One afternoon I was sitting on the beach at Scarista, watching the oystercatchers working the shoreline, when the wind dropped away almost completely. The sea flattened and the beach brightened as the sun broke through, lighting the sand and the water with a clarity that felt briefly fragile.

Out to sea, though, the sky told a different story. A dark, heavy patch of cloud was moving steadily towards the shore, its edge clearly defined against the light. The contrast between the calm at my feet and the threat on the horizon felt charged, as if the whole scene was holding its breath.

I set up the camera and made the photograph just before the weather arrived.
Moments later the squall hit the beach in earnest — hail rattling down, wind rising suddenly, the light collapsing into grey. I pulled my hood up and stood there laughing as it did its worst, soaked and cold, exhilarated by how quickly everything had changed.
Before Rain came from that brief pause between conditions — a moment of stillness and light, with the certainty that it wouldn’t last.
This image has become one of my most requested prints.

The post Before Rain first appeared on Dudley Williams.

It was winter. The sort of trip where the days are short and the weather dictates everything. During the day I fed the chickens that wandered up to the caravan door, read a book, and went for short walks when the rain eased. It was the kind of slow rhythm I’ve always slipped into easily on the islands. 

When the light looked promising in late afternoon, I made my way down to Laig Bay. 

The beach there is extraordinary — the sand is a natural mixture of pale quartz and dark basalt grains. When the waves pull back, they drag and sort the colours into patterns: stars, cross-hatching, sweeping lines, things that look almost sketched by hand. No two visits ever show the same shapes. It’s one of those rare places where the landscape feels like it’s actively drawing. 

I stayed for a while, watching the beach change as the tide worked its way out. When the light finally fell, I walked back to the caravan in darkness, listening to the wind move across the croft. 

The next morning I returned to the beach at dawn. It was freezing — a thin crust of ice lay across the upper sand and crunched quietly underfoot. The tide had reshaped the whole place overnight. 

That’s when I saw them: a row of delicate fractal patterns carved by freshwater runoff from the land, sweeping in a gentle arc across the beach. They looked like small rivers, branching and re-branching, a natural sketch made during the night. 

I set up the tripod and composed a tight frame with the fractal patterns close to the lens, leading the eye out towards the twin peaks of Rùm on the horizon — a shape that is always there, always familiar, always mysterious. 

It felt like a quiet morning. Just me, the cold air, and a fleeting pattern in the sand that I knew wouldn’t last long. 

Weeks later, encouraged by a friend, I entered the image into the 2010 Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. I didn’t think much more about it. I’d never entered before and had no expectations. 

Then the email came. 

The photograph from that freezing morning on Eigg — that simple arrangement of sand, water and light — had won the Classic View category. 

It still feels fitting. That image wasn’t the product of a spectacular trip or grand conditions. It came from a small caravan on a quiet croft, a cold dawn, and a moment of noticing something subtle before the tide washed it away. 

The post A musty caravan and some chickens.. first appeared on Dudley Williams.

I drove until I reached Glen Etive and stopped for the night, exhausted. A deep sleep, then back on the road at first light. Five more hours through the Highlands, across Skye, and on to the ferry at Uig. The crossing was calm. I ate haddock and chips, drank coffee on deck, and watched as the ferry slid into Tarbert. It was late afternoon but still light enough to feel like the day had something left to offer. 

I stopped to see a friend in the village, caught up on local news, and gratefully accepted still-warm cakes she’d made that afternoon. She invited me to breakfast the next morning, and then I slipped away into the Harris night to find somewhere to sleep. 

I parked on an exposed rise between two bays, looking across the water to the dark outline of Taransay. I remember putting on Dark Side of the Moon, which for me always fits a Hebridean night — especially with an Aberlour or two. The island was silent except for the wind and the occasional sigh of the tide. 

At the time I’d been getting more into night photography, capturing star-filled skies on clear evenings. So I set up the tripod and tried to compose something in what little light there was; it was a moonless night, so shapes and horizons were barely there. 

While I was working, I noticed a faint pulsing in the western sky — something flashing or breathing. My first thought, embarrassingly, was that it might be a distant car with its hazard lights on. Harris does that to you: simplicity becomes plausible. 

I took a photograph anyway — a twenty-second exposure — and checked the screen. 

There it was. 

Aurora borealis. 

Right there on Harris. 

My camera had seen far more than my eyes could. To me the sky had looked almost empty, a quiet darkness with a vague shimmer. But the photograph revealed greens and subtle shapes rolling above Taransay, something living and moving that I hadn’t recognised at all in real time. 

It was the first time I’d ever seen the Northern Lights. 

Even now, I can remember the stillness of that moment, standing there alone on a rise between two empty bays, listening to Pink Floyd and staring at a sky I thought I understood. 

I slept well that night. 

The post Northern Lights on Harris first appeared on Dudley Williams.

One Friday after work I packed the van without a fixed plan. I often preferred it that way. I knew there was a good chance of snow that weekend, so I threw in my warmest sleeping bag, a gas stove, the brew kit for tea and coffee. In my pocket was a brand new iPhone 6, bought at lunchtime. My rough intention was to head towards Rannoch Moor and see what the weather decided to do. 

As I drove north the snow began to fall. By the time the van started the climb up towards the moor the snowfall had thickened, and I found myself worrying that the gate on the A82 would be closed, cutting off the road and my still-forming plans. 

Past Tyndrum, the sky closed in. Out on the moor I could see the amber lights of road crews in the distance, clearing and gritting. I felt that quiet elation you get when you realise you’re “in” — that you’ve slipped through before they shut things down. The snow grew heavier, the wipers struggled to keep up, the world shrinking to a tunnel of white in the  headlights. 

I crossed the moor slowly and eventually reached the head of Glen Etive, a favourite overnight spot over the years. The drive from Edinburgh had taken nearly three hours and I was tired. I pulled into a spot by the roadside and let the van roll to a gentle stop in what turned out to be around two feet of snow. 

The moon was out. I could see the road snaking down into the glen, the shapes of the hills softened and simplified by snow and half-light. I poured a small dram, then climbed into my -23°C sleeping bag in the back of the van and settled in, wondering what I might wake up to. 

At dawn I woke to find the inside panels of the van coated with ice and the windows packed with snow. I didn’t bother with coffee straight away — I wanted to see the landscape first, to know whether it was still snowing, to get some sense of where I’d landed overnight. 

I had to shoulder the sliding door to free it. When it finally gave, I stepped out into still, deep snow all around the van. It had drifted and piled to roughly two feet in places. A practical thought floated in: Will I be able to get back out tomorrow and make it to work in Edinburgh? It didn’t stay long. The place had me. The usual Glen Etive view was transformed — ridges, slopes and boulders all reduced to simple shapes under a pure white covering. 

I put the stove on for coffee and, while I waited, remembered the iPhone in my pocket. It had a timelapse mode I’d barely looked at. On impulse, I set the phone on a small tripod beside the van, pointed it towards Buachaille Etive Mòr, and started a twenty-minute sequence. 

While it worked away, I went back to the stove and my breakfast, occasionally glancing across at the mountain. The clouds were moving lazily around the peak, new layers drifting in behind, the light shifting in small, quiet ways. 

When the timelapse finished I picked up the phone and watched the result. 

What had been slow and almost imperceptible in real time became something else entirely. The clouds that had been sliding gently past were now rendered as misty shrouds circling the bulk of Buachaille Etive Mòr. Herds of deer, which I hadn’t even really registered properly in the moment, could be seen moving around the base of the mountain, constantly in motion as they searched for food in the snow. 

I was genuinely stunned. I watched it over and over in the van, with my coffee cooling beside me, the outside temperature still well below freezing. It felt like the little device in my pocket had just shown me a version of the glen I couldn’t quite see with my own eyes. 

A week later, back in ordinary life, I posted the timelapse online. Nothing dramatic: I uploaded it, tagged it simply “iPhone 6”, “Buachaille Etive Mòr”, “timelapse”, and thought little more of it. It was just a document of a weekend that had felt special. 

A week or two after that, an email arrived from an agency in California. They asked if the timelapse was mine. Was it really shot on an iPhone 6? Would I be interested in licensing it to their client for an advertising campaign? 

We went back and forth a little, agreed on the essentials, and they sent over an NDA to sign. 

At the top it said: Apple Inc., California. 

It was an odd, pleasing contrast to take in: a van half-buried in snow at the head of Glen Etive, a cheap tripod, a new phone bought on a lunch break — and then, a couple of weeks later, paperwork from Apple. 

It was a reminder I come back to often: not every adventure needs to look grand from the outside. Sometimes it’s just you, a road you know, a familiar glen in new weather, and a small experiment while the kettle boils. The landscape does the rest. 

The post Published by Apple first appeared on Dudley Williams.

I knew the composition. 

I knew the feeling. 

But I was stuck in an office in London, waiting for the chance to leave, to get north, to stand in the wind again. 

When the moment finally came, I packed the van and drove seven hundred miles in one long push. 

I slept in Glen Etive, woke early, and kept going — through the Highlands, across Skye, and on to the ferry at Uig. 

The familiar rhythm of that journey always feels like a return to something, even before you arrive. 

On Harris, I dropped in on a friend for coffee and pancakes, then carried on to Scarista — a beach I never tire of. 

The wind was howling in off the Atlantic. Big, turquoise rollers crashed onto the golden sand, each one throwing spray far downwind. 

I sank into the sand and watched for a while. It felt good just to sit there after so many months of waiting. 

I already knew the photograph I wanted to make. I’d seen it in my head often enough. 

So I set up the tripod, chose the lens that would give me the framing I’d imagined, and took a few test frames. 

The light was soft and diffuse; there was no need for filters. The composition fell into place easily — but the day had something else in store. 

A dark shape moved in the surf. At first I couldn’t work out what it was. 

It rose with the next wave, hanging for a moment in a cross-shaped silhouette against the glassy blue water. 

Then the wave collapsed and a seal surfaced, watching me. 

I walked a few metres down the beach. The seal followed, keeping pace in the water, head bobbing just above the surface. 

I walked back the other way and it followed again. 

So I ran — and it followed faster, the two of us tracing parallel lines along that wide shore. 

We kept this up for a few minutes until, eventually, it disappeared beneath the waves. 

It was a small, magical encounter — a vast beach, turquoise rollers thumping the sand, a playful seal shadowing my steps, and the photograph I’d carried for so long finally made. 

The wind was blowing hard enough to tear the tops off the waves. 

When I turned to leave, I noticed a line of cows grazing the machair above the dunes, unbothered by the weather, 

moving slowly through the grass as if this kind of day were the most ordinary thing in the world. 

It felt like a fitting reminder: the photograph is the excuse, the anchor — but the day itself is what stays with you. 

The post The Long Drive to a Photograph I’d Carried in My Mind  first appeared on Dudley Williams.