Continuing the theme of mankind’s interaction with nature: exploring Tillicoultry Quarry by drone for some interesting angles on the rock aggregate – semi-abstract patterns, textures and colours.
As before, I made a 360º panorama above Tillicoultry Quarry too.
Many years ago, as I was buying my first ever house in Perth, I remember the solicitor advocating the Sma’ Glen as a landscape to explore and photograph. He wasn’t wrong, but it’s taken over a decade to really start to explore it properly.
First there’s the natural appreciation of the place – light and landscape.
Taken right above the Highland Boundary Fault line looking north to the Sma’ Glen, Dallick House and plantation on the right and Roman Signal Station just visible as concentric rings in the bracken above a small burn.
Then comes the realization, due to geology, that the incredibly lumpy landscape is actually due to the Highland Boundary Fault running right through it – here, from left to right, along the line of the base of the hills and mountains. Lowlands beneath and behind, Highlands beyond to the north.
The second realization, due to heritage, is that the Romans had a series of “glen-blocker” forts along the Gask Ridge, of which one was situated here, at Fendoch. They even had a Signal Station across the road(!) – more accurately, across the fault line too – to alert the fort to incoming invasion from the north.
These days the fort itself is no great shakes – a few stone walls remaining and some faint outlines of rectangular structures beyond – and the Signal Station is a couple of concentric rings and a hint of more structure in the bracken.
Of course the final realization is thanks to the drone: rather that just the “intimate landscape” features within a few meters of one’s nose, one becomes aware of the landscape on a different scale of multiple miles and the way it’s divided up by roads and habitations (and how those have changed over the millenia).
Roads slicing up the landscape: taken above the Roman Signal Station at the foot of the Sma’ Glen, looking south-east over the Highland Boundary Fault to Fendoch Roman Fort (between the pylons and Stroness hill in the distance) and thence along Glen Almond.
The intended road from Rosal due east was closed for road-works; I took an incredibly long detour all the way to the far north coast of Scotland – next stop the Faroes and Greenland – and stopped at Portskerra to make a couple of long exposure landscapes as the light faded to dusk.
The coastal geology was impressive – alternating areas of gneiss and sandstone with clear strata in the rock.
Portskerra at dusk – a long exposure of waves lapping around rocks on the beach looking north – next stop Greenland…
Dounreay in the distance beyond the next headland
This was a strange place of varying thoughtfulness. Having previously visited Aoineadh Mor and found its handful of ruined crofts more thought-provoking, this was rather the opposite experience: having far more settlements dating back thousands of years including cairns, a souterrain and remains of crofts, with a history of particularly brutal evictions, there’s no real viewpoint from which one can see the extent of the clearing and experience all the time or place at once, so it lacks a certain atmosphere.
One thought, however. The Highland Clearances were mostly for the purposes of replacing crofting (seen as not cost-effective) with sheep farming (supposedly profitable). In practice, it’s a story about commercial failure: the sheep did not prove profitable, rendering the grassland barren; the monoculture spruce woodlands being farmed as the latest cash-crop are also barren, failing to nourish the land; the eviction of folks living a subsistence existence (which increasingly feels the innocent honest approach) was an offence against humanity – and yet the blasted sheep still remain.
The state of the Forestry Commission’s tourist information boards also being cast down on the ground, however, did provoke thought – is that sheer vandalism, an artistic statement about care and decay of property, or super-artistic irony that preservation itself should go the same way of all things?
The landscape did provide a few moments of beautiful contrast, illuminating the foreground trees against the shadowy dark might of Ben Loyal, however:
Ben Loyal from Rosal Clearance village
Of course it is also very much Runrig territory; sitting at the end of Strathnaver, it suffered in the Clearances – I wonder what size of catchment area is required to keep that primary school active.
Thanks to my friends Fox in the Snow Photography over on Facebook for their permission to steal one of “their” favourite trees in Glen Devon as a photo location this past weekend. Less gratitude for the attendant weather, however!
On approach, leaving the car across the road, there was quite a white-out blizzard – snow blowing up the glen, everything shades of grey, low clouds. There’s a whole hillside lurking behind the tree here, not that you’d notice:
First things first, I established it’s an Ash, Fraxinus excelsior. That probably explains some of the funky characterful shapes.
I had a bit of fun exploring the various compositions around the tree. The obvious thing is to get the whole tree in the frame, from sufficiently low on the ground to obscure the road behind, letting the visible grass merge, flowing, into the background.
One idea I’d had was to emphasize the curve of the split trunk by using it to fill the frame, leaving the branches and twigs flying around in the wind during a long exposure, Medusa-style:
Fortunately the spooky mood didn’t last long, as the weather was coming and going in alternating waves of white-out cloud and brilliant sunshine flowing over the tree.
An exercise in uniformity: over the course of three days, I took the camera out for an hour’s walk, using the same settings (28mm f/3.5, auto-ISO, centre-zone auto-focussing) and took snaps – free-form composition, quickly grabbed, around the streets and countryside surrounding Auchterarder and in woodland outside Cambusbarron, Stirling. Every image was processed using the same settings in RawTherapee (with slight changes to exposure) and the same black+white sepia-toning.
