. After a few hours of testing on digital I committed to shooting on 5×4.  The finished image above is the only negative where focusing, foreground and background lighting came together with no retouching needed.

I have spent the last week in the Strathfarrar region exploring the incredible Glen capped by Loch Monar. Without wanting to sound clichéd this is the single most beautiful and dynamic landscape I have had the privilege of visiting. The weather, principally wind and rain, changes in seconds but this panoramic from a central point gives you an idea of the terrain that actually exports energy to local towns!

Again you can click the image to open a window exploring the full 4m wide print.

With all my 5×4 negs in the lab every minute feels like an hour until they arrive safely back and get scanned. Some of the vistas on the project were impossibly wide which lent well to panoramic images shot on digital. Each of my panoramas you may see on the blog consist of 28-36 stitched frames shot on a 35mm prime lens. Attached below is a panoramic shot in the Sloy system showing the frozen holding lake between Upper Shira Dam (on the right of frame) and Lower Shira Dam (on the left of frame). Images such as this help feed my ideas for large format images and rarely get printed as the image size is over 4m long. You can click the image to open a zoomable page to see the full detail.