Wedding Photographer Aberdeen — the Granite City, Dunnottar Castle and the Cairngorms
Aberdeen is Scotland's most northerly major city — a grey granite city that grew from a medieval fishing port and university town and whose Victorian expansion created one of the most consistently grey-stone streetscapes in the British Isles: Union Street, the Marischal College's perpendicular Gothic facade (the third largest granite building in the world) and the granite-built Victorian residential districts of the West End all have a chilly, grand architectural character entirely specific to north-east Scotland. For Aberdeen wedding photography, the city's appeal lies not primarily in its own streetscape but in its proximity to Aberdeenshire's extraordinary concentration of castles, highland estates and the eastern edge of the Cairngorms National Park — all within an hour's drive of the city.
Dunnottar Castle and the Aberdeenshire Coast
Dunnottar Castle — a ruined medieval fortress on a dramatic sea stack fifteen miles south of Aberdeen at Stonehaven — is the most visually spectacular castle ruin in Scotland outside the Highlands: the curtain wall and tower remains stand on a sheer rock promontory above the North Sea on three sides, with the castle complex accessible only by a narrow cliff path that makes it appear virtually impregnable from every angle. The clifftop approach from Stonehaven and the sea view from the castle's north gate all provide a portrait sequence of extreme coastal drama available within thirty minutes of Aberdeen. The Aberdeenshire coast north of Aberdeen — Newburgh, Cruden Bay with the ruins of Slains Castle above the sea, Pennan Harbour and Fraserburgh — provides an entire alternative coastline of dramatic cliff, beach and fishing village character.
Craigievar Castle, Mar Lodge and the Cairngorms
Aberdeenshire contains more castles per square kilometre than any other part of the British Isles — the Castle Trail connects Craigievar (the pink-harled L-plan tower of 1626 that inspired the Disney Castle design), Crathes (the National Trust tower house with its original painted ceilings), Balmoral (the royal Highland estate on the Dee), Braemar Castle and Kildrummy. Mar Lodge Estate — the National Trust's Highland property above Braemar in the upper Dee valley — provides a highland lodge setting of great grandeur in a landscape of native Caledonian pine forest, open heather moorland and the high Cairngorm plateau behind. I travel throughout Aberdeenshire and Speyside and plan portrait locations for each specific venue and season.