[headline htype=”h4″] Featured Photographer[/headline]

Hidden Galloway is the photography website for Sharon Halliday. It will showcase photography, thoughts and other artworks on occasion.

Based in Galloway again after a 12 years stint in Glasgow it’s very much a back to her roots period in her life. She was born and raised in Galloway on a beef and sheep farm near Crocketford, all sides of her family having been farming in Galloway for hundreds of years.

The theme of belonging to the land and part of the land is strong and Sharon tries to explore this with her photography, looking at what captivates us about a place and what roots us to that place. The beauty, the familiarity or the practicality of the land shown in the ‘shadows of the past’ uses belied by every contour.

She aims to reveal ‘views less seen’ and to try and capture the particular spell it holds over her and all those others who come here.

Much of her photography features places, and subjects that are off the tourist route and typically hidden from view. The name ‘Hidden Galloway’ comes in part from this, and for those that know her it is also a play on the naming of a long standing and ongoing community web project she started in 2001; Hidden Glasgow, where the aim has been to uncover the hidden side of the city though, photography, maps, historical research and story telling. The spirit of this is carried through into Hidden Galloway where the HG motto to “Always look twice” will continue to be embraced.

The image galleries and blog will be updated regularly. To be kept in the loop follow Hidden Galloway on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. Or join the mailing list , where the updates won’t be frequent, but will see something nice landing in your inbox on occasion.

[headline htype=”h4″] Featured Images[/headline]

Click on the images to discover more about the locations, skills and camera settings

“I always shoot raw, then do some initial processing in ‘camera raw’ before finishing off in Photoshop”

Hello everyone! My name is Kathleen Cronie and I am the founder member of Mostly Ghostly Investigations, Dumfries & Galloway’s first paranormal team and creators of the Dumfries Ghost Walk and Haunted Theatre Tour.

As our name suggests, Mostly Ghostly are primarily interested in all things ghost, spirit and entity related, however we welcome reports of UFO sightings, weird and wonderful creatures and any other intriguing aspects of the supernatural that people wish to share with us.

So, what does Dumfries & Galloway mean to me and the team?  Well, where to start!  We are truly blessed to call this stunningly beautiful region our home, a region that can boast a wealth of amazing natural features, vibrant communities, talented, inspirational people and of course, a plethora of ghosts, hauntings and eerie historic buildings to explore!  We feel passionate about highlighting this area as a must-visit location on any tourist’s agenda and have worked hard to promote Dumfries town centre through our haunted tour endeavours.  One of our proudest moments was having this work recognised when we achieved the title of Tourism Champion in the 2012 Dumfries & Galloway Life People of the Year Awards.

You may be wondering at this stage how Mostly Ghostly came about; ever since I was a wee girl at primary school I’ve been fascinated with ghostly happenings, I even had a club called Spirit World.  Fast forward to 2007 and I turned my childhood dream of creating a paranormal group into reality.

Our project began with a ghost story appeal to the local newspapers.  In addition to the famous tales already in existence, we were keen to discover new, unpublished accounts of what people were experiencing in their everyday lives at work, home, school and out on the road.  We spent a year researching and preparing for our official launch, which included attending a 20 week course at Glasgow University, sourcing valuable contacts, learning about equipment and finding a first class location in which to conduct our maiden investigation…

On 31st October 2008, we officially launched at Scotland’s oldest working Theatre, the Theatre Royal in Dumfries,  Since then, we have investigated many diverse and exciting locations including; Greenlaw Mansion in Castle Douglas, Amisfield House and Tower, Brougham Hall in Penrith, Carnsalloch House near Kirkton, Lochmaben Castle, Dumfries High School and the nerve-shredding Pittenweem Clock Tower.  Following an incredible couple of years developing and launching two groundbreaking tours for our town, the Dumfries Ghost Walk and Haunted Theatre Tour, we’ve been busy promoting these ventures as well as focusing on our first love – paranormal investigations.  Collecting evidence of paranormal activity and all that goes with it has always been a key priority and we are delighted to be compiling a series of thrilling new challenges for the year ahead including a unique new ghost tour set to kick off in October – watch this space!

We are keen to keep the public informed through talks, the media and of course, our website, which is updated regularly with a variety of features covering everything from paranormal investigations to bizarre encounters with ‘shadow people’, personal experiences and website news to eerie tours and events.  I am now in my fifth year writing for award winning magazine, Dumfries and Galloway Life, and one of my many highlights during that time was when I wrote a feature on 50 of the region’s most haunted locations to celebrate the magazine’s 50^th issue.  Another more recent milestone was a special feature marking Mostly Ghostly’s 50^th DGLife appearance.

In a relatively short time, Mostly Ghostly has become an established name in Dumfries and Galloway and beyond. For any information on our investigations, tours or indeed, to share a ghostly tale of your own, we encourage you to contact the team!

Kathleen Cronie

You can follow Kathleen and the Mostly Ghostly team at their website.

Hello everyone, I’m Kath Lord-Green, and am currently based in Dalbeattie in the heart of what I consider is the most beautiful region in the world! (If only we had sunshine sometimes – we’d be spoiled).

Originally from Bolton in Lancashire, I’ve lived in the region now for over 35 years and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else! The stunning coastline, fantastic forests and beautiful beaches make it the perfect place to live and to visit!

