Tim Parkin - Landscape Photographer

Ardnamurchan turned wet, very wet. I was shooting with my good friend Dav Thomas, camping out with tents and campervan and our second day turned in the wrong direction after breakfast. Both myself and Dav have been quite vocal about making pictures whatever the weather and so we headed out, despite the torrential rain. After a couple of hours wandering a small copse of lichen covered trees, we saw a mossy wall by the side of the road and pulled the van over to take a look. Both of our eyes were caught by these two small saplings and the pool of leaves.

Sometimes pictures are made by the disconnect between what you think you see and what you actually see. The patchwork reflections hide a layer of texture, leaves, unwrapped bark, twigs and grasses. Our cameras weren’t behaving though, the rain had dissolved the glue that was holding together Dav’s Technikardan camera bellows and the rain had made the wood in my Ebony swell up, causing it to lock up completely. By the time I had loosened off the rails enough for them to move, they were wobbling around like a puppet with its strings cut. It was a good job it was absolutely still though and I could just get the photo. As Dav’s girlfriend said “You drove to Ardnamurchan and took a photo of a puddle!?”