If you’ve been following my work for a while, you might remember a blog post I wrote last May titled Scaling Back For a Stronger Future.
That post was probably one of the most honest things I’ve written in a long time. I talked openly about burnout, rising costs in the industry, overcrowded photography locations that now feel like cattle markets, and the simple reality that I wanted to spend more time at home with my family.
To be honest, I think some people read it and thought I was done with photography tours altogether.
That was never really the case.
What I needed more than anything was space. Space to slow down a bit, step back from the constant cycle of running tours, and figure out what I actually wanted the future of Chasing Light Tours to look like.
Over the past year I’ve had that time to think.
And I feel like I’ve finally figured it out.
That said, like any business, things will always evolve. Nothing is ever completely fixed. But for the next 12 to 24 months, this is the direction I’m focusing on and building towards.
Instead of expanding the tours and adding more destinations like most companies do, I’m doing the opposite.
I’m narrowing things down. I’m niching down.
From now on I’ll only be running photography tours in four locations.
Lofoten Islands
Finnish Lapland
Ireland
The Dolomites in Italy
That’s it.
No endless list of countries or locations. No chasing the next trending photography location that suddenly explodes on Instagram. Just a handful of places I’ve spent years returning to and genuinely care about.
Why I’m Niching Down
In the photography tour world the usual path is expansion.
Run a successful tour somewhere, then add another destination. Then another. Before long you’re offering trips in ten different countries.
On paper it looks impressive.
In reality it spreads you thin.
You can’t properly know a place if you’re only visiting it once a year while constantly chasing the next location. You end up running the same routes as everyone else, visiting the same famous viewpoints, and standing shoulder to shoulder with twenty other photographers waiting for sunrise.
That’s never really been what I wanted Chasing Light Tours to become.
The tours I enjoy running most are the ones where I know the area properly. The quieter backroads, the alternative compositions, the locations that only work in certain weather, the places that most people simply drive past without even noticing.
Those things only come from spending real time somewhere.
Going back again and again.
By focusing on fewer places, I get to go much deeper into them.
That doesn’t mean the list of locations will never change. In a few years I might decide to remove one and replace it with somewhere new. Photography is always evolving and so are the places that inspire us.
I’ve also toyed with the idea of running the occasional long weekend trip somewhere I personally love photographing. Not a full blown tour schedule, just the odd small trip now and then to somewhere that feels special.
But the core idea stays the same.
A small number of locations, known well.
Four Places I Keep Returning To
Each of the locations I’ll continue to run tours in is somewhere I feel completely comfortable working in.
Lofoten is chaotic in the best possible way. Weather systems roll through constantly. Conditions can change within minutes. Some days you’re racing between locations chasing light. Other days you find one beach and stay there for hours watching the sky slowly build.
Finnish Lapland is the complete opposite. Quiet, minimal, raw Arctic landscape. Photography there is about patience. Standing in −25°C waiting for northern lights or watching subtle winter light move across snow covered tundra.
Ireland is home, and the place I know best of all. Endless coastline, wild weather, backroads that lead to places you’d never find unless someone local showed you. It’s also where I feel most creatively connected to the landscape.
And the Dolomites are just spectacular mountains. Towering limestone peaks, alpine light, history carved into the landscape.
They’re all completely different places.
But they share one thing.
I genuinely love photographing them.
The Environmental Reality
There’s another side to this decision as well.
The environmental impact of travel.
Photography tours involve a lot of movement. Flights, vans, accommodation, heating in winter environments, fuel, it all adds up. Even when you try to run things responsibly, the footprint is still there.
And then there’s the other thing.
Mass tourism.
I’ll admit it, I’m a complete hypocrite saying this because I’m part of that system too. Every time I bring a group somewhere I’m adding more people to places that are already popular.
But I’ve watched certain locations change dramatically over the years.
Places that once felt wild and quiet now feel like a production line for photos.
Car parks packed with vans and buses. Long lines of tripods at sunrise. Footprints everywhere through fresh snow or untouched sand. Head torches flashing all over the place during night photography. People climbing barriers and ignoring signs just to get their shot.
And honestly, I hate seeing it.
You only have to look at what’s happening in Lofoten right now. In recent years the local authorities have started cracking down on what they call “illegal tours”. A lot of photographers have been turning up, loading people into vans and running workshops without the proper licences, insurance or permissions.
At the same time locals have become increasingly frustrated with tourism in general.
People stopping their cars in the middle of narrow roads to take photos. Vans parked everywhere. Photographers wandering onto private land, climbing fences, or setting up tripods in people’s gardens just to get the classic shot.
From the outside it might look harmless, but when you live there and deal with it every single day, I completely understand why people get pissed off.
