Teenage clicks: Schoolboy's award-winning camera work
An Edinburgh teenager is amassing awards and praise for his photographs of Scottish landscapes.
Andrew Bulloch's interest in photography was piqued by a wild camping trip with his family on Rannoch Moor four years ago. An image of remote Loch Ossian taken using a "point-and-shoot" camera given to Andrew as a Christmas present was shortlisted in the Scottish Nature Photography Awards, and published in the awards' yearbook. To encourage this new interest in photography, Andrew was given a 10-year-old digital camera by his father Grant. His dad asked that he set the camera to manual and then learn how to use it. Andrew has not looked back since and, now 17, has racked up a trove of awards along the way. They include runner-up and category prizes in Scottish and UK-wide photography awards. A photograph taken during a powerful display of the Aurora Borealis earned Andrew the UK Take-A-View Young Landscape Photographer of the Year Award. He and his family had headed to Musselburgh to get a better view of the Northern Lights. They came across a deserted skate park and the teenager photographed it with the aurora in the background. A picture of a football pitch in Eriskay in the Western Isles has drawn international attention to Andrew's work. The image taken on a "grim day" of weather won him a prize in the Scottish Nature Photography Awards, the title of Young Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year and a phone call from football's international governing body Fifa. Fifa has described Eriskay's pitch as one of the eight most unique places in the world to play football. Staff at Fifa spotted Andrew's photograph and called to ask if it could be featured on their social media accounts. Andrew, who has played football since primary school, was delighted. Requests to buy prints have also arrived from as far afield as Indiana in the US. The teenager continues to juggle his photography with school studies and playing football. He held his first solo exhibition in April. All images copyright of Andrew Bulloch.