Last Light, Stirling

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Driving up the M90 past Stirling there is a little mound of a hillock at Craigforth, opposite Cambusbarron, which I thought might afford a nice view of the city at dusk.
In practice the mound is owned by a large insurance company with lots of restricted access by road, so I found Scout Head hill a couple of miles down the A811 near Gargunnock.
The snow was nearly a foot deep in parts so it took 1.5hr to walk 3 miles, uphill and down, to say nothing of 1.5hr making photos off the top.

The light was totally awesome. As expected, the hill’s shadow crept across the landscape, chasing the warm sunlight up the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle, leaving Dumyat as the sky turned pink/purple/blue in the Earth’s Shadow.

I made a little timelapse video:

 

Beautiful winter landscape; the shadow moved its way across the landscape, with the last light making its way over the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle before heading up Dumyat

I flew the drone away from the camera location and made an HDR panorama of Stirling from the air:

The last of the warm light – foreground partially cleared forestry in the shadow of Scout Head hill – contrasting with light on Craigforth, the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle with Dumyat in the background.

Walking back down the hill in the cold twilight, the mountains of the Trossachs were glowing with white snow against the cobalt blue sky.

(I loved that light so much, I’ve made it available as a framed print via RedBubble already.)

The Forth is just a wee river this far west, but it still gave rise to a cloud of mist obscuring the view of local farms:

It’s only a wee river at this point, but the Forth gave off a large cloud of mist after dusk, obscuring the local farms.

And finishing up with the mankind-vs-nature theme, the Wallace Monument and orange streetlights of Stirling made a great contrast against the blue sky:

A mixture of lighting: vibrant orange tones of Stirling contrasting with the cobalt blue night sky above.

Above the Highland Boundary Fault

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About 3-4 years ago, I first visited Birnam Hill. Made it around Duncan’s Hill to the south and through the woods… As I walked a path between old and new forestry, I wondered why there was a sharp drop down almost a metre to the level of the new trees.

Over subsequent visits I took a few photos, came back and took geotagged photos, all around the same area, went to the BGS, imported bedrock data via KML into Google Earth, correlated with the photos… After a couple of years I’m confident that the dip in the landscape is evidence of the Highland Boundary Fault – a line that runs all the way from Arran and Comrie to the south-west, through Stare Dam and Rohallion Loch and lodge, up along this dip between the trees and away to the east before heading off north-east to near Stonehaven. From a suitable angle it looks like someone’s taken a bicycle tyre and run it over the landscape, causing an impression relative to the surrounding hills and mountains.

Apart from that, the scene from Stair Bridge Viewpoint is highly photogenic and while I’ve made several photos of the view south and east since, I’ve always wanted to fly a drone along the line of the fault.

A few days ago, the dream came true: a perfect clear dry bright sunny winter’s day, snow lying on the ground, low sun illuminating the ground, all quiet and calm.

A clear winter’s day:

You have to be standing all-but on the HBF to take this:

A selfie, of sorts: straight down landing on Stair Bridge:

I managed a couple of runs from near Rohallion Lodge up toward the A9 with the drone, spliced them together into a fly-by to give an impression of the topology.

And a still photo (I still shoot them! – but mostly HDR panoramas…) looking east from above the cusp of the saddle landform between old and new forests:


To wrap up the afternoon, there was some lovely light on an avenue of beech trees, walking back to the main road:

Bucket-list Item: CHECKED!

Autumn Holiday Day 1: The Nice Place

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There’s no better place to start a holiday than the Nice Place(TM), even if it does involve getting up and on the road at 4am for a 165-mile drive up north.

The sun rose over Loch Beinn a Mheadhoin as I approached:

The Caledonian Forest at Glen Affric was its usual beautiful self – still not cold enough for morning mist in the trees, but brilliant morning sunlight and heavy rain caused a wonderful vibrant double rainbow while I was down by the river.

For a change, I took a long walk a couple of miles along the side of Loch Beinn a Mheadhoin, to be rewarded with a gorgeous view of Sgurr na Lapaich covered in pure white snow, across the water.

Other views from the morning: