About

Thanks so much for visiting my website.

I was born in Edinburgh in the 1970’s and, apart from studying for a law degree in Aberdeen, I’ve been lucky enough to live in this beautiful city I call home ever since.

After a Diploma in Legal Practice from Edinburgh University, I qualified as a solicitor, and then enjoyed a career working as a Complex Land Registration officer at The Registers of Scotland here in Edinburgh. This involved checking title to large, complex property transactions and transferring them to the Land Register. The job I enjoyed most, however, was teaching property law and land registration to new employees, which I really enjoyed and found very fulfilling. I think this is why I enjoy passing on everything I’ve learnt about photography and showing guests around Edinburgh.

I have my mum and dad to thank for my love of Scotland’s wild, natural beauty and all its amazing wildlife. From a very young age we enjoyed fishing holidays in the Scottish Highlands, staying in remote, beautiful locations in lovely old cottages. My sister and I would enjoy exploring and splashing around in the crystal clear burns, and I can still remember the sense of joyful freedom this gave us - probably something that’s never left me - and a feeling I still get, whenever I pack up the car to travel up north again.

I have lots of wonderful memories of our Highland holidays, from staying at Kinloch Castle on the Isle of Rum, to fishing in a dramatic storm beside the Stones of Stenness in the Orkney Islands, to catching my first trout on Loch Shin with my sister. Such special times, that I now cherish dear. There were only two channels on the TV in those days, no mobile phones or wi-fi and I couldn’t have been happier. It really makes me question what we really need in life and just how important spending time in nature is to us all.

It wasn’t only the Scottish Highlands I fell in love with. Growing up we often stayed in a very simple wooden lodge on the banks of Loch Doon in lovely Ayrshire. I learnt to tie my own fishing flies and can remember many happy times tying up ‘Black Pennels’, ‘Sooty Olives’ and ‘Ke-He’s’, wondering whether they’d be any good on the loch above the lodge! The lodge was basic, but we were always warm and cosy, and the memories are very much treasured. I do remember my mum playing a lament on the pipes as we motored up the loch on a gentle, summers evening. It was so beautiful and something I’ll always remember. I genuinely believe, that Scotland’s beautiful lochs and mountains have special powers of healing and, that if you’re a spiritual person, time spent in these beautiful places will restore your mind and body back to better health.

Like most youngsters in the 80’s, I had compact cameras growing up, but it wasn’t until about 20 years ago that I started taking photography more seriously. Travelling and discovering some of Scotland’s most beautiful lochs & mountains sparked in me a great desire to record my adventures and all the beauty I was seeing around me. I remember fishing a beautiful hill loch, with a gorgeous sandy bay, high in the hills above Loch Assynt in Sutherland and taking some of my first landscape photos with a Canon EOS 50D. I still have many of those photos and it still surprises me just how good that early camera was! Nowadays you can spend a fortune on camera gear, but ultimately it’s what you do creatively with a camera that really matters. Imagination is everything and where the joy of photography really lies.

Today, I still love fishing and all the amazingly beautiful places it takes me around Scotland, but I also have another passion that’s equally compelling, and that’s film making. I think my interest in video started with a wonderful trip to the Isles of Harris and Lewis about 8 years ago. I was so taken with the beauty of the Islands and their amazing beaches that I felt compelled to record what I was seeing on film for friends & family. I uploaded this to YouTube, with absolutely no intention of becoming a YouTuber, and was hugely surprised when people, other than family & friends started watching. If I’d known at the time how many people were going to watch I’d have made a much better job!

Today, I’m still making films from around Scotland on my channel and I’ve nearly finished a project to film guides to all eight of Scotland’s great cities. I’ve just got Perth to go, which I hope to complete soon.

I still love landscape photography, but I’ve grown to really love portrait photography. There’s something incredibly special about creating a beautiful portrait of someone and you can see some of my favourites on this website.

It’s always an enormous privilege to welcome visitors to Scotland and to show guests around my beautiful home city of Edinburgh. Please do get in touch if you’d like me to show you around and I’m also available for beautiful portraits and couple shoots, especially engagements, elopements, honeymoons and anniversaries.

Thank you for reading and I hope one day to be able to offer you a very warm welcome to Edinburgh :-)

Best wishes,

David