Lots of Scots Pine trees around Glen Affric.
Favourite Trees can be seen from near the carpark above the River Walk around the glen – these are the same pines that appear in Heather and Trees.
Gnarly struck me as a pleasant old character, enjoying the morning sun, on the way up the side of Coille na Feithe Buidhe to the memorial.
The trees is Pinus sylvestris are to be found along the south side of Loch Affric, on the path that ultimately brings you out in Kintail near Skye.
Further studies in the shapes of characterful trees, Glen Affric: this time, in black and white.
It’s no secret that Glen Affric is my favourite place on the planet. We’ll come to why, later. Meanwhile, the first in a short series of posts studying the more characterful shapes of trees at the glen.
Helios 58mm f/2 lens wide open but with a pinhole drilled in the lens-cap, giving an effective aperture of about f/30 (almost two stops narrower than the lens’s own aperture scale). This was just slow enough to allow a reasonable hand-held exposure of the sun behind iridescent clouds, although it still took a lot of care to retrieve detail in the highlights.
A continuation of, and the latest in, the “Crail Harbour Rocks” theme – I’ve already posted a comparison of the original study at this location from 2007 against a similar closeup from 2015; here we have a classic intimate-landscape view – optimum golden-hour light at sunset touching the rocks from foreground into the distance.
Three views of the beach at Crail, Fife – a study in the shapes of rocks and stones.
After all that driving to get this, I couldn’t let today pass without posting taster shot from the solar eclipse.
I find it interesting that, for all the posturing online about the need for Baader solar sheets and that ND filters wouldn’t provide enough protection, nature provided clouds as the best kind of filter anyway.
The colour photo was taken with a 20-year-old Centon 500mm f/8 mirror lens and probably an ND8 filter hand-held in front; the black and white image was the kit telephoto 55-210mm lens at the far end.
Both taken from the road beside Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven.
A classic Trossachs view – sunlight on snow-capped mountains (Sron Armailte, Ben Vane and part of Ben Ledi), from the Duke’s Pass.
Where we walked.
The old fellow was the first dog with whom I’d found an understanding. I remember it well – sitting in the back garden in the middle of one’s labours, he came around, sat beside me and basically said “look, it’s TLC behind the flappers, OK?”, and that was the moment of breakthrough. When he departed, I took the photo of Ben Cruachan beyond the trees in his honour; every time I’ve passed that spot since, I remember the ol’ dog – with much fondness.
The series of photos from the Inverawe estate continues with a study of ways to enjoy the landscape. Ben Cruachan (aka the hollow mountain, because it was hollowed-out for the hydro-electric scheme) stands 1126m (3694ft) high. There’s fishing in the lily-pond.
I remember when I first saw a contact of mine on Flickr produce a photo of this scene, quite a few years ago now – and it’s become quite the cliché since.
So, take your pick: wide-angle 16:9 or 5:4 aspect ratio similar to large-format? Black and white or colour (not so often used in longer exposures)?
Me, I liked the light – cool shades of dusk on one side of the concrete break-water, remains of a sunny afternoon on the other.
Three photos of trees, taken on a stroll up Kinnoull Hill in Perth.