THE thing is, it's not even his day job. Shahbaz Majeed is a 35-year-old web development manager at the University of Dundee. He is married with two young daughters and in his spare time he takes photographs.

 

Photographs of Scotland; of the light on the mountains on Skye, of the way the waves batter the walls of Arbroath Harbour, of the spread and span of Scotland's cities as seen from the air. Here it all is – lochs and glens, forests and coast. The best of Scotland caught and framed.

 

For the last decade Majeed has been traipsing all over the country to take pictures of the landscape of his homeland. Now he's turned them into a book, Scotland In Photographs, a compilation of images taken since he picked up a camera in 2006.

 

Ask him about it and his enthusiasm for photography and for the Scottish landscape pours out like water over the Inversnaid Falls (which you can also find on page 75). "People say we get four seasons in one day in Scotland. That's the kind of weather that draws me."

 

Majeed was 25 when he first became interested in photography. "The very first camera I bought was for £300 out of Jessops on the high street in Dundee," he says. "It turns out it was one of the best investments I've ever made."

 

Apart from joining the Dundee Photographic Society and taking a beginner's course there, he's had no formal training in photography. And yet now he gets nominated for international awards and receives commissions for his work from the likes of the V&A, VisitScotland and Microsoft. You can even see one of his photographs on the Clydesdale polymer £5 note celebrating the Forth bridges.

 

"There's an aerial shot in the bottom right-hand corner and that's one of mine," he explains. "I get requests from all over to sign them, which I'm pretty sure is illegal."

 

When he started taking photographs he tried his hand at everything; from street photography to wildlife shots. But it was the landscape that surrounded him that continually caught his eye.

 

"I kept coming back to landscape. I think it was because it was such a challenge. You have to be in the right place at the right time in all sorts of conditions and then capture a fleeting moment that might last a few seconds.

 

"You're waiting for that moment. Luck has something to do it. I've been a hundred times to Glencoe and have any two days been the same? They have not. That's why I keep going back, because it's always changing. It's never the same."

 

It's often far from comfortable too. To get a picture, Majeed might have to drive for hours only for the weather to close in when he gets to his destination.

 

"If it's standing knee-deep in a frozen loch at five in the morning and it's minus-seven you do question your sanity sometimes," he admits. "But when you do get the images … Even though you were cursing and swearing, that image will last a lifetime. They will be unique and you have caught it."

 

These photographs then are a product of patience, luck and an eternal optimism. They are also, it should be said, a statement of belonging.

 

Majeed's parents came to Dundee from Pakistan in the 1970s to work in the city's factories. Majeed is himself a proud Dundonian and a proud Scot. The fact that his image ended up in a Scottish banknote, he and his family take as a symbol of acceptance.

 

"My dad said he never thought he'd see a day where his son has a picture on the currency of our adopted home. That was quite emotional for him.

 

"There are some people who might not consider him Scottish. But we feel this is our home. We've given everything to this place and now to be in history in relation to that country is something I can be extremely proud of.

 

"This is where I'll spend the rest of my life I would think. I absolutely love this place.

 

"And as a photographer this landscape …" For a second the word torrent dries while he reframes his answer. "A lot of people come here from all over the world," he continues. "We have that on our doorstep. We are extremely fortunate."

 

Despite all his photographic success, though, Majeed has no intention of devoting himself full-time to the camera. "Sometimes people hate the one job they've got. I'm lucky – I absolutely love both my jobs."

 

Instead, he spends his days in IT and then returns home at night to see his wife Shazia and his daughters Aena, five, and Aiza, two, only to then rush out again to catch the dawn. Which raises a question. Is your love of photography anything more than an excuse to dodge the childcare, Shahbaz?

 

He laughs at the idea. "I wrote in the book that this is proof that I wasn't just hiding down the road sleeping."

 

His wife Shazia, he says, is extremely understanding. "She sees how much it means to me.

 

"My kids often ask me where I'm away to. I say, 'Oh I'm going to work.' And they say, 'Daddy you've just come home from work.' This book is as much for them as it is for me because I hope when they're older they'll appreciate it. 'Oh, that's what my daddy used to do.'"

 

In short, there's a sense of mission about all this. "Even my kids are hooked into their iPads," he says. "I want them to grow up to appreciate their surroundings. So when they're a little bit older I'll take them with me. I want them growing up to see what is on their doorstep and make use of it rather than be the gaming generation. That has its place but a lot of people don't have this landscape on their doorstep. Take advantage of that. Get to know our home country."

 

Majeed knows it better than most.

 

 

 

Scotland in Photographs is published by Amberley Publishing, £15.99. Shahbaz Majeed will be signing copies in Waterstones Dundee on Saturday, June 10 at 2pm.