Around Comrie

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A few years ago I discovered a pleasant gentle walk route around the Water of Ruchill outside Comrie. Almost entirely flat, it follows a loop from the village centre through scrub woodland (ideal shade on a sunny day!) along the side of the river past fields formerly occupied by a Roman fort, down to Cultybraggan PoW camp and back along the main B-road for a bit before taking a detour along a path from a standing stone over fields into the southern end of Dalginross and back along the streets to where it started.

In the town centre, the White Kirk stands out for its architecture with prominent tower and spire. Formerly the parish church, it is now home to a community centre.

  • Scrub woodland detail: a plethora of small gnarly trees amid a sea of wild garlic. Taken on a stroll around the Water of Ruchill walking route.
  • Taken on a stroll around the Water of Ruchill walking route.
  • One of a handful of standing stones in the West Cowden farm area, hinting at possibly being a stone circle, the cup-marked “Roman Stone” sits beside the B827 south of Comrie.
  • One of a handful of standing stones in the West Cowden farm area, hinting at possibly being a stone circle, the cup-marked “Roman Stone” sits beside the B827 south of Comrie.
  • A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.
  • A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.
  • A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.

Finally, a drone overview of the whole town – to the north, Dalginross, Comrie, Melville’s Monument and Glen Lednock; to the south, the Highland Boundary Fault runs from Glen Artney in the west right along the field across the road from Cultybraggan through Cowden Loch, Mill of Fortune and Newburgh Wood.

A map of the area, courtesy of the BGS Geoindex:

Noctilucent Clouds 2021-06-05

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Noctilucent (“night-shining”) clouds are the highest in the atmosphere, at around 76-85km altitude. They only appear in the summer months at latitudes from 50-70º (north or south), when the sun is more than 6º below the horizon. Formed in the mesosphere at very cold temperatures from ice, dust and water vapour, their gossamer threads undulate and shimmer in shades of electric blue.

There was a particularly decent display on Friday/Saturday morning – I nipped out and spent a happy hour making the video:

Timelapse: Sony a7r3, Sigma 14-24mm lens, SkyWatcher StarAdventurer tracking mount for rotation

Stills: Fuji X-T4, 16-80 f/4 lens

A selection of the images are available as prints, masks, cards and other products (even socks and jigsaw puzzles!) from my main website: ShinyPhoto: Noctilucent Clouds

Summer Evenings

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Two photos from a stroll down the road on a warm summer evening

  • Lovely dark ominous clouds, throwing the bright golden sunlight on crop fields into sharp relief.
  • A small flock of crows takes off into the sunlight.

Prints of The Leader are available from my photography website, ShinyPhoto.

Lady Mary’s Walk, Crieff

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A few photos from an afternoon stroll around Lady Mary’s Walk outside Crieff, and up Laggan Hill.

River-bank shenanigins:

  • Views from the riverbank: washed-up plant matter dangling as light reflects across the water.
  • I’m pretty sure this is evidence of beavers on the River Earn – tree bark removed up to about 2.5′ above the ground with a fine repetitive chisel marking pattern remaining.
  • Sparseness: a few bright red berries remaining on bare twigs
  • I’m pretty sure this is evidence of beavers on the River Earn – tree bark removed up to about 2.5′ above the ground with a fine repetitive chisel marking pattern remaining.

Along an avenue of Beech trees

  • Details that catch one’s eye even in a well-known location: the avenue of beech trees along Lady Mary’s Walk outside Crieff
  • A well-known scene: the avenue of beech trees along Lady Mary’s Walk outside Crieff
  • A well-known scene: the avenue of beech trees along Lady Mary’s Walk outside Crieff
  • A simple silhouette: almost-bare beech tree branches and twigs, a filigree against the sky beyond.

And a favourite tree – always think it looks italicised, leaning at that angle.

One of my favourite trees up Laggan Hill – there’s something aesthetically pleasing about the way this old tree leans –

A Bit Damp

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Another Friday evening, another great way to end the week with a camera in hand. As I finished up work, wondering whether to mow the lawn, I looked out the window and saw awesome clouds zipping past.

