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.
I wouldn’t be the only person to favour Scotland’s west coast – its beautiful landscape, impressive geology.
After a day exploring outside and around Mallaig, I stopped at Arisaig to catch the sunset and was not disappointed.
First, a couple of obvious scenes at the end of the road, the low warm light skimming lines of rock
A favoured location – can’t beat a day on the west coast of Scotland, the beautiful landscape, impressive geology. After a day exploring, I stopped at Arisaig to catch the sunset and was not disappointed.
This was an easy composition to find, the lines of psammite rock zig-zagging through the vertical frame, all illuminated by the bright warm/orange sunset light from the west.
I flew the drone a little way out over Loch nan Ceall for a more elevated perspective. The light was turning red, catching the rugged hills nearby
The view out west directly toward the setting sun was particularly impressive
A favoured location – can’t beat a day on the west coast of Scotland, the beautiful landscape, impressive geology.
After a day exploring, I stopped at Arisaig to catch the sunset and was not disappointed.
So I flew the drone out over some small islands just off the shore of Loch nan Ceall – the imaginatively named Sgeirean Buidhe (“yellow reefs”) and caught the sunset over Torr Mòr
The 360º panorama is one of my favourite art-forms: for best results, the optimum workflow is:
choose a location directly above some non-uniform structured area – not just directly above the sea but over a reef, so the panorama can stitch properly
think about the contrast-ratio from brightest to darkest areas of the scene; if the sun is visible, use a narrow aperture (f/10 or thereabouts) so the diffraction-spikes cling closer to the sun; choose an exposure such that the brightest part of the scene is just beginning to overexpose – typically you can recover 2/3EV highlights in post but the shadows get noisy fast and with a direct into-the-sun shot the shadow-side can easily require a 3EV shadow-lift
shoot RAW DNGs and ignore the JPEG
use RawTherapee to convert the JPEGs – apply lens distortion correction and a small amount of tonemapping, maybe even the dynamic-range-reduction module
use Hugin to stitch the panorama: optimize for position, barrel distortion and view but not translation; use equirectangular projection and auto-straighten; ensure the FoV is 360×180º (it may be out by 1, ie 179º); use blended+fused output for noise-reduction, unless it introduces stitching edge artifacts
finish, including toning and noise-reduction/sharpening, in darktable.
[sphere url=”http://soc.sty.nu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PANO0001-PANO0026-v2_blended_fused-0-0017-scaled.jpg” title=”Arisaig sunset over Loch nan Ceall”]
Finally, just as I started the return drive, the sky provided yet more drama to see me on my way:
A favoured location – can’t beat a day on the west coast of Scotland, the beautiful landscape, impressive geology.
After a day exploring, I stopped at Arisaig to catch the sunset and was not disappointed – the sky provided these beautiful parting shots of the sunset fading to twilight just as I was driving away.
A favoured location – can’t beat a day on the west coast of Scotland, the beautiful landscape, impressive geology.
After a day exploring, I stopped at Arisaig to catch the sunset and was not disappointed – the sky provided these beautiful parting shots of the sunset fading to twilight just as I was driving away.
A selection of the above photos are available on my gallery website as prints, cards, masks and other products: Arisaig on ShinyPhoto.
On a whim, I spent my August bank holiday out and about exploring a new location: on the far west coast, Mallaig is home to the ferry port connecting to Skye.
Just to the south of the town lies Loch an Nostaire – a lovely shallow loch of clear pure water and indeterminate name etymology: the current spelling is clearly anglicised, although there are no mentions of the more obvious Gaelic Nostaraidh, but rather variations include “Nosaraidh” and “Nossery” according to the 1852 Admiralty Charts. One option is for the name to date back to Old Norse naust, a ship; an alternative derivation might be via Gaelic nòsar, juicy, sappy, white. This would be cognate with nòs, cow’s milk, which sits well with one of the tributary burns being called the Allt a’ Bhainne.
The Mallaig Circular walk leads from Glasnacardoch just off the Rathad nan Eilean inland to the loch, then up between the hills Creag a’Chait and Cruach Mhalaig before descending to Mallaig.
The view down the loch, especially from higher up, is beautiful: to the east the hills of Cruach Clachach and Cruach Bhuidhe are quartzite outcrops forming a backdrop behind an unnamed island on the loch covered with native Scots Pine trees; along the opposite side of the loch runs a prominent ridge where Morar schist pelite changes to psammite.