And the reality is, photographers are part of that problem too.
For me, landscape photography has always been about the opposite of that.
The best moments are when it’s quiet. When it’s just me and a small group of people standing somewhere special. Five or six photographers spread out along a beach or a mountain ridge, each of us working our own compositions without feeling rushed or crowded.
When it’s like that, the experience changes completely.
You notice the small things. The sound of the wind coming off the sea. The way the light slowly moves across a mountain. The quietness of the place itself.
You can actually soak it all in.
It becomes less about grabbing a photo as quickly as possible and more about simply being present in the landscape.
I’ll admit as well, crowds have never really been my thing in general.
Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than being surrounded by huge groups of people. Festivals, packed viewpoints, busy tourist spots, it’s just never been something I’ve enjoyed.
So when landscape photography turns into standing shoulder to shoulder with fifty or a hundred people all trying to photograph the exact same scene, it completely changes the experience for me.
That quiet connection with a place disappears.
Instead of taking in the landscape, you’re watching people walk through your frame, waiting for gaps between tripods, and feeling the pressure to grab a photo quickly before someone else steps in front of you.
That’s not why I fell in love with landscape photography in the first place.
And it’s definitely not the kind of experience I want to create on my tours.
Running fewer tours and focusing on fewer places allows me to keep that feeling alive. Smaller groups, quieter locations, and the space to actually enjoy the landscape rather than fight for a tripod spot.
It’s not a perfect solution.
But it feels like a better way of doing things.
Becoming a Local Guide
Another thing I’ve realised through all of this is that I want to become much more deeply rooted in Ireland.
Not just running my own tours here.
I want to guide for other companies as well.
If a photography tour company from the US or Europe is planning a trip to Ireland, I want them to think:
“We need someone local who actually knows the place.”
And then they call me.
That’s another reason I’m focusing so much energy on Ireland.
When you specialise in a place you start to understand it properly. How weather systems move through the landscape. Which coastlines work with certain winds. Where to go when the well known spots are full of photographers.
But guiding isn’t just about photography locations.
It’s about understanding the land itself. The history, the stories, the culture, the small details that make somewhere feel alive rather than just another viewpoint on a map.
And the more you understand a place, the more it can influence the way you photograph it.
Sometimes something you might have completely overlooked before suddenly becomes the focal point of an image. A small detail, a ruined wall, a line of old fencing, the way a path cuts through the landscape, the traces of people who lived or worked there long before we arrived with cameras.
When you know the story behind somewhere, the meaning behind the photograph can change as well.
That’s also one of the reasons I’ve started studying tour guiding here in Northern Ireland. It’s not because I want to completely change how my tours work, photography will always remain at the centre of what I do. But I’ve always believed there’s room to improve anything you do.
I’m already a few weeks into the course and I’m learning things that are making me think differently about how I guide people, how I communicate places, and how I can make the overall experience better for my guests.
Some of those ideas are things I’m already excited to start introducing on my upcoming Ireland tour in May.
Not huge changes, just small improvements that make the experience richer and more enjoyable for everyone involved.
And that deeper learning applies to all the locations I run tours in. Whether that’s Ireland, Lofoten, Lapland, or the Dolomites, the more I understand these places, the more depth it brings to the experience of photographing them.
My goal is simple.
When people join one of my tours, I want them to leave with more than just photographs. I want them to leave with a deeper understanding of the landscapes they stood in front of.
Fewer Tours Each Year
This also means there will simply be fewer tours running each year.
Instead of constantly moving from one trip straight into the next, I’ll be offering a small number of departures across these four locations.
The groups will stay small, usually five or six photographers.
That size keeps the experience personal and allows me to spend real time helping people improve their photography. It also means we can adapt to weather and light properly rather than rushing through a fixed itinerary.
Photography rarely rewards rushing.
Most of the best moments happen when you slow down and give the conditions time to develop.
It also means I’m not away from home nearly as much.
Over the last few years I’ve spent a huge amount of time travelling, sometimes months at a time between tours, scouting trips and everything else that goes along with running them.
With my kids growing up quickly, that’s something I’ve started thinking about a lot more.
Finn and Bella won’t be this age forever.
Running fewer tours means I get to spend more time at home with them. More normal days together rather than always being somewhere else in the world waiting for the next sunrise.
That balance is becoming more important to me than squeezing in another tour.
Quality Over Quantity
In the end this decision comes down to something very simple.
Fewer locations.
Fewer tours.
More depth.
Instead of spreading myself thin across dozens of destinations, I’d rather focus on a handful of places I genuinely care about and know inside out.
From the outside it might look like scaling back.
But for me it feels like moving in exactly the right direction.
Leave a comment