East Lothian's Secret Coast

The aim of this work­shop is to intro­duce you to the fab­u­lous coast of East Loth­i­an, to empow­er you to inves­ti­gate and make your own images of an area that has so much to offer. One of the work­shop lead­ers is Chris Cullen, who grew up near­by and who knows the area very well.

Over five days we will explore from the Gul­lane on the Firth of Forth to the North Sea coast around Dun­bar. Some of these hid­den away beach­es have become a bit bet­ter known to the pho­to­graph­ic com­mu­ni­ty in recent times, though oth­ers seem much less well known except to locals.

One stand-out loca­tion is the amaz­ing beach at Auld­hame which offers an incred­i­ble vari­ety of sub­ject mate­r­i­al. Take in the jaw-drop­ping view over the bay towards Tan­ta­llon Cas­tle. Find the tiny stone har­bour (the small­est in Scot­land). Explore the broad sandy beach, with sub­tle rock tex­tures exposed at low tide. Cap­ture the view out to sea with the sheer vol­canic Bass Rock form­ing a won­der­ful back­drop. Inves­ti­gate the ever chang­ing, fas­ci­nat­ing geol­o­gy of the Car Rocks and beyond. The oppor­tu­ni­ties for wider land­scape work as well as more inti­mate land­scape imagery is huge!

We will also spend time at the John Muir Coun­try Park, explor­ing a huge sandy beach, a vol­canic head­land, old beech and pine woods, WW2 defens­es and intri­cate erod­ed col­or­ful rock details. This area is great for drone pho­tog­ra­phy too. 

There are many more loca­tions, which you will not find on Insta­gram etc but offer won­der­ful poten­tial for land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy. This part of Scot­land is where to sci­ence of geol­o­gy was first born — and it shows in the incred­i­ble vari­ety on offer.

You will have plen­ty of time to explore each loca­tion in a unhur­ried way, to absorb what it has to offer and devel­op your own ideas of how to cap­ture its essence. Your work­shop lead­ers will be on hand at all times to offer any nec­es­sary tech­ni­cal help if need­ed as well as pro­vid­ing artis­tic advice, encour­age­ment and sup­port to enable you to get the absolute best out of each of the won­der­ful loca­tions we will visit. 

The East Loth­i­an coast is very spe­cial indeed. Our aim is for you to come away with hap­py mem­o­ries and many images that you will be very proud of.