Posted by Josh Jaggard on Thursday 19th December 2024 | Trip Reports
2024 was another fantastic season of photo-tours, bespoke assignments and workshop collaborations. As always, it is such a thrill for us to welcome photographers from all over the world and share our beautiful islands and amazing wildlife, with tour participants visiting from all corners of the globe as far as Canada, the USA, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, not to mention a host of European countries in between.
We were thrilled to welcome back collaborating professionals such as David Tipling, Kevin Morgans and Tesni Ward as well as Mark Sissons, (Natures Images) and a new itinerary with Rachel Bigsby.
On our own group tours, The Shetland Summer Photo-tour, the successful change in format in 2023 to smaller group sizes of 3-4 people, being based on Unst, and with our own caterers again proved to be particularly popular and successful, we even had clients enjoy the new format so much last season, they returned again this year – though they did admit the food and our caterers, ‘the Jane’s’, had a lot to do with it!
One of the main highlights this year was our ability to make the most of the sunsets at Hermaness. Being based on Unst allows us to take full advantage of the seabird colony of Hermaness at sunset, often being the only people up there. Checking the weather frequently and being in contact with our flexible caterers, allowed us the ability to bring meals forward, or push them back in order to make the best use of weather windows and the all-important light. This allowed us to enjoy several Hermaness Puffin-sunsets, always a stand-out highlight with guests.
One of the most significant benefits of our smaller group size was the opportunity it gave us to photograph Otters. This is one of the key advantages of this small group size as it allows us not only dedicate time throughout the week to work on Otters and make the best of the tide times and weather windows. Our small group size ensures we positioned all our guests into unintrusive and often unique encounters allowing everyone to enjoy the opportunity to photograph and experience these beautiful animals. This was also said for our collaboration tours, when we separate guests off in pairs from the main group to enjoy time alone with us and the Otters. For more on our Otter Photography Tours, check out this years seasonal summary and client gallery.
Whether you choose one of our own week-long tours or collaboration workshops, the social dynamic of the groups are particularly important to us. With the guest to guide ratio never more than three/four to one, (even on our co-led collaborations of six to eight), we can give participants whatever level of help or assistance they may need. It allows us to have a primary focus on the importance of fieldcraft and the behaviour of each species they worked on. As naturalists before photographers, this is really important to us and know that it is appreciated by our tour participants.
All in all, our clients have enjoyed some truly wonderful encounters throughout the summer season. Although each week the itineraries are more or less the same, every encounter is different, and every day offers new images – from Otters catching prey right in front of us; Orca pod following the shore; Phalaropes spinning around on the water, to sunset Puffins landing at our feet with sand eels; plunge-diving Gannet feeding frenzies and rare flowering plants. Whilst on our bespoke itineraries there were some very special images shot on our licensed Merlin and Red-throated Diver assignments.
Fancy joining us next year?
If this tantalising glimpse of our ‘Shetland Summer Photo Tours 2024’ has sparked your interest to capture Shetland Isles wild beauty and create your own images with fellow nature enthusiasts, please do let us know. There is still a space or two left – we hope to see you next year! Find out more about The Shetland Summer Photo-tour.