A handful of photos from walking the dog one afternoon – stark trees, mist, low clouds, distant hills: Perthshire landscape at its autumnal moodiest.
Author Archives: spodzone
Caithness Holiday Day 5: Badbea Clearance Village
An unusual choice of place to visit on the last day of one’s holidays, but an important monument to Highland/Caithness history nonetheless, and one ideally suited to a bleak cold foggy day, too.
Forced off the land as part of the Highland Clearances, people from the surrounding areas (Ousdale, Auchencraig) sought refuge at Badbea. Not the most hospitable area to try and make home, situated right on perilous cliff-tops in a location so windy the cattle and even children had to be tied down to stop them being blown away.
The bleakness certainly suits black and white.
Caithness Holiday Day 4: Duncansby Head and Stacks
Ignoring the previous post about offensive misuse of woodland, my fourth day of the holiday started out pretty well, with a trip to John o’Groats – awful tourist-trap of a place but at least they’ve renovated the hotel since I was last there and the ice-cream (2 scoops) was excellent.
The famous hotel at John o’Groats. I’m pleased to see it’s had a much-needed renovation since I was last there. A total tourist-dump, but at least one of the shops offers rather good icecream on a sunny day. 
The famous hotel at John o’Groats. I’m pleased to see it’s had a much-needed renovation since I was last there. A total tourist-dump, but at least one of the shops offers rather good icecream on a sunny day. 
A ferry waiting in the harbour at John o’Groats 
A ferry waiting in the harbour at John o’Groats
The sea stacks themselves are pretty awesome to behold, middle red sandstone showing evidence of having formerly been attached to the land but eroded away by the sea.
We proceeded to Duncansby Head – ignoring the lighthouse, walking down the coastline to the sea stacks. On the way, a large group – maybe 60 folks – were crowding some of the cliff-tops looking south, watching a small pod of Orcas swimming off distant headlands. Unfortunately the one kind of lens I didn’t have with me then was a long zoom – but the shouts of joy when one of the orcas blew or jumped were incredible.
The far north-east corner of Scotland – subtle haze looking south into the light through the mist. As I shot this from a well-known viewpoint, there was a crowd of approximately 60 humans around, all watching a herd of orcas swimming off the far headland. 
The far north-east corner of Scotland – subtle haze looking south into the light through the mist. As I shot this from a well-known viewpoint, there was a crowd of approximately 60 humans around, all watching a herd of orcas swimming off the far headland. 
Coastline around the far north-east corner of Scotland: 
Coastline around the far north-east corner of Scotland: 
A better angle on the stacks – with the sun bright due south at noon, I walked further down the coast beyond them and looked back up north instead. 
A better angle on the stacks – with the sun bright due south at noon, I walked further down the coast beyond them and looked back up north instead.
On the way back, a disturbance in the water just away from the cliffs caught my eye: a peculiar kind of standing wave with the shape staying more or less constant. Obviously a conflict of two tides, one running along the north coast between the mainland and Orkney, the other flowing up the North Sea; on checking wikipedia later, that corner of the Pentland Firth is known for two tidal races, the “Duncansby Race” and the “Boars of Duncansby”.
Craig Varr: Misty Landscape
Saturday was one of those strange days where the weather forecast changed, leaving me not particularly inspired where to go take the camera. But I carried on regardless up to Kinloch Rannoch and climbed Craig Varr. The views on the way up were pleasant: nice trees silhouetted against the sky, views along Loch Rannoch; as I reached the top of the crag, however, the mist came down reducing visibility to barely 100yd with low cloud flowing over the trees in front.
Descending, below the cloud level, I could see clouds zipping along above Loch Rannoch like a steam-train, the mountains opposite appearing and receding in the mist.
Sparse trees on Creag an Fhithirich, better known as the Sleeping Giant: a beautiful lumpy shapely crag in the foreground before Meall Dearg across the valley from Craig Varr. 
Simple things: abstract shapes of tree branches and twigs forming a fine filigree silhouetted against the sky beyond. 
Some of my favourite landscape elements: a contrasty plasma-cloud sky and overlaping layers of mountains receding into the distance, the other side of the Black Woods of Rannoch. 
Shape and solitude: a much-windswept lone tree battling the elements at the top of Craig Varr. 
Shape and solitude: a much-windswept lone tree battling the elements at the top of Craig Varr. 
On previous visits to the location I’ve tried to replicate another photographer’s work, getting the Sleeping Giant a mile away across the river in the corner of the photo; this time, however, thick mist at the top of the crag put paid to that idea, completely eliminating anything in the distance with a visibility of about 50yd. 
On previous visits to the location I’ve tried to replicate another photographer’s work, getting the Sleeping Giant a mile away across the river in the corner of the photo; this time, however, thick mist at the top of the crag put paid to that idea, completely eliminating anything in the distance with a visibility of about 50yd. 
An energetic climb up Craig Varr outside Kinloch Rannoch as the mist flowed over the mountains, followed by a quick descent to return to civilisation. This was taken from the way back down, as I paused to admire the clouds flowing fast along Loch Rannoch like steam trains. 
An energetic climb up Craig Varr outside Kinloch Rannoch as the mist flowed over the mountains, followed by a quick descent to return to civilisation. This was taken from the way back down, as I paused to admire the clouds flowing fast along Loch Rannoch like steam trains.
Caithness Holiday Day 4: when a forest is not a wood
Sometimes I have to tell it like it is. Dunnet Forest is one of the least pleasant collections of trees I’ve ever had the displeasure of walking through. From start to finish, a total misuse of the land.
Within 50yd of the carpark are multiple signs warning owners to pick up after their dogs and to use the bin, even with the emotional manipulation that excrement left around could blind a child.
The woodland itself is awful – monoculture spruce with barren lack of undergrowth.
The only burn I saw was a stretch of ~70yd of stagnant scum-covered sludge, vibrant orange with industrial pollution.
There is a reek of unjust hypocrisy about the whole affair: one cannot help but think, even if there is some credibility in the idea of a small kid putting something off the forest floor in their eye, by surface area and decay-rate alone, they would be far more likely to encounter danger in the polluted stream than from anything left behind by a dog – which would, if anything, go some way to re-fertilizing the abused ground beneath the trees.
Toward the end of the ill-defined loop route are several sculptures carved out of the remains of some of the tree trunks. You’ll have had yer entertainment then – but not your walk in nature.
I could not escape fast enough.
Caithness Holiday Day 3: Strathnaver and Strathmore are not Caithness
As the weather dictated, a slight detour from the east coast away out to the centre and west of the top of Scotland. I explored the road down Strathnaver, starting with a small church at Syre (a distinctive tin-tab construction originally built by the Free Church of Scotland as a mission to nearby Sutherland estate, but now joined to the Church of Scotland since 1929):
Having been there last autumn, the view from the head of Loch Naver was just as compelling (and just as windy)
A wide-angle panorama from the head of Loch Naver
A few hundred yards north of Altnaharra a small road leads off through Strathmore, passing some beautiful landscape scenes of Ben Loyal across Loch Meadie:
Further along, I discovered a beautiful but thought-provoking view: at Allnabad, a former shepherd’s house, now ruined and roofless, looks out over a barren landscape over the length of Strath Coir an Easaidh to beautiful undulating mountains beyond. Unusually for me, I made quite significant changes to the scene – the real lighting was strongly blue-green (a very Fuji summer landscape colour palette) but it works better with hints of relative colour beneath a pale sepia wash for a classic old-time look. (I’ve also slightly moved the small pile of stones relative to the building.) The resultant photo is called “The Story”, partly as a homage to the Runrig song of the same name, partly because of the sense of time – evolution of the land on geological and sociological timescales.
Continuing north up Strathmore, I found the remains of the broch at Dun Dornaigil – conveniently built beside the road 😉 – on a lovely sunny day, just had to fly the drone up where a location a bit downstream made an excellent composition of river leading to the broch and Ben Hope in the distance.
From there we drove up to the far north coast and followed the A836 east, keeping an eye on the landscape to the south. Ben Loyal makes an unmistakable outline with its four peaks; somewhere nearer to Tongue there was a convenient layby giving a comparatively clear view across to the mountain.
