Autumn in the Highlands

margaret soraya autumn leaves_

Autumn blog catch up

It has been a long time since I have blogged and I have decided to catch up. Today I drove out to Glen Affric to photograph the amazing colours of the autumn. I arrived and headed out but it felt like I was walking through treacle. So I headed back to the van to have a rest. The blessings of having a van! I always take with me two hot water bottles so I can curl up all cozy whenever I need to. 

And what felt right today… rather than walking and shooting… was to enjoy the silence, being cut off with no mobile signal. Unable to respond to the many emails that await me at home. I often become productive in ways that I couldn’t be if I was surrounded by urgent work.

So I decided to have a warm cup of Ovaltine and start writing instead. 

This year has been eventful in so many ways and I would like to share with you my trips, my photography, my journey. 

And the intention is to keep writing in this blog. I always stop doing things when they don’t resonate. When they don’t feel right. When things begin to feel forced, we tend not to do them. It is always worth figuring out why that is. It is just because you are trying to do something that you should do rather than what feels natural? When I developed this website I always thought I should write longer-form interesting content about things that are relevant to my business and that you may find interesting and most importantly, useful. Techniques, tips, guides. This type of writing often takes me a long time to craft….. very purposeful and not so inspiring to me. So I have rarely blogged since. 

When you look at the origins of blogging, it can actually just be an online diary. A stream of thoughts, daily activities, anything you decide to share. I have been teaching online over the summer months and part of that is encouraging everyone to do Morning pages. An idea from Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s ways, that allows you to dump everything onto paper. The concept is part of a process that opens up your creativity and it definitely does work. So maybe I will just use this blog in a similar way. The things that have been in my life recently, my inspirations, the days I feel grateful and happy to be outdoors, my photographic pursuits. Covid has also been a huge part of my life these past 7 months so if you don’t believe it exists, you may want to read someone else’s blog instead!

 As I write this the idea of doing what feels right to you comes through over and over. If it doesn’t feel right, you won’t consistently do it. If you don’t enjoy it in some way, it will inevitably fall by the wayside. No one consistently pursues creative work voluntarily if it feels wrong. If you think about this when considering how you create and what you photograph it will go a long way to helping you find your own style. 

I will most likely go for a dip now, before heading home to my open fire to defrost.