I’m Pete Rowbottom, a passionate self taught (mainly) landscape photographer from Wigan in the North West of England. I’m also a previous winner of the UK Landscape Photographer of the Year title in 2018. Travel is one of my main interests which I combine with my photography. I love to shoot everything from fine details, to wide sweeping landscape in all kinds of weather.

I’ve always loved photography, from the film genre through to the modern digital age, but it was only really with the digital age and freedom from the constrains of film costs that I could finally push myself a lot more to be the kind of photographer that I wanted to be. The Scottish Highlands have always captured my imagination from the first time I saw them in the mid 1980’s.

I wanted to convey a sense of wide wilderness between the mountains on both sides of me, catching the lighting across the mountains when it appeared and the inclement weather that was a feature of this day.

I do, in a nutshell this is panoramic landscape photography, sometimes a single frame will not be enough to capture what I want and I will opt for this format which allows me to capture at lot more and a larger file size so when cropping later I still have a really high resolution image for printing.

This was in taken in Glencoe, Scottish Highlands in March of this year (2026) the last throws of Winter were still hanging on, we actually had snow later this day.

I guess I could have shot a 3 shot horizontal panorama to capture similar width but by shooting in vertical for it (which I pretty much always do) you can include more foreground and sky (both of which in this scene were a big part of the final image) also when cropping afterwards it gives you move ‘breathing space’ around the mountains and the freedom to pick your image format with losing any features you actually want to keep.

All 6 images were processed together in Camera Raw within Photoshop, usually I’ll just use the correct lens feature first, then get the black and white points to where I want them to be.  I don’t always use the same white balance. Maybe add some vibrance to the image, and a tiny bit of clarity / texture to area where this should be present. I rarely use the exposure function (as I like to get this right in the camera), and I never ever use the contrast, or saturation, in raw as I prefer to do this later on only if needed.

The wind was a factor at times and with a panorama you need each shot to be 100% sharp or the whole thing is ruined. I often shield the camera set up with my large jacket. Likewise with rain spots which can also ruin a final image I had to check afterwards to make sure none had crept onto my lens. Checking the focus is also a big part of this type of image so once I had the right focus I knocked it over to manual focus so it wouldn’t change between frames.

The sheer beauty of the place, plus the lighting was fantastic at sunrise breaking through the stormy sky which for me really adds an extra dimension to the image instead of just a softer sunny scene.

Yes, I was with fellow photographers Geoff Moore and Mark Waidson who I actually met though Flickr, we been shooting together quite a few times now, it’s always great to see how we come back with totally different images.

 It was COLD, we had slept in a car not far from here and the first thing I noticed upon opening the car door was the huge change in temperature and not being able to locate my gloves, also after setting up the camera the only sound you could hear was the shutter going off and the occasional gust of wind, nothing else, so peaceful.

If they get close to the sense of awe and peace I felt when taking it then that makes me happy as that is wanted, I wanted to convey, also that the weather plays a massive part in these types of images, it’s not just about turning up, patience is required.

Indeed I do, Mark had brought with him a stove to make cups of tea, and to cook bacon. Amusingly he had ran out of his regular fuel for it and instead used something I think was more commonly used for aircraft! The flames were about 6 foot high and the bacon sandwiches were done in under a minute! They smelled amazing, tasted great, but his pan was jet black afterwards!

I’ve learned when I’ve shared it people do really seem to be taken by the panoramic format in an image such as this, probably the most important thing to always keep in mind when taking an image such as this is to work quickly, but methodically, and always remember that each one of the images has to be exactly the same exposure, which means shooting on manual mode as the aperture must be constant too for the images to blend seamlessly.

I always share my work online on Flickr as I like the interaction and have met many other photographers through it, also on my own website where I sell prints of my work .

You can visit my website at: https://www.peterowbottom.net, follow me on Flickr: flickr.com/photos/pete37038/ or check out my Instagram: @pete_rowbottom_photography