Balloch photographer captures the beauty of Scotland

James Mortimer has released his latest short movie and visual art-piece “Up the Road”, which depicts beautiful landscape photography from all over the country.

“I owned and operated a successful city-centre studio-based photography business in Aberdeen for over 25 years,” James told the Reporter, “before retiring early and moving to Balloch with my girlfriend.

“This was over seven years ago, but retirement doesn’t sit well with my lifestyle, so I’ve kept myself busy with several projects, mostly based around photography.

“I first published ‘Sourced, a Wee Dram’, a coffee-table book of Scotland’s whisky distilleries in late 2013.

"It quickly sold out, so I published an updated edition two in late 2016.”

James followed the success of his book with a short “road-trip” style film about whisky distilleries, launched late last year called “The Whisky Road”.

After a period of illness, James launched “Up the Road”.

He added: “I imagined that a virtual trip through some of our spectacular scenery may cheer a few people up during these dark days of lockdown.”

The moody and dreamlike score to James’s film was set by fellow Balloch resident Oreste Gargaro, who told the Reporter: “I’ve been making music since I was about 13.

“It’s been a great journey and it’s taken me to different parts of the world and also gave me the opportunity to meet some great people, including James and other artists and musicians.

“It’s a very tough industry to make a living from but the main focus has always been the music.

“I’ve worked with Craig Armstrong (Grammy award winner), Chris Difford of Squeeze and Justin Currie.

“My own band ‘Lunar Page’ had a fairly successful run at the turn of the millennium.

“It had radio play, including Radio 1, on both sides of the Atlantic but, alas, not a bean to show for it.”

To view the film visit youtube.com/watch?v=RdPbPVbgWpo&t=9s.

For more information on ‘Sourced, A Wee Dram’ visit sourcedaweedram.com