Caithness Holiday Day 2: Whaligoe Steps and Camster Cairns
Many moons ago… the parents and I were on holiday around Caithness and having trouble finding the way to Whaligoe Steps. As his tractor turned by the end of the field, we stopped a farmer to ask directions. To southern ears, the instructions sounded memorably like “turn right at the fussky-osk”. With a little thought we established the meaning… and twenty-two years later I still remember the turn of phrase and was pleased to identify the first phone-box in this Spring’s return visit.
Whaligoe Steps themselves are 365 steps down the side of a steep cliff to a former port for offloading herring boats; women would gut the fish and carry it up in barrels.
The place itself is quite an impressive geo with a fault nearby in the rock – strata lines pushed up by thrust – and pleasant views out to sea.
Further down the road are Camster Cairns – quite impressively large piles of rocks with interior chambers, perhaps the oldest buildings in Scotland at 5000yr old.
It had been another ludicrously hot day, with temperatures up over 25-28ºC, so we finished the day’s explorations on the north coast at the Slates of Fulligoe in East Mey, where the setting sun was partially obscured by a thick sea haar – very pleasantly cool.
This was the second evening I’d set out to make a timelapse of the sunset into dusk. At least this time I was prepared for haar coming in off the sea (chose a safer less-cliff-top location near the path back, for starters). It did not disappoint: over the course of an hour the sun moved, the waves came and went, and a huge bank of fog moved in transforming the scene from brilliant sunset reflecting on the water, to complete white-out. All the possible moods of the landscape in barely an hour – quite awesome.
This photo is a temporal flattening of a timelapse sequence – using the intervalometer to shoot HDR brackets 3*±1EV at regular intervals which can be made either into a timelapse video or averaged-out into a still, like this. (The sun itself is blended from fewer images to avoid motion blur.)
Autumn at the Hermitage
I spent a happy several hours wandering around The Hermitage by Dunkeld over the weekend, taking in very much the end of nature’s autumn displays – tree foliage fallen and fading, the light dull overcast all afternoon (and mostly raining, at that).
First, a few conventional scenes beside the River Braan and the Black Linn waterfalls from the bridge, as one does:
From there I explored a new direction away from the river, up through the Craigvinean woods to the Pine Cone viewpoint. The weather descended – from bright sunshine strolling through the colourful larches, it turned completely dreich grey and mist arose from the trees reducing visibility to barely 50yd. Quite spooky 🙂
On the way back, a particular beech tree caught my attention; with a bit of work, the 18mm prime revealed a particularly strong composition, illustrating the tree’s curving trunk. An unusual use for focus-stacking, too: it was so dark when I started the sequence, the camera was at 30s, ISO 400 even at f/2.0; by the time I finished 8 minutes layer, it was completely pitch black night.
The Annoyance of Greenpeace
These trees are no longer standing either
For a couple of years now, I have followed Greenpeace UK on Facebook. From what I can see, their environmentally friendly missions and aims are generally laudable.
But I am having a big problem with their methods. Here are three topics about which they have posted from the last year:
There’ll soon be more plastic in the sea than fish
What I approve of: the implicit attempt to reduce plastic pollution – not even just because it works its way back up the foodchain, but because no animal should suffer anywhere
What I disapprove of: the sensationalist attention-grabbing and meaningless headline – do they mean: by count; by mass; by volume?
Tell Volkswagen to stop making diesel cars now!
What I approve of: the move toward sustainable, ie electric, transport. I even had an electric car earlier in the year, and am just waiting on one that goes somewhere other than 20mi to Stirling.
What I disapprove of: the sensationalist attention-grabbling headline; the complete failure to mention that VW have had electric cars available for years (eGolf; various GTE hybrids), having increased the number of models around the group (Audi e-tron, etc) and are committed to producing increasing numbers in the next few years (the forthcoming I.D. range, some of which are quite interesting).
“From chocolate to toothpaste, these everyday products could contain #DirtyPalmOil. Time to tell companies to stop forest destruction”
What I approve of: preserving forestry, especially native tree species
What I disapprove of: the attention-grabbing headline; the complete failure to mention that Colgate-Palmolive (the “toothpaste” company indicted in the above) do not list palm oil in their ingredients and already have policies in place for “no deforestation” and specifically for sustainable behaviour regarding palm oil including along their supply chain.
A person blindly following their calls to action would at best have wasted their time on either writing some kind of letter or, even less fruitfully, a “petition”; at worst when the company refutes the argument, they’d rightly feel like a fool.
It seems the Greenpeace Method is to selectively ignore half the facts and present a logically fallacious appeal to emotion.
That’s a dishonesty I cannot support, so I’m out.
Autumn in Glen Lyon
A few photos from a trip to Glen Lyon in autumn. An ideal route for an afternoon walk-with-Dog took in 3 distinct kinds of woodland: artificial monoculture (spruce etc, clear barren ground) (fortunately being felled with a view to replacement with native trees), some birch and oak, and (another artificial) an avenue of beech trees.
Anthropocene influence:
Very natural native flora basking in the golden light:
An avenue of beech trees looking quite spooky
Caithness Holiday 1
I had a few days’ holiday at the end of May.
The first day started in Perthshire and finished on the far north coast of Scotland – almost as far north as one can be – at St John’s Point, Caithness, looking north to Stroma and Orkney (disappearing as the distance haze turned to haar) and west to the setting sun.
Autumn Years: Abandoned A93 Road, Craighall Gorge
On a recent excursion elsewhere, a friend tipped me off to the existence of the gorge at Craighall, through which runs the remains of the abandoned A93 road from Blairgowrie to Glenshee.
It’s funny to think that the bridge was constructed in 1994 and the road decommissioned in 2008, both of which are well within my lifetime – and given how I visited Glenshee several times in my early years having just moved up to Perth in 2004/5, it’s entirely possible I might have used the old road unawares.
These days it’s little more than a 40-minute saunter for dog walkers – almost like wandering through a woodland but with crash-barriers beside and the occasional painted stripe of a white line former road marking peeking through the inch-deep mud and moss.
With the leaves turning gold in autumn, it’s a post-urban delight in its own way.
Inverary: A Tale of Three Techniques
In August I called in on an old friend in Inverary for a small guided tour around the local forests with camera in hand.
There was one particular photo I had in mind – ever since I first saw an old ruined barn with disused farm machinery, it was crying-out for the bokeh-panorama (aka Brenizer) technique – instead of one straight shot composed with the final focal-length in mind, one uses a longer lens (preferably a fast prime) and stitches the results into a panorama, to give an image with narrower DoF than was possible at the focal length in question.
Here’s the straight scene, taken on the Fuji X-H1 on the 16-50mm f/2.8 at 18mm – even wide open there’s no significant blurring in the background.
So here’s the stitched result, taken using a Helios 56mm f/2 wide open – drastic focus drop-off:
It took 100 frames at source – 2.4Gpx – but the result would be the equivalent of an 18mm lens at f/0.6.
The second technique was keystone/perspective adjustment. On seeing a stone waterworks in the woods, my friend challenged me to get a view of it straight-on without using the drone. That’s simple enough – even though it’s several feet above head-height.
The third technique was simple long exposure: night had long fallen before I left the town but the clouds moving across Loch Fyne/Shira looked pleasantly ominous. Keeping base ISO, f/6.4 gave a 7s base exposure – with HDR 5*±2/3EV this became 7+18+30+27+10 = 92s combined total, retaining exposure from brightest point of clouds into shadowy areas in the mountainsides. (Contrast is not just a daytime problem!)
Several long exposures blended together into an HDR image of clouds and smooth water, Loch Shira from Inverary.
Abstract Cloudy Skies
Simple pleasures. Two photos of clouds catching the evening sunset light.
Another day… another sunset
“Slight chance of convective weather” is rapidly becoming my new favourite weather alert, especially coming at the end of the day where it signals turbulent blends of low sun, rain and thick clouds.
It doesn’t get much better than last night, either. With sunset happening just after dinner… perfect 🙂
And my favoured view of the receding hills into Strathearn was looking particularly lovely in orange-pink tones too:
Sunset and showers – beautiful warm pink light despite the rain pouring down.