Smirisary

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Can’t beat Scotland’s West Coast in summer. Saturday was spent exploring a new place to me, Smirisary in Glenuig, Lochaber.

A beach of large psammite outcrops with lyprophyre dykes

  • Cracks and sedimentary strata lines in an exposed lump of psammite, Smirisary.
  • Erosion in action: an exposed lump of psammite (metamorphosed former sandstone) showing lines of strata and cracks, with gentle folding, yet surrounded by stones and boulders where the sea has eroded it away.
  • Cracks and sedimentary strata lines in an exposed lump of psammite, Smirisary.
  • A perfect subject for an abstract art: dense close strata layers of psammite (mid/coarse-grained metamorphosed sandstone) tightly packed.

Signs of habitation – old (but possibly still in use) croft/houses just above the shore in amongst the caves

  • Signs of settlements – Smirisary forms a small cluster of houses down around the shoreline, nestling amongst the rocks.
  • Evidence of former habitation. Just because the west coast has its culture and traditions does not mean we should refrain calling out an example of litter for what it is in the context of environmental pollution. Discarded metal bath-tub and other crap in a cave-mouth, Smirisary.
  • A beautiful beach – ideal for a paddle in the shallow seas with Dog – surrounded by rocky cliffs.

Beautiful landscapes – wide vistas via light on the sea out to the islands of Eigg and Rùm on the horizon

  • Sunlight playing on ferns in the foreground, looking out to the islands of Much, Eigg and Rum with their distinctive mountain outlines on the horizon.
  • Sky meets sea in an atmospheric haze of glowing light. Very ethereal.
  • Dramatic light: crepuscular rays emanating from dark clouds over the islands of Eigg and Rum across the water.
  • A variety of types of cloud billowing gently over the distinctive outlines of Eigg and Rum on the horizon.

And on the way back home we called in at Loch Eilt by the roadside – partly to wash the salt water out of the dog, but also to admire the symmetrical reflections. The midges were out in force, pesky and biting as ever, but the photos were worth it…

  • Pure green: Scots Pine trees on an island across Loch Eilt. Pleasant clear and pure water. Shame about the hordes of midges – some flying so close to the lens I could see them larger than life on the live-view screen. A combination of long exposures sufficed to remove them, however – this is a combination of HDR (5*±0.7EV) and pixel-shift (4*1px offset) for optimal dynamic range and resolution.
  • Scots Pine trees on an island across Loch Eilt.Pleasant clear and pure water. Shame about the hordes of midges – some flying so close to the lens I could see them larger than life on the live-view screen. A combination of long exposures sufficed to remove them, however – this is a combination of HDR (5*±0.7EV) and pixel-shift (4*1px offset) for optimal dynamic range and resolution.

Lady Mary’s Walk, Crieff

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Only catching up on photos taken at the end of April…

Lady Mary’s Walk runs West from Crieff along the side of the River Earn, mostly on the flat until one reaches the foot of Laggan Hill after a mile or so, where it forms a circular route back to MacRosty Park.

At the end of April I went for a stroll to hunt bluebells.

The path was particularly pleasant – quiet, leading on through the woods.

 
 
 

As an aside, I’m sure there never used to be such a profusion of wild garlic on these Perthshire woodland nature trails 10 years ago – I only first encountered the stuff whilst out in Galloway.

I was a bit early for optimum bluebell season, but did find a few areas of good blue ground coverage:

And at the western extremity of the route there is a ruined house – it could be quite eerie given the right lighting.

Wet Reflections

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Just a couple of photos from a stroll beside a burn down the bottom end of town today at lunchtime – not great light, in fact it was beginning to rain. But if looking up doesn’t work, look down and take abstract photos of trees reflected in the burn instead…

Cultybraggan Camp

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Another set from a photo-excursion in May this year, directly contrasting with the pleasure of nature’s bluebells earlier in the day.

Cultybraggan is situated just outside village of Comrie. It was first used as a prisoner of war (PoW) camp during World War II and then became an Army training area before housing a Royal Observer Corps nuclear monitoring post and a Regional Government Headquarters. The camp ceased to be used by the military in 2004 and is now owned by the Comrie Development Trust.

The camp is also right on the line of the Highland Boundary Fault, running from Glen Artney straight through the camp and up through Dalginross and along the A85 through Strathearn.

Unusually for me, I’m trying a little artistic experiment – overlaying the same texture of trees (taken much more recently in Glen Lyon) over images, to see what can be made of it.

Bluebells

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It’s been a slightly busy year; so busy I’m still catching up with photos made in April / May time. Much longer and it’ll suit next year instead!

Around the middle of May a group of friends and I went for a photo-stroll from Crieff out along Lady Mary’s Walk, in search of bluebells. We found some. I shot some with an infrared filter, just to see what would happen – it seems to have rendered the colours with a very olde-worlde vintage faded effect.

Around Birnam Hill: Tree Closeups

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A slight reversion to type, here. In previous lives I used to enjoy taking photos of closeup parts of trees, a study in shapes and forms.

Combined with one of my new favourite walk routes, up Birnam Hill near Dunkeld, and we have a lot of larch buds…

Testing the new mobile camera – this one shoots RAW DNG files, processed here in Darktable.

Portknockie (2/3): colourful rocks

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The coast at Portknockie features an intermingling of Cullen quartzite (dating from Lower Dalradian times, 650 million years ago during which time they’ve transformed from sedimentary sandstone through partial volcanic metamorphosis) and the usual Highland psammite and semi-pelite.

The colours in these photos are more or less natural; it was totally stunning to be in the shady cave with the daylight behind and beyond, with these huge colourful boulders to play with.

For a sense of scale: the photos featuring a distant patch of light playing on the sandy pebble floor, well that gap is large enough to walk right through. A veritable cathedral of colour.

In the Woods

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It’s been a while since I made photos of closeups in the woods – and for the most part, last time around I avoided contrasty light for the purpose too. Last night, I took a single prime lens (my favourite Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 of old) and one of my favoured strolls over Craigie Hill around the golf course, seeing what there was to be seen under the trees…

Water close-ups

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A small series of closeup studies in flowing water, taken on a stroll around the Falls of Bruar.

I’ve admired the striation lines  in the psammite riverbed below the lower bridge at the Falls many times – yet every visit they’re still fascinating every time.

Bluebells

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A day out, today, with the Focus on Photography Perth meetup group. We parked in the MacRosty park carpark in Crieff and strolled along Lady Mary’s Walk, a dismantled railway line on the north side of the River Earn to the Trowan woods.

Many photos were taken. I was feeling a bit experimentalist, so deployed a couple of tricks:

  • Helios 58mm f/2 lens with lens-cap covered in many holes – this gives many superimposed images, a bit like a starburst filter; I thought it would work well with the small-scale textures such as repeating blue and white flowers
  • an infra-red filter – partly for long exposures in daylight (it’s similar to using a 10-stop ND1000 filter) and partly for the effect when shooting foliage with a strong red filter.

Herewith:

Glen Affric: Rockery

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There’s an impressive outcrop of rocks (psammite and semi-pelite, looking rather like limestone) near the waterfalls in the River Affric. Some kindly soul had balanced these pebbles on a boulder on their way past previously.