From each day I chose the best 19 and averaged them with enfuse, slightly tweaked the contrast. Presented together they give an impression of abstract canvas texture with the merest hints of structure.
One of my favoured locations for a quick hour’s stroll in Argyll is Glen Nant, south of the village of Taynuilt; in particular the Ant Trail which leads you through a small Caledonian forest – not very reserved as many of the trees were felled a couple of centuries ago to fire the furnaces at Bonawe, but it seems folks have repented a bit since then.
Herewith, some more back-to-earth simple landscapes: Ben Cruachan from Glen Nant and a couple of intimate landscape studies.
Just one photo – from Sunday afternoon, flying the drone along Glenshee just down the A93 from the ski centre at the Cairnwell.
Some years ago, Dad and I went up the Cairnwell and as we were at the top, watched a Hercules flying down the glen, below us, banking left at Spittal of Glenshee. Nice to be able to fly the area myself now!
Technicalities: 2 deg Celsius outisde, very low cloud base (easily within the drone’s permitted altitude but best avoided); an HDR panorama of 4 frames ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/400s (varying), processed in dcraw and stitched and finished in Serif Affinity Photo.
The zig-zag harbour wall at St Monan’s is one of those iconic photographic locations where it’s impossible to pitch-up with tripod on top of the wall without being joined by multiple other photographers all seeking to perpetrate much the same cliché photo.
A much-shot photo, the zig-zag harbour wall at St Monan’s, Fife
Being stuck in Fife already, I called in at the village and sent the drone up to explore.
One of the first things I noticed is a tiny sign on one of the harbour wall ladders, warning the walk-way is closed. On aerial inspection, it’s possible to see the extent of damage it’s obviously suffered in the winter weather.
Winter weather erosion: the corner of the zig-zag dead-centre in the frame is obviously damaged
I was also very pleased to take a couple of new shots from the aerial perspective, straight down on the zig-zag – it shows how much the land-locked view compresses perspective. The water showed up a beautiful shade of green in the sunlight – and one can make out interference patterns of the waves and their reflections off the harbour wall:
I also nabbed a couple of views of the village, particular the Auld Kirk to the west and the view back across the harbour to the east.
The first day of the holiday was spent in Glen Affric and working my way up to Rogart; on day 2, the weather looked best to the north-west so I drove over to my favourite Assynt for the day.
Even before I’d got in the car, I saw the first rainbow of many across the glen:
A sign of things to come: before leaving the lodge for the day, a nice rainbow appeared along the glen.
The road was every bit as narrow-veering-nonexistent as I remembered – always makes journeys feel that much longer than the mere count of miles covered – and increasingly the previous night’s snow-fall intruded onto the edges of the tarmac. Good challenging fun.
I only stopped once to make a photo of Ben More Assynt from across the landscape:
The first snow of late autumn covering Beinn Mor Assynt, illuminated in a nice pattern of dappled morning sunlight.
As I passed Inchnadamph heading toward Loch Assynt, the weather turned very mixed – phases of sunshine and hail alternating every couple of minutes – with some fantastic rainbows. It didn’t take long waiting in a layby before another one illuminated Ardvreck Castle – drive around the corner of the loch and walk down the castle and in next to no time, behold another rainbow. You certainly learn to read the signs pretty quickly – as soon as a bow appears, put your jacket hood up as the rain will be along shortly.
I also took a couple of photos of the Inchnadamph Caves, a distinctive rock formation on the Moine Thrust zone, in which bones of Eurasian lynx, Arctic fox, reindeer (dating back 47,000 years), polar bears (the only evidence of their presence in Scotland) and humans (back to 3000BCE) have been found:
Continuing north up the B894 a little way, even in dull cloudy light the surrounding mountains were beautiful, sprinkled with a heavy dusting of snow. I stopped at Loch na Gainmhich and explored around the frozen peat-bog by the roadside a bit:
Sky above
The bulk of Glas Bheinn across
Loch na Gainmhich filling the corrie
Peat bog covered in heather
Frozen puddle
And it wasn’t even winter yet – just the first snows of the season giving a thick dusting coat over the mountains. With the sun hiding behind clouds, the light was a beautiful dull grey.
Turn around and what do you know, but there’s another vibrant double rainbow seemingly making its way over the landscape as well:
I stood beside at the top of the hill beside Loch Gainmhich looking over the undulating landscape to Loch nan Eun, watching the rainbow and its secondary bow evolve.
Having seen photos online of the Wailing Widow waterfall very near to the road, as the Allt Chranaidh leaves Loch na Gainmhich, I spent hiked over to the edge of the loch and, faced with a stiff wind and slippery frozen peat-bog underfoot, decided it wiser to approach the falls from the bottom of the 30m gorge instead. Not the easiest terrain either way – many large boulders, some slipped down from the sides of the gorge, requiring scrambling to cross with tripod and camera gear. From the little carpark barely off the road, there’s just a moderate river running away:
I’ve visited Assynt several times over the years but was quite surprised to discover a “new” waterfall via various online contacts, and one right by the roadside at that.
