100 Weeks of Scotland: Stars of Taggart & Balamory THREE images of Scottish actors this week, all part of my ongoing portrait project "Magnetic North." Sometimes portraits can take a lot of planning and sometimes they just happen very naturally. Both approaches are equally valid and I wouldn't particularly say one approach is better than another. Of the three portraits this week, two were reasonably spontaneous and the other was planned. The image of Colin McCredie is a fairly obvious nod to his role as DC Fraser in STV's long-running crime drama Taggart and was clearly planned in advance. It is always pleasing when the image that you have in your head is actually the one that you end up with when the shoot is done. Very often this is not the case but I was really pleased with the outcome in this case. The image of Julie Wilson-Nimmo, well known for her work in theatre and TV, was more spontaneous and after wandering around for a while looking for a decent background suddenly we turned a corner and there was the rusting cargo container and everything fell into place. I love the colour in this image and it is one of my favourite portraits. And then we come to Iain Robertson - well I think I hit the jackpot with that one. To be fair to Iain, the image was taken in a break from rehearsals and the shoes, to the best of my knowledge, aren't part of his daily look - although as far as I am concerned anyone who has been in Grange Hill can wear whatever the hell they like, whenever they like... He was a great subject and made my job so much easier. Catch up on the 100 Weeks of Scotland story so far Follow Alan on Twitter