30 days on Luskentyre

Last evening I came across a travel journal by Nigel Danson on Youtube. The first part of a series of videos he had produced after his trip to Luskentyre beach, on Isle of Harris in Scotland. All three videos are almost an hour long, a long sit, but well worth it for nature photographers looking for inspiration.

Nigel Danson is an avid lover of the outdoors and landscape photography, and he enjoys sharing his adventures with others by capturing beautiful landscapes in both the United Kingdom and the United States. With his educational content, he aims to motivate and provide other landscape photographers with useful tips and techniques on his YouTube channel, among others.

Like me, Nigel started photography at a young age with a big difference: I took all my exposed rolls of film to the local photographer to have everything developed and printed. Nigel did it all himself in the dark attic of his childhood home.

In 2017, he decided to trade his passion for photography for his office job and grow his YouTube channel by sharing his knowledge and travels with everyone. His channel has over 450,000 subscribers to date. Sitting still for long periods didn’t do Nigel any good anyway due to a chronic pain in his back. Something I also experienced for a long period of time, after being hit by a bus filled with pianos in a traffic jam near Apeldoorn. The fear of not getting rid of that stays around in your head for a very long time, and as a lover of walking around in, and photographing nature, that goes together very badly. My symptoms are largely gone after several years, but unfortunately Nigel still has to deal with that back pain daily. Relaxation in nature, walking around and photographing has helped him tremendously with that.

What is special about the series of videos on Muskentyre is that he decided to take the time to visit an area. He stayed no less than a month in a village near the area he wanted to explore daily. Fighting the pain in his back, the salt, the sea, the rain, the strong wind, the sand and the rapidly changing temperatures in this area. Yet, he walks almost dancing through this beautiful environment. Mother Nature treated him to the most beautiful images during that month, which he incorporated into a beautiful book after his trip and together with his travel companion in this wonderful series of videos.

Has your interest been piqued? Then go watch them all quietly. Take your time and enjoy this wonderful series of travel videos and the follow up videos where he tells more about this trip and gives you a glimpse into his beautiful book. The book can be ordered through his website. 

Enjoy watching this wonderful series! You can also subscribe to his Youtube channel. That in turn helps him create new stories about his travels.

To complete the series another video in which Nigel fulfills another wish of his with a visit to Iceland to photograph Puffins. His enthusiasm is very contagious and fun to watch. Enjoy!

Update 8/8/2023: Nigel Danson was interviewed by Rick Bebbington, the man who went with him to Luskentyre to shoot video and drone footage for him during their stay. That interview has been shared online on Rick’s channel. It describes how Nigel has set up a successful business with his popular YouTube channel and everything around it. But it also tells what happened beforehand and how Nigel had to adjust his life because of all that what.