Classic landscape: small rocky boulders in the foreground, an expanse of grass, and the loch and hills beyond under a clear blue sky.
A view down the length of the loch to thet south, small rocky hills with clusters of Scots Pine and other native trees.
An impressively clear prominent ridge running along the west of the loch: to the west, the Morar Schists Formation – Micaceous Psammite And Semipelite; in the plain of the loch, Lower Morar Psammite Formation – Psammite. Metamorphic Bedrock formed approximately 541 to 1000 million years ago and covered with a layer of peat.
As landscape goes, the Mallaig Circular route is beautiful even on a sunny day. It has a little bit of everything – some isolated native Scots Pine trees (could use more!), clear water in Loch an Nostarie, and stunning geology – a quartzite-topped mountain to the south-east and prominent ridge where the bedrock changes from pelite to psammite along the west edge of the loch.
An idyllic setting: a clump of Scots Pine trees on an isolated and sadly unnamed island in the loch
A year without a trip to my Nice Place™ just wouldn’t be a year. It had to be done – in a moment between lockdown and further covid-19 restrictions, I nipped up to Glen Affric for a few hours.
Some intimate landscape views:
Vibrant colours in the soft light, days shortening at the start of autumn, Glen Affric.
Vibrant colours in the soft light, days shortening at the start of autumn, Glen Affric.
Vibrant colours in the soft light, days shortening at the start of autumn, Glen Affric.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the water levels so low as this in the famous waterfalls on the River Affric
I also flew the drone around a bit. Lovely light, getting a better overview of the extent and distribution of the Caledonian Forest, river, mountains and haze into the distance.
Some of my favourite trees – Scots Pines in the Caledonian Forest reserve at Glen Affric, with Loch Affric and Sgurr na Lapaich in the distance.
Some of my favourite trees – Scots Pines in the Caledonian Forest reserve at Glen Affric, with Loch Affric and Sgurr na Lapaich in the distance.
Some years ago, I had visited the glen in the middle of winter, with temperatures a degree either side of freezing, thawing slightly as the morning progressed. I was struck by a pattern of foam flecks on the water – particularly with a fine layer of ice just millimeters below the surface, over which the foam flowed. It moved so slowly, an abstract pattern messing with my eyes trying to work out how it moved. And I was surprised, because a couple of hundred yards upstream, the river had just travelled over a couple of waterfall cascades – so where did all the energy go? With a little thought, the river changes from wide yet rapid to deep and slower, with a yet deeper central channel in a V-shape.
This time, I flew the drone over the same mouth of the river, looking straight down onto the surface. This perspective makes the patterns of the foam all the more apparent – not just a difference between the central streak flowing faster, but a semi-regular pattern in the pattern against the far bank – indicating submerged boulders.
Foam on the River Affric outflow into Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin
Unlike previous years’ visits, where I gravitate toward early mornings, this time I had arrived late in the afternoon, with just enough time to fit in a stroll before the light faded.
The light faded.
My favourite trees looked really rather pleasant in softer light, part-silhouetted against the sunset:
Beautiful soft and gentle light – my two most-favourite trees standing on a small rise of glacial moraine, silhouetted against a grey-blue sky.
Then, in conventional fashion, night fell. I’d never been up at the Nice Place to watch that happen before, but it was magical. I stood at the famous viewpoint near the memorial, watching the clouds skimming overhead from the north as the moon rose – with Jupiter and Saturn nearby, and noticed a moon-dog aka paraselene – the first time I’ve seen such a thing, an analogue with a sun-dog during the day.
Moon-dog (paraselene), Saturn and Jupiter
Finally, with night thoroughly underway, I made a photo of the well-known view looking along the length of Loch Affric toward the mountains of Kintail in the west – the landscape bathed in moonlight, all cool blue with the barest hints of structure and even less colour in the otherwise reddy bracken.
The mountains of Kintail from Glen Affric by moonlight
Prints, masks, cards and other products based on images above and others, are available from my ShinyPhoto website: Glen Affric.
For the second day of my holiday last Autumn, I got up – again! – at a ludicrously early hour and drove from Tongue round to the Assynt peninsula, to my favourite viewpoint for sunrise.
It was some drive.
All the way from Tongue to Loch Assynt without seeing another car. Bliss.
Take the A838 road (abused as part of the ghastly NC500 coastal route) via Durness at 5am in the pitch black, the wind blowing a gale, rain + windscreen wipers on full speed.
Picture avoiding a herd cows intruding across the road. Avoiding more than 10 deer.
At that surreal pre-caffeinated hour of the morning, seeing a signpost advertising “serving local seafood” makes me picture a restaurant waiter taking a scallop’s order at table. The music of choice was Arcade Fire Mountains beyond Mountains – a song bemoaning city life with its world so small – a mental image contrasting with my surroundings, passing rural Scourie, pop 132 – the sort of place that takes longer to say the name than drive through.
And so I arrived at Rhicarn – the landscape black, clouds a grey plasma, just a little bit windy…
And the sun rose. Quite spectacularly, casting brilliant crepuscular rays from the horizon and underside edges of clouds.
A brilliant display of crepuscular rays, shadows coming from the edge of a cloud as the sun rose beside Canisp.
Beautiful morning light: crepuscular rays streaming from a cloud edge, illuminating the sides of Suilven and Canisp and the Manse Loch in the foreground.
A thick cloud obscured the freshly risen sun – its edges casting crepuscular rays over the hazy landscape.
Autumn at my favoured viewpoint, Rhicarn in Assynt.
A thick cloud obscured the freshly risen sun – its edges casting crepuscular rays over the hazy landscape.
Autumn at my favoured viewpoint, Rhicarn in Assynt.
Loch Uidh a’Chliabhain and the Manse Loch in the foreground; beautiful receding layers of mountains in the middle; a stunning dramatic display of crepuscular rays as a cloud obscured the rising sun in the distance.
Projection: Rectilinear (0)
FOV: 23 x 16
Ev: 11.38
Loch Uidh a’Chliabhain and the Manse Loch in the foreground; beautiful receding layers of mountains in the middle; a stunning dramatic display of crepuscular rays as a cloud obscured the rising sun in the distance.
Projection: Rectilinear (0)
FOV: 23 x 16
Ev: 11.38
Throughout the sunrise, the light was spectacular – brightly illuminating colourful clouds.
Simple abstract patterns: bright early morning sunlight illuminating clouds a warm yellow/orange.
…and casting a subtle hazy glow over the morning fog across Little Assynt, outlines of hills receding into the mist
As the sun rose, the ground heated just enough for the overnight dew to evaporate into a thick fog, filling the landscape enough to obscure the receding lines of hills into nothing but a bright haze beside the sun.
Manse Loch / Loch Uidh a’Chliabhain remains clear, a mile into the foreground.
Iconic Scottish landscape: the Manse Loch and layers of hills and mountains receding into the hazy distance
Perhaps my favourite image from the morning has to be Suilven, the unmistakable mountain on the horizon, catching a subtle patch of oblique sunlight on a flank.
The unmistakable shape of Suilven (Sùilebheinn) catching an oblique beam of warm early morning sunlight.
Once the sun rose, I explored the Falls of Kirkaig outside Inverkirkaig. A nice long walk through lumpy landscape, to a large thundering waterfall.
Undulating landscape; gneiss outcrops amongst the grass and heather beside the path above the River Kirkaig gorge.
An impressive waterfall – 60ft tall and flowing deep and fast into its splash-pool below.
It’s also one of the scariest places I’ve been in a landscape; this view is from a small platform area, a steep descent down the left face of the gorge. With my own dog for company there was limited space even to turn around and plant the tripod and camera bag.
As if the river Kirkaig wasn’t full and fast enough in the bottom of the gorge, walking back along the top the clouds were pretty dramatic, the light behind coming through as crepuscular rays above the silhouetted hills.
Returning to above Rhicarn, clouds had flowed in obscuring the mountains on the horizon, so I experimented flying the drone to admire the surrounding landscape.
There’s something about finding a thin strip of old tarmac that obviously used to be a road – it makes a connection with the story and heritage of a location. From researching on Pastmap, it appears there was not much road here at all throughout the 19th century – presumably a cattle drovers’ track or similar. Then the old tarmac was laid, following a circuitous path around the gneiss rock hills. Finally, some time after the 1960s, a new road, now the B869, was laid through it in a boring straight line, the old route relegated to a carpark yet visible and walkable either side of the road.