There is a track to the top from round the corner in the road, but a hike across frozen peat-bog in high wind was not the safest so we approached from the bottom of the gorge instead.
The first sight of the falls is quite starkly atmospheric:
I made it quite close to the splash-down, where it was tricky taking photos for all the spray covering the filter:
In Assynt, you can’t even sit down in the driver’s seat without admiring the landscape – in this case, as the clouds passed overhead a small gap let a little light illuminate the flanks of Quineag, grey rock dusted with snow:
A view from the car window, of all places – just as I was preparing to drive off, this little patch of light on the great snow-covered grey sides of Quineag caught my eye.
From Unapool I drove back along Loch Assynt and out into the Stoer / Clachtoll peninsula, some of my favourite rugged landscape.
The area around the B869 fairly reeks of history. Starting way back, the geology is awesome: gneiss bedrock (two kinds – Lewisian and Scourie group) interspersed with several minor fault-lines and the Scourie dyke swarm (metamicrogabbro).
This makes for a lumpy cnoc and lochan landform characterized by many rock hillocks interspersed with lochs and lochans in between.
Some of my favourite landscape, absolutely typical of the north-west coast of Scotland: Gneiss, in this case from the Scourian group dating anywhere from 2.5 to 4 billion years old; originally igneous but also subject to later metamorphism.
This whole part of the Assynt peninsula, enjoyed by the “loop” road B869, is a large swarm of metamicrogabbro and amphibolite dykes (formed 1.6 to 2.5 billion years ago).
On a sunny day, the blue sky reflects beautifully in the lochs by the roadside; however, this was not to be this time. Behind the above photo, the road continues wending its way around sharp corners and up and over a rise to one of the most awesome viewpoints I know, with five mountains of Assynt spanning the field of view along the horizon. The weather was not the greatest – rather than a clear vista, there were clouds rolling across the landscape from behind, intersecting with mist rising off Suilven.
Spending a couple of hours standing watching the scenery (and occasionally getting rained-on in the process) afforded me time to ponder the road in front. Travelling up the B869 there are a couple of tracks to either side with entrances blocked by boulders. Obviously there used to be an old route – very narrow at barely a car’s width, with a couple of sharp S-bends, tarmac degrading and obscured by heather/bracken/undergrowth – and the new tarmac has been laid in a much straighter line, with the viewpoint carpark repurposing some of the old route. It makes me wonder what the place would have been like one or two centuries ago, how the road might have evolved from a drovers’ track or similar.
Suila Bheinn
I walked along as much of the old road as I could find, conscious of a sense of heritage and change in land usage.
There’s a shrine on an Assynt hillside
Made of earth and salt and rain
Now you walk out in the morning
With your sacrifice of change
– Runrig, Saints of the Soil
Having heard about the beach nearby I left Rhicarn and explored a different road, to Achmelvich.
On the way, the sunset was stunning. A brilliant red-orange ball floating above the horizon, offset against the cold slate-grey clouds and paler blue water of Loch Roe. Even partially obscured by cloud, the colour contrast was awesome – and with a whiff of sea-salt on the breeze, put me in mind of a west-coast single malt whisky…
Driving the last stretch of the road to Achmelvich, the sun set right in front of me, a large orange-red ball above the water. The combination of colours, cold blue slate grey sky and warm yellow-orange heather, coupled with the sea breeze put me in mind of a fine west-coast single malt whisky…
The only real downside of the day was Achmelvich itself. The beach at the end of the road is very pretty, clear pale sand, the water beneath the waves’ foam having a beautiful clear blue-green colour. However, the beach is surrounded by a ghastly caravan park which in itself suffices to detract from the scenery. The place is littered with anti-dog signage – at one point I counted no fewer than 6 signs in visible sight with a picture of a dog saying the animal “doesn’t know better” concerning handling of litter, followed by several “dogs on leads” and “no dogs beyond this point”. I found the attitude quite aggressively hateful and will not certainly not patronize the caravan park because of it.
Still.
The light of the world keeps shining
Bright in the primal glow
Bridging the living dust to dust
Such a long long way to go
– Runrig, Saints of the Soil
Having finished with the southern half of the Stoer/Clachtoll peninsula, I made my way back to Rogart for the night, but passing along Loch Assynt in the dark I had to stop and take a photo of a cluster of Pine trees near the shore. With a sufficient and necessarily long exposure (2 minutes!) to register anything, I like how the trees look almost stuck onto a smooth silver surface.
My fondness for the area – its geology, its weather (however extreme it felt!), its light and its rugged landscape remains unabated.
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.
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!
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:
I spent the morning of Dec 22 – the first day of winter – up Kinnoull Hill. There was beautiful mist rising from the River Tay as it meanders through the Carse of Gowrie.
I experimented with a few new compositions too: semi-abstract views of the hills of north Fife, the motorway/A90 junction and the river north of Perth as well.
My favourite two images were the fairly conventional view from above the cliffs, looking past the folly along the Carse of Gowrie. It’s not that comfortable a location to shoot – to get a clear view of the tower, one has to stand in a gorse bush…