We are now sitting in a small bar in Tarbert, on the beautiful Isle of Harris for the second consecutive day. The good news is that it's just a few steps from the ferry terminal so it's likely we are not going to miss one when it goes. The bad one though is that no ferry to the mainland has been permitted due to the harsh winds over the past 48 hours. By now, we both have missed our flights to home and exhausted any topic that could have been talked (except for photography that is endless), including serious thoughts about settling down over here for good.

Following our September trip to the Isle of Eigg, we decided to take a break from Iceland and explore more of Scottish islands. The Isle of Harris and Lewis sounded like the right destination, and we have not changed the timing of our annual Land & Colors tour despite I read somewhere that coming to Hebrides in the winter time calls for lots of problems. Now I know what they meant... I can hardly remember a less favourable weather conditions, way too much of heavy raining and winds often prevented us from pulling the cameras out at all. I love tough goings but this just has been largely excessive. The cancelled ferry service speaks for itself...

Otherwise, if I was allowed to see better than through the rain, I would confess that the island is one of the most beautiful places that I was lucky to visit. The spacious beaches, each facing different horizon and featuringthat different foregrounds can't be described by words. I'm adding few shots above made by my mighty iPhone for a little bit of demonstration. On top of using my phone, in these rare moments that the weather permitted photography, I was privileged to have the brand new Phase One IQ250 for testing in the field. This was thanks to Phase One dealer in Slovakia, stella.sk.

It stood the difficult conditions extremely well and I'm impressed with the new Live View and long exposure features that the CMOS technology used provides for. I will try to demonstrate and showcase here what this amazing piece of equipment can do in the very near future. So stay tuned - if we get back home one day... In the meantime, let us get back to connecting with the landscape through lovely Scottish whisky.

Waiting for the long exposure...:-)