Grab camera, grab Dog, go walkies and shoot whatever happens. There was rain. There was sun.

And after the rain, the sun illuminating the gently undulating crop fields contrasted amazingly with the remaining ominous clouds beyond.

Simple undulating rural countryside – with dramatic clouds above.

Exploring Strathearn

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I spent a happy evening exploring the Quoig area in Strathearn – the floodplain of the river Earn between Comrie and Crieff, south of the A85. Disused railway line, Sir David Baird’s monument and a luscious sunset. Can’t complain 🙂

 

Twilight

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Some more tests of the Fuji X-T20 in low light conditions.

Summer has the worst daytime light for photography with harsh shadows and washed-out pale tones; however I love the night sky with its permanent twilight (at this latitude) giving cobalt blue sky with hints of the sun’s warmth just below the horizon.

Plus it’s more comfortable than winter astrophotography 😉

Three studies in cloud structure – nature’s abstract patterns and a tiny blob of light of a hamlet across Strathearn:

Continuing the anthropocene-influence theme, glorious blue, red and pale clouds in an orange-tinged sky against a tiny pylon breaking the horizon:

The Pylon

The Pylon

 

 

Devoid

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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. 

My Strathearn

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I’m very fond of the views along the length of Strathearn – from the Knock at Crieff or above Monzie joinery on the A822 road looking west, the view to overlapping hills in the distance is deeply pleasant.

This is an unashamed dump of a load of photos made over the course of two strolls up and down Torlum Hill outside Crieff – the first mid-afternoon with a variable-ND / polariser filter, the second immediately afterwards with a regular 2-stop circular polariser instead. The same technique has been applied to all  – auto whitebalance and handheld HDR with a 1EV bracket either way. All are presented here in chronological order to compare the difference the light and a proper filter make in the landscape.

On the way back home after strolling up and down the hill, I saw a colourful Earth’s Shadow (aka Belt of Venus) developing, just as I happened to be passing one of my favoured characterful trees outside Muthill.

Along the Oak Walk

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One of my favourite walks around the local area is the Oak Walk – running along the edge of a large field, it gets beautiful evening sunlight and has some characterful trees

One or two local folk have populated it with wooden sculptures, for amusement factor

And the surrounding paths are well populated with wild raspberries, brambles and even willowherb/fireherb looking pretty in the light.

A Day In Clouds

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That was 2017-06-20, that was. A beautiful blue sky with white fluffy wispy cirrus cloud catching the setting sun…

…followed by a noctilucent cloud display around 1am:

NLCs are the highest-flying clouds, occurring at altitudes up to 80km where the next highest type (cumulonimbus) only reaches 12km and most are lower still. Most typically they resemble a fine silver filigree of ice-cold pale blue, although more complex forms have been seen. First maybe-seen in 1885, they only really came to prominence since the 1980s, as a canary for changes in the upper atmosphere linked to climate change.

As I stood and watched the display, a patch of silver mist formed over Strathearn and made its way west along the A85 toward Crieff, so I made a little timelapse video – 17 minutes’ data compressed into 1:

Noctilucent Clouds (NLCs) 2017-06-15

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It’s just a week off being the longest day, and it seems never to really get dark at night around here at the moment. Still. While that precludes shooting the aurora, instead it’s noctilucent cloud (NLC) season – just started in the past couple of days so I was very pleased to capture these last night / this morning around 1am.

Apart from being a canary for global warming, NLCs are a beautiful phenomenon, glowing cold bluey-white typically filament threads lighting up the sky. Or, if you leave the camera thinking for 2 minutes they blur nicely with the more mundane clouds:

Noctilucent Clouds, around 1am – Crieff across Strathearn from Auchterarder
A total 2 minutes of exposure to see what the NLCs and ordinary clouds would get up to over that kind of timescale.

And I made a short timelapse – 6 minutes compressed into an 11-second video: