Justin Laidlaw Photography

Justin Laidlaw Photography An amateur photography page focused on capturing nature at its best, based in Edinburgh. Justin x

Hi there my name is Justin Laidlaw and I am a 25-year-old amateur photographer from Edinburgh so thanks for looking at my website. I got my first camera when I was 20 years old but it has only been in the last couple of years that I have become seriously obsessed with photography. I now find myself often daydreaming about photography, whether that is about me being out in nature trying to capture

a once-in-a-lifetime sunset or taking a portrait of someone and showing them how beautiful they are. As a young child, the outdoors always held a fascination for me - I was naturally drawn to BBC’s wildlife documentaries and also Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy - between both of these I started to fall in love with all of the different landscapes the world has to offer and this is what initially inspired me to start taking photographs. I spent a couple of years trying to capture landscape images that emulated the photographers I was inspired by but the photographs were nothing more than just snapshots on an iPhone and I slowly began to realise that, for me, they weren’t quite what I wanted to capture. After many hours of research and debate, I finally bought a camera and had so much fun going around taking photographs of anything I came across which I felt was beautiful. Four years later I have now gone through six cameras and several thousand images to get to where I am today. In terms of photographers, I am still an amateur but I would definitely call myself an enthusiast. I have a number of goals for my photography and a number of projects I am looking to start working on to continue to improve as a photographer so, if you can, follow me on social media and you can be part of my journey! Just to let you know that I also make occasional photography contributions to the Beautiful Edinburgh page on Facebook so please check out their page as well if you have the time. It may be the fact that I have Asperger Syndrome but I really enjoy explaining things to people so please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

Good evening everyone. The Data Recovery place got in touch to confirm a 99%+ recovery rate and I should have the replac...
03/09/2026

Good evening everyone.

The Data Recovery place got in touch to confirm a 99%+ recovery rate and I should have the replacement drive this weekend or early next week and I can begin to rework the images I have created since April and publish them officially on my website and get back to doing photography properly.

The images below are some that I took on my scouting trip last Saturday, they are quite decent and I will re-attempt a couple of them next month and see how much better they look with Autumn in full swing!

I might get out for a little this weekend, but next week should be full of opportunities to get back to exploring!

Have a great weekend if I do not speak to you before then!

J

Good evening everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. Before visiting a new woodland on Saturday I decided to stop of a...
31/08/2026

Good evening everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.

Before visiting a new woodland on Saturday I decided to stop of at Stirling to capture a sunrise along the river Forth. Mist was on forecast, I seen mist just before entering Stirling and got my hopes up. A local photographer called David Queenan has an absolutely beauty of an image at this stretch of water that I have been chasing ever since I seen it but to no avail.

You can check out his website here and the image I am referring to here: https://dqphotography.com/landscapes01

Unfortunately I had no mist and I could not get down to the actual river without getting waist deep in water, I’ll remember to bring some waterproofs and wellies for next time 🤣

Have a great week. I should have heard news and get my photography hard drive back this week and I can finally unload my 126gb of images that I can edit properly!

Chat soon! J

Back out with the camera this morning, scouted a new location for Autumn, will revisit this spot and hope for a winner w...
29/08/2026

Back out with the camera this morning, scouted a new location for Autumn, will revisit this spot and hope for a winner when the colour changes.

Good evening everyone. I was planning on looking for changes in colour in September, I have to say I am already seeing s...
27/08/2026

Good evening everyone.

I was planning on looking for changes in colour in September, I have to say I am already seeing some slight changes in colour at home and on the bypass around Edinburgh, I am going to have to get started sooner than expected.

If you are not up to date with current internet speak, if someone describes something as a green flag it is a positive trait, a red flag is a negative and a beige flag is in that middle area between.

One of the beige flags of my new home, is that the bin’s get picked up a quarter mile away. It’s a fairly lengthy journey when dragging two filled bins along which is a negative trait, but on the other hand, the area I live in is beautiful, and all the images you see are the sights I see on the bin ‘run’.

I’ve got an opportunity to get out on Saturday morning, and potentially on Sunday. I’m looking forward to it!

I also have a good chance at getting my hard drive and images back next week! The company that are dealing with it have giving me a 98% success estimate, so I’m feeling hopeful.

Have a good weekend if I don’t speak to you again!
Justin.

Good evening everyone, I hope you had a fantastic weekend. This weekend I managed to sneak out with the camera twice in ...
24/08/2026

Good evening everyone, I hope you had a fantastic weekend. This weekend I managed to sneak out with the camera twice in between prior responsibilities.

In preparation for this next season I am aiming to scout out and visit some brand new places that I have never been to before and on Saturday I managed to get out for my first scouting session. I visited a new woodland that I have never seen any photography from before over in the kingdom of Fife which makes it very interesting, although I have realised that I visited the wrong section that I had originally planned to go to as there is multiple car parks so another visit is required. Since it is a scouting trip, I am aiming to familiarise myself with the features of the location, and any photography is secondary, which means I can bring my dogs with me and they get to experience these new places also!

I have quite a few new locations to visit, with some requiring hours of driving to get to, before I even get out the car, but I am hoping that by doing this groundwork now, when crunch time comes in October/November I hope I’ll smash it!

Have a good week everyone, I’ll be posting another set of images later on the week 😄

Hello everyone, I hope you have had a great weekend.I'm not sure if I have ever expressed my dislike of heat on my socia...
16/08/2026

Hello everyone, I hope you have had a great weekend.

I'm not sure if I have ever expressed my dislike of heat on my social media, but I am not a fan of Summer or the heat it brings, the only redeeming qualities it has is Noctilucent Clouds and a better chance at beautiful sunrises and sunsets due to the calmer weather, but that is it.

These past few mornings it has been cold and it's fantastic, the slight chill in the air has been good for my soul. My mindset is starting to shift from being dormant and focusing on surviving the summer to preparing for a proper return to form and getting back to getting out in the landscape again.

This weekend I have been stuck at home, blowing the cobwebs off my planning spreadsheet and location database to start the process of researching and preparing for the next season and it is looking good.

This Autumn I have an opportunity to create a cohesive body of work that I could be proud of, and that is the goal.

Because I will be experimenting with a different approach to my photography I will be slightly changing the content I share on my social media pages i.e not every post will be a finalised image with a story to go along with it.

For you the viewer, it won't be a dramatic change as I am actually hoping to share more of the process going forward, like behind the scenes planning and scouting, shorter accompanying videos/reels of location scenery etc, so please bear with me as I try something new and learn what works and what doesn't.

I know it's unusual for me to talk a big game when I haven't been very good a posting the last two years, but I do not have very many talents, so if I ever want this to turn into something more serious I need to try harder, I need to get out of my comfort zone and try new things, so I am letting you all know so you can hold me accountable!

So please forgive the long rambling, but I am looking forward to starting this new journey with you all!

Chat soon,
J

First attempt wasn’t great, at least I’ve got 54 years to prepare for the next one!
12/08/2026

First attempt wasn’t great, at least I’ve got 54 years to prepare for the next one!

12/08/2026

After eclipse chat

Good evening all, today has been a strange day. First of all, I made a very last minute decision to photograph sunrise t...
08/08/2026

Good evening all, today has been a strange day.

First of all, I made a very last minute decision to photograph sunrise today, got all my things packed and ready to go, turned up at my chosen location fully prepped for photographing sunrise, realised I’ve stolen a family members Wellies that are three sizes to small which was brutal to walk on the beach with haha. I started recording a video to talk through my thoughts on my absence this year and especially the summer and I yapped for over 50 minutes of footage, all of the major talking points in one continuous video that has refused to open in my video editing app on my iPad so I’m not sure you will ever see it so I’ll have to try again at some point. When I first arrived on location I spotted a heron and said, oh today might be a wildlife day but as I approached it clumsily it flew off, I setup my landscape camera and continued talking to camera in the mean time but at the very end of the talking I noticed the seal in the first image, and then discovered the baby seals in image two and three, had to cancel the video and focus on that as my video camera is better at recognising animals and keeping focus on them, I took a couple sunrise images but the seal images weee better, I have about 300 of them, but I decided to put a few on the iPad and voila.

I am quite surprised that my first sunrise shoot this year was wildlife focused but hey, if I like the look of something in frame I am going to capture it, no matter what!

Not sure when the next outing is, but I’m sure you will see it on here, have a great weekend and stay safe!

Justin

Hello everyone, I hope you have been well. Summer has been quiet for me in all aspects of my life, I haven’t left the ho...
27/07/2026

Hello everyone, I hope you have been well.

Summer has been quiet for me in all aspects of my life, I haven’t left the house for any meaningful length of time (not including work of course) since the Munro walk in June, and I’m starting to get antsy again. In typical fashion, plans were thwarted car failed its MOT, 3 garages later and we are back in business again.

I’ve got my camera bag packed, and I’m raring to go. I’ll leave you with a couple of mobile phone shots to let you know I have not forgotten you.

Stay safe and speak soon!
J

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