I suspect at one stage this might have been nothing more than a cattle drover’s track down to the lowlands, maybe up until the early 1900s; up to 1960 the road was just a thin narrow track of tarmac with a couple of moderately sharp twisty turns in. Since then the B869 has been rerouted into a simple and less inspiring straight line and the old road relegated to a path, some of it widened to form a carpark beside the new.
The bedrock is mostly Scourian gneiss, metamorphic, formed 2500-4000 million years ago (and therefore amongst the oldest rock to be found on the planet); down the centre of this view is a line of Lewisian metagabbro, gneissose, also metamorphic, formed 541-4000 million years ago.
I’m not sure what the large central depression might be – it looks rather like a quarry, although there’s no evidence of anything on the maps.
Behind this scene, on the way to Clachtoll, lies some beautiful Karst landscape (cnoc’n’lochan or knock-and-lochan), formed by underground erosion of softer rock, leading to a classic pattern of rocky knolls interspersed (almost 50-50 by area) with lochs.
The joys of knock-and-lochan Karst landscape: it’s almost all equal parts gneiss rocky outcrops and lochs with roads wending their way through the shapely landscape.
Further along the road lies the Maiden Loch, of which I’ve been very fond since first catching sight of it years ago. That first view was on a sunny afternoon, the sky blue reflecting in the water. I flew the drone over it, to admire the gneiss landscape all the more…
Fantastic scenery: Assynt at its very best. A very windy moment flying the drone above one of my favourite lochs, the Maiden Loch near Clachtoll.
The landscape is typical knock-and-lochan Karst formation: shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, small undulating gneiss hillocks emerge amongst the lochs.
In the hazy distance, Suilven cuts its familiar outline on the far horizon.
Some of the above photos are available on my photo gallery website: ShinyPhoto: Assynt
A year or so ago there had been a drone pilots’ meet-up on the shores of Loch Leven in Kinross. Late Tuesday afternoon showed indications from TPE3D and Windy suggesting the light would be pleasant, clipping the surrounding hills around sunset. Further alerts from Twitter reminded me of a partial lunar eclipse, with optimum effect around 2235hrs; again, checking TPE3D I saw the moon would rise in the ESE beside / over Benarty Hill across Loch Leven.
Arriving a little early, I hunted a composition: the obvious jetties by the carpark at the end of the road have locked gates, as does a track along the shore; walking further round, it’s obvious there’s scenery to be had but the path is surrounded by a 5′ hence making it incredibly frustrating to find a composition. In the end I settled for a “layby” with three concrete plinth benches, just tall enough to see over the hedge and just wide enough for the tripod legs.
With half an hour to kill before the lighting and lunar eclipse kicked-in, I flew the drone to survey the surroundings.
Loch Leven Castle remains and Bishop’s Hill in Fife from Kinross
Kinross House – symmetrical formal gardens, how ghastly.
Around 10pm the moon sneaked out from behind a cloud-bank over Benarty Hill, a perfect orange-red half-jaffa-cake in the Earth’s Shadow.
The last photo of the evening is still my favourite: can’t beat a few hazy clouds diffusing the glow of the still-red moon.
A few photos from Sunday afternoon’s explorations around Loch Rannoch.
We walked through the Black Woods; whilst flying the drone near Camghouran I discovered remains of a building – a pile of stones and hints of mounds in the earth possibly in the shape of a former but’n’ben croft? – in a clearing in the forest.
Walking along the path through the woods, one comes across this clearing just off to the south; quite photogenic from ground level, it becomes even more interesting from 100m up in the air as the beautiful pale tree is apparently stuck on the end of a pile of stome rubble, the remains of some kind of building.
The impressively tall fir trees of Camghouran / Croiscraig from above the Black Woods of Rannoch
Saturday’s involved driving much of the length of the A9 from Perthshire to Inverness and beyond to the Nice Place™, and back down again.
On the return, I broke the journey in two locations I’ve previously admired but never stopped at: one, outside Bunchrew outside Inverness, to admire the clear view along the river estuary to the Kessock Bridge:
Many years ago I made a photo of this bridge spanning the river mouth from the shores much closer in Inverness. Since then the road along the south of the river out of the city has become a favourite drive, with its easy straights, gentle bends and occasional views back to the Kessock Bridge in the distance.
Many years ago I made a photo of this bridge spanning the river mouth from the shores much closer in Inverness. Since then the road along the south of the river out of the city has become a favourite drive, with its easy straights, gentle bends and