My business “Insight training coaching and media” specialises in designing and delivering good value, motivational and tailored training for local businesses. I also provide one to one “life coaching” for clients and I am a member of the Association for Coaching UK.

You may recognise me (or at least my voice) from the “Friday Magazine Show” for “Alive Radio” in Dumfries from 12-4pm (107.3fm in Dumfries and on the “listen” button on aliveradio.net world-wide). Having trained at Salford University in media production and been the “News correspondent” on another local station it’s nice to keep my hand in for something I trained for and I do love radio. Interviewing local people, new bands, artists and businesses from the community makes it a great job! Especially because I like to know what’s going on in the region.

I have four children: my eldest son is married and lives in Perth Australia, my eldest daughter lives in Dumfries and is an English teacher , my youngest daughter is a beauty therapist and has just moved to Glasgow and my youngest son is 15 and at Dalbeattie High School.

Keeping fit is a passion of mine, I attend a circuits class in the community wing of Dalbeattie High School every Wednesday and I’m a member of Bannatynes gym in Dumfries, in addition to going jogging in Dalbeattie forest.

My little Westie dog “Charlie” also loves big long walks in Dalbeattie Forest which if you haven’t guessed happens to be one of my favourite places. The Loch in the centre is stunning and even a lot of locals don’t know it’s there! We also love Rockcliffe and Kippford too!

A love of football means I spend a lot of time watching it both on television and in person, my most recent game was a trip to the Emirates Stadium in London to see Arsenal. I also watch my son play every week; he currently plays for St Cuthbert s Wanderers under-15 team.

Travel writing is something I have recently started but I am finding to be an amazing job already. Getting to visit hotels and sample the accommodation and food in different locations and write about it is a real privilege and something I’m looking forward to developing more of in the future – it also makes the most of my new found joy of taking photographs (of everything and anything sometimes!)

I love living and working here! I love being part of this amazing community and I’m happy I am part of the DGWGO family.

Kath Lord-Green

You can follow Kath on her Facebook page

Well folks, I’ve never written a blog post before, so I thought I better give it a wee go for the new DGWGO website. While I was thinking of a subject, I decided that the best thing for the first blog would be to tell you all ‘How, Why and What’ started this idea, that has now grown into the ‘DGWGO’ Family!

It all started back on May 13th, 2011. I had been an ‘Admin’ on a couple of other Facebook pages that had been shut down by their owner. So, I decided that night to have a go at starting my own. Little did I know back then it would really become so popular. It has become a page many folks have now taken to their heart and have great pleasure in using or commenting on.

For the first few months, it was a fairly quiet page. I posted everyday, but only a few posts and I really didn’t know what direction to take the page in! By 6 months there were well over 600 followers – I was listing events, local news and photos that I was taking all around D&G. Photography is a fairly new passion of mine and really something that has only developed because of DGWGO. This will be a future blog subject!

By year 1 the page had nearly 3000 users and was starting to be taken seriously by some events and businesses as somewhere to tell local folk about themselves.

Last year, the first large event to approach me was ‘The Wickerman Festival’; I had an amazing time helping to promote this as their ‘official/unofficial’ local promoter. I’m very proud that Jamie, the founder of The Wickerman, has asked DGWGO on board again this year – next time with a more official role!

It was at the festival that I met the team from Dumfries and Galloway Life Magazine and I must thank them for so much support they gave to DGWGO. They also gave me the chance to be their ‘Mr October’, enabling me to pen an article on their back page about what D&G means to me!

By 14 months, I started the ‘Twitter’ account (now has over 1100 followers) and ‘YouTube’ channel, which both add to the versatility of DGWGO and help encourage new members to join.

In November I commissioned a DGWGO logo design, provided by the amazing Hazel from Ice-Nine Graphic Studio. We ran a competition to have him named and he was christened ‘DUGAL the wee Beltie Bull’!

In December 2012, I decided (at this point I’d been approached by several music festivals – Comlongon Rocks, The Big Burns Supper, Thornhill Music Festival, Lockerbie Jazz Festival, other larger local events/businesses) that it was time to start a web page, so dgwgo.com was purchased.

In December, DGWGO was nominated for the ‘Dumfries and Galloway Life People of the Year Awards’. We didn’t win, but being nominated was an amazing result; it made me very proud, that a small moment of inspiration back all those months earlier, was appreciated by so many people!

In December too, I decided to take on a partner in DGWGO. Derek from Dumfries Design came on board, bringing with him his wealth of knowledge in web design and the IT business. These skills will help DGWGO to progress and grow into something you will hopefully all find useful, helpful and entertaining to use!

I had never met Derek before, but when I had my first meeting with him, his passion for my page and the work done so far, amazed me. His love for Dumfries and Galloway was equal to mine and he could see what I was trying to achieve. Hopefully together we will form a great team, to help bring D&G to the attention of many people out there, who know very little about this wonderful corner of Scotland!

In January 2013 we launched our first monthly newsletter, reaching nearly 600 folk, now growing monthly as we head towards DGWGO’s 2nd birthday. With over 8000 members on Facebook and 1250 on Twitter, a record weekly-reach of 148,200 people, DGWGO is becoming a really special community.

With the recent launch of dgwgo.com, we hope to make something very special and create a real buzz for this area! We at DGWGO thank you, the members and users of our pages, because without you, none of this would have ever happened.