Great Escape Publishing

Posted January 24th, 2019 by Lori Allen & filed under Travel Photography.

In the Faroe Islands, people live in grass-covered cottages, and when the grass gets too long, they pick up a sheep and put him on the roof.

That’s their grass-cutter.

It’s fascinating, honestly.

And quite beautiful to photograph.

It’s Day 2 here in the Faroes (these notes are from my journal), and this has to be one of the best places for photographers on the planet.

It’s got amazingly dramatic vistas. Jaw-dropping landscapes. And get this…

Because there’s so much mist and fog (these islands are literally in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Iceland and the U.K.), our hours for taking stunning images aren’t limited to dawn and dusk. You can sleep in till 8, 9, or 10 a.m., and take the entire day to create your images. Good light comes and goes all day (though there’s a lot more of it in the summer)!

It’s like a playground for your camera, and you only need to go home when you’re tired or hungry (which I admit happens often when you’re hiking).

Here’s Nigel at work…

And if you look close you can see him teeny tiny at the edge on the right here…

It was phenomenal.

One of the things that surprised me most about Nigel’s style of photography is how much he uses his phone to set up his shot.

We never went anywhere with a camera around our neck. Our cameras were packed away in bags on all the hikes.

We didn’t even get them out of our bags till we had scouted the entire cliff, town or landscape.

He does all his looking around and scouting with his phone. And to be honest, I like this approach.

It meant I didn’t get hung up on a good composition and waste time shooting something I thought was the best before I had to a chance to walk around and actually see for sure if it was, in fact, the best.

It was also easier, faster, and lighter to get around with the camera on my back more often than it was around my neck. And our phones have much bigger screens, too, so I could take snaps for hours with my iPhone and see instantly which I liked best far easier than I could looking at the back of my camera. It was brilliant!

He also taught me a few things I didn’t know I could do on my phone. Like how to program it to show you what a long exposure might look like.

He does this so that the composition he’s setting up with his phone will match the composition he can get with his big camera… and so he has something easy to post on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.

It also made my tripod work easier.

He laughed at me most of the trip because I’m not used to using a tripod, so I can’t just throw it up as easy as he can. And thanks to his cell phone set-up method, thank goodness I didn’t have to. I only put it up when I already knew exactly where I was going to stand.

All this is in the new Armchair Photography Expedition that Nigel and I created for you here.

It’s a way to go to the Faroe Islands this winter without actually going to the Faroe Islands.

I created it because:

– Not everyone can travel right now…
– Not everyone can get a trip like this into their schedule…
– Not everyone can afford our expeditions…
– Expeditions like this are still the best way to learn and improve.

I always say you should never invest more money into your camera than you do into the brain that operates your camera.

Classes like this are an investment in your skill.

I’ve learned so many more tricks just hanging out with Nigel. All easy, too. Remember he’s only built his business in the last 18 months.