End frame: Arran Light by Dylan Nardini

Grant Bulloch

Grant is a photographer and architect based in Edinburgh and spends much of his time along the east coast of Scotland taking landscapes and dabbling in coastal abstract work. He has twice been a finalist in the British Photography Awards and is an advocate of exhibiting your work.

bulloch.photography

Being asked to write about a favourite photograph is really difficult. For a start, I’ve come to realise that I simply don’t have one. Part of that is because I came to photography late and whilst many people will revert back to historic stalwarts such as Ansel Adams as their influences, when I started out I had very little idea of his work and others of that ilk. I’d heard people talk of people from our own generation whose names now trip off the tongue - Bruce Percy, William Neil, Guy Tal, Charlie Waite, Joe Cornish, Mark Littlejohn - all incredibly influential published artists who regularly fill these pages and from whose portfolios I could easily have chosen a photograph. But to tell the truth, when I first started down this path, I really had no idea who they were. I probably knew more Instagrammers than serious photographers, although to be fair to one or two of them, they still taught me a few tricks along the way.

So, flicking through some books and social media, I looked back at some of the images that had jumped out at me over the last few years and as much as I remembered recent photographs, such as Stuart McGlennon’s hoar frost image from a winter or two back, I decided to go with something much closer to home.

Dylan Nardini is a friend and someone I’ve been on photo trips with, so I know a few of his images. However, one in particular resonates with me, perhaps because it’s the type of landscape photograph that I wished I was taking on a regular basis. “Arran Light” was one which helped win Dylan the title of Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year in 2021. Although Dylan is very creative in his work, often experimenting with different techniques such as Polaroid lifts and multiple exposures, this image stands out for me because it is pure landscape. Everything you want in a Scottish landscape photograph is there in one click of the shutter. The windswept tree, a barren hillside, stormy rain clouds enveloping the mountains beyond and of course the colour and drama provided by the double rainbow, which balances the tree perfectly. It is so simple yet it draws the eye in every time.