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Just over ten years ago, I began to take my first steps into the world of landscape photography here in the Lake District. I have lived in the Lake District all my life and ‘the lakes’ are my home. Whilst it is on my doorstep, it was only when I was returning from ‘Uni’ in Manchester that I began to appreciate just what was around me. Passing through towns and cities on the journey home, re introduced me to the beauty on my doorstep.

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They are their own special place and so I picked up my camera and went in search of

'proper' landscape photographs. I have an art and design background which I felt

gave me "the eye" for a picture with decent compositions but and I cannot stress this enough, I really had no proper idea or process of how to control a camera. In all

honesty, a lot of those early images were being produced by luck rather than

judgement. I found that very frustrating. In short, I needed to develop and

understand my camera if I was to progress to a decent standard in producing better images.

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I had toyed with the idea of attending a Lake District landscape photography workshop but after attending a one-day group course it put me off. In short, I was

ignored most of the time and the instructor was too concerned with taking his own

images. Not good at all and I felt deflated. It was a setback but I was determined to

progress. I looked on you tube and the usual places but felt that they offered more in

the way of location guiding rather than proper instruction.

By chance, I had been ‘talking’ on-line, with Mark Gilligan after we had been

introduced by a mutual friend. He was very complimentary about

the Lake District landscape photographs that I had on my site and that he had seen me post on social media. To be honest, because of the reasons mentioned, I was reluctant to meet him at first, as having researched his background and saw the respect he had in the industry and that he ran renowned landscape workshops and courses in both the Lakes and Eryri (Snowdonia), I felt that he would wonder who on earth is this girl who cant even use her camera properly ha ha!

However, nothing could have been further from the truth and I eventually plucked up

the courage and I arranged a meeting. I needn't have worried at all as he was very understanding and appreciated my honesty. We hit it off immediately and during that meeting I let slip that for several years, I had also been an Area Learning and Development manager, covering the North of England and for a time Scotland, for a major fashion brand. In the conversation, Mark mentioned that due to his increasing workload, he had been looking for a photographer to work with and alongside him on his landscape photography workshops but ‘that person’ had to fulfil several criteria, namely:

1..'a novice' who he could mentor, who would work in the same way as himself    

2. someone who had been involved in training and was keen to assist on workshops....

Luckily that was me!

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He invited me to observe one of his Lake District workshops and I was hooked! His

method of teaching was so simple yet made sense and the ‘students’ produced

fabulous images from that one day. From then on, I was working and learning alongside him as often as I could and in time started attending and giving instruction on his landscape courses and workshops both in the Lake District and Eryri (Snowdonia). It was a steep learning curve but one that I would not have missed.​ Since then we have gone from strength to strength with my own photography improving beyond anything I imagined. We regularly teach people from across the globe and I attend Marks talks and am now his official assistant. ...It could not have gone better for me

 

We now run Photowalks together and should you be interested in

attending one or a landscape photography workshop or course with us in the Lake District or Eryri (Snowdonia) then please contact me via this site.

We never set dates for the workshops, working to dates that suit you so please contact us to discuss and check availability for the dates you are looking for  

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