Seilebost, Isle of Harris
Thousands of lugworm casts are exposed at every low tide, after the sea completely drains from the bay of Traigh Losgaintir.

Rocks, Luskentyre, Isle of Harris
For the Hebrides themselves as well as for this composition, if you look beyond the three basic elements of the landscape - rock, sea, and sky - you'll find a whole host of detail. There are shades of moss and lichens; submerged seaweed; the break of a gentle wave; hints on the horizon of the great swaths of sands lying across the bay - and the isolated houses that gaze over them.

Crofter's Field, The Bays, Isle of Harris
Lambing came early this year, the Crofter owner of this picturesque field of flowers in The Bays told me - consequence of an unusually warm and early Spring, a pattern which seems to be becoming less unusual with every new year.

The Cuillin, Isle of Skye
The jagged eastern peaks of the Black Cuillin ridge contrast with the rounded gentle Red Cuillin outliers at this viewpoint on the upper northern flanks of Bla Bheinn (Blaven).

Coast at Sheigra #1, Sutherland
The north west of Scotland is a rugged wilderness with a coastline to match. At the end of the road beyond Kinlochbervie lies the isolated crofting village of Sheigra which consists of just a few houses and a small graveyard. Five minutes' walk from here takes you to this view of rocky inlets and small sea cliffs. It's a hidden gem. Using a tripod, remote release and graduated neutral density filters to balance the intensity of light between upper and lower halves of the frame, I used a long exposure to build up the warm magenta light reflecting on the waves into a painting-like blend of sunset hues across the sea and wet rocks.

Coast at Sheigra #2, Sutherland
Sunset light on the far north west coast of Scotland; a wilderness of windswept rock, clinging lichen and wild seas. This shot taken a short time before #1.

Hoy from the Mainland, Orkney Isles
The Orkney Islands are largely all alike, low-lying, fertile with rolling green fields, streams and small lochs. The exception is Hoy, a wild, looming mass of rugged sandstone hills and some of the highest sea cliffs in the UK.

Calanais Stones, Isle of Lewis
These magnificent 5000-year-old standing stones on the Outer Hebridean island of Lewis are arranged in a kind of distorted Celtic cross, with the highest stones of up to 5 metres forming the inner circle featured here, with a long avenue of shorter stones to the north, and two short rows east and west.

Loch Leathan and the Cuillin, Isle of Skye
With the rounded red and jagged black Cuillin mountains rising on the horizon, it was a mad scramble up a slippery grassy bank to reach this viewpoint while the sunbeams lasted. I got lucky and found the perfect rocks to complete the composition!

The Bays, Isle of Harris
Looking across the Little Minch towards the north shore of Skye, from The Bays on the Isle of Harris.

Standing Stones of Stenness, Mainland Orkney
Orkney has some of the most impressive neolithic archeological sites in the world, such as the famous 5000-year old village of Skara Brae and the impressive burial chamber of Maeshowe. Of the two biggest stone circles in the area, the Ring of Brodgar may have more stones and is bigger in scope, but the few remaining Stones o' Stenness have the tallest stones in Orkney - nearly 6 metres (19 feet) high. Radio-carbon dating shows that the site dates from at least 3100BC.

Trickle Patterns in Sand, Isle of Harris
These tiny water channels were carved by a temporary water runoff after squally Spring showers. The low-angled setting sun enhances the natural golden colour of this pristine Hebridean sand and accentuates the intricate troughs and ridges.

Sand ridges, Mainland Orkney
The reflection here of the setting sun is provided by the wet Orcadian sand.

Rackwick Beach, Hoy, Orkney Isles

Calanais Stones, Isle of Lewis
A storm approaches the 'Stonehenge of the North.' At the time they were made from the local Lewisian gneiss, sometime around 2000 BC in the Bronze Age, the climate was warmer and drier than it is today, and boggy peat has long since replaced the greener landscape of the past ages.

Abandoned Crofter's House, Isle of Harris
This decaying old cottage is now used as a shelter for sheep. But as I ventured inside, treading carefully through the thick carpet of straw and compacted droppings, I found this poignant reminder of the life of the last inhabitants - a vase still placed on the mantlepiece; the drying rail above the gas stove; and the wooden chair in the corner, facing into the bare room.

Rackwick Beach, Hoy, Orkney Isles
These ebony pebbles buried in the sand caused the receding tide to carve gentle channels around them as it went.

Calanais Stones, Isle of Lewis
A long exposure by moonlight captures the eerie silent spectral forms of these 5000-year old standing stones.

Loch Leathan and the Cuillin, Isle of Skye

Clisham, Isle of Harris
It was a boggy slog up this highest peak of Harris and Lewis; there's no path, only a thick blanket of wet moss covering the lower slopes.

Loch An Fhir Bhallaich, Isle of Skye
The December's setting sun cast a deep red hue across the brown heather on the lower southern slopes of the Cuillin ridge.

Traigh Mheilein, North Harris
This rusty buoy lies half buried in the sands of this remote beach. It may look a pleasant enough day - but in typical Hebridean fashion, we suffered several hailstorms blown by gale force winds during our half hour return along the steep rocky coast back to Huisinis!

Bla Bheinn, Isle of Skye
An incredibly still and crisp December sunrise as I drove past Loch Cill Chriosd towards Blaven, the snow-flecked mountain here on the left. A few hours later I was surrounded by the frosty rocks on the top.

Traigh Sheileboist, Isle of Harris
Golden light as the sun sets behind Taransay in May. Traigh Sheileboist is a stunning sandy beach near Sielebost that looks out over the Sound of Taransay and the hills of North Harris.

Standing Stones of Stenness, Mainland Orkney
I always try to capture the image I want in-camera; normally I would use a graduated neutral density filter on the camera to balance the intensity of light from the sky with the land, so that the exposure records detail in both halves of the frame. But here that would have the effect of making the bottom half of the central stone lighter than the top half, with an artificial line running across the middle. So instead here is a rare occasion that I've blended two exposures together - a technique known as HDR ('high dynamic range'). I shot two images - one exposed for the grass and stone, and one exposed for the sky; and then manually blended these together in Photoshop. It's the equivalent of using a GND filter in the shape of the standing stones of Stenness... but who has one of those?

Pierowall Harbour, Westray, Orkney Isles
Westray is one of Orkney's most northerly small isles, with population just 550; Pierowall is its only village. From this island to its neighbour Papa Westray is the world's shortest scheduled flight, which lasts a mere two minutes!

Sandwood Bay, Sutherland
Sandwood Bay is a spectacular, pristine, unspoilt expanse of sand, miles from the nearest road and only reachable after an hour's walk. Paradise.

Sheigra, Sutherland
A lone clump of pink flowers clings to a crevice in the rock, their colour lost in the surrounding warm glow from the setting sun.

Luskentyre, Isle of Harris
Spring flowers basking in the orange glow of a Hebridean sunset.

Strathaird Coast, Isle of Skye
Wanting to find original angle from which to make an image of the Cuillin from Elgol, I walked south along the coast of the Strathaird peninsula where I found a multitude of interesting rocky bays and cliffs looking across Loch Scavaig. I returned late in the evening to make an image; my intention was to capture the tide shooting up the two rock crevices in the lower half of the picture; however, my favourite exposure turned out to be this one, 0.4 seconds long, just long enough to catch an impression of the wave washing across the rock.

Elgol rock formations, Isle of Skye
It's satisfying to find symmetry and order in something so seemingly random and chaotic as natural landscape. Here I liked the juxtaposition of rock textures, and the fact that the three large clumps of foreground rock, nearly identical in form, gave home to three clumps of small pink flowers.

Road to the Cuillin, Isle of Skye
The natural lines act as a road for the eye to move from the foreground rocks to the ridge on the horizon.

Elgol beach, Isle of Skye
No stone was placed... not by man at least. Strong tides have one by one placed these large pebbles into the crevice between two slabs of contrasting rock. I framed the scene with a strong symmetry, using two larger pebbles to terminate each end of the line with a full stop.

Elgol beach, Isle of Skye
The natural curve of this rock near the shoreline reminds me of the shape of yin and yang, Taijitu.

Twilight on Elgol beach, Isle of Skye
No artifical colours or preservatives... on film or digital, a long exposure taken well after the sun has set and under a clear twilight sky has the effect of casting a deep blue hue across the landscape.

Snail, lichen and rock, Isle of Skye
In the half minute or so which elapsed between the two exposures that I took, this snail had rotated by 90 degrees. I only noticed when reviewing the images later that evening.

Light on a tree, Isle of Skye
Hiking down from the Cuillin outlier Blaven, I noticed how the late afternoon sun was reaching across the sides of the steep-sided valley at just the right angle to illuminate the young green foilage and branches of the trees but not the valley itself.

Eigg from the lower slopes of the Cuillin ridge, Isle of Skye
I used a second's exposure during a gust of wind to capture movement in the grasses, but the result is slightly lost in the overall texture. I like the light though.

Talisker Beach, Isle of Skye
In this image I wanted to arrange the sunken rocks in such a way as to connect them by their encircling mini-moats of draining sea water, and thereby somehow relate them together inside the frame.

Skara Brae, Orkney Isles
The 5000-year old Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae lies half buried in grass and sand on the edge of an encroaching beach.