"Voices of a Distant Shore" is a piece I did because I was inspired in two ways. The first was that I wanted something that my wife and I could present an old friend with for her birthday.

I thought that something from the heart would certainly require an original image. The question was what to create.

The other inspiration was for the actual image itself. Another friend had travelled Europe a year or so earlier. She was nice enough to send me photos of her travels, in particular to Scotland.

In seeing these fantastic and picturesque photos I knew that I had to recreate the spirit of what I was seeing.

I spent an hour or so researching Scotland and the surrounding areas. I read, I looked at other photos, and I tried to get a feeling for what it might be like, in an idealic setting.

Granted, this is not a literal representation of The Moors, or an actual coastline. Instead it's what I felt was a dynamic view of the craggy cliffs and tumultuous waves combined with a dramatic vantage point - that of being out at sea looking in and the tilt of the image. I thougt this was a good way to convey the rocking motion and undulation of the sea.

I made certain that there was a level of transparency to the water so one could see "through" the water and view hints of the rocks and cliffs under it. It adds to the feeling of the volume of water and makes certain you don't feel the water is a simple, two-dimensional plane on the ground... it has depth.

Perhaps the most work went into not the sky (something I tend to spend hours on anyway) but rather the water mist, spray, and trickles off the rocks. This involved a great deal of post-production work by hand, but I feel the end result was well worth it.

If you enjoy "Voices of a Distant Shore" it can be found at my online store in several large, high-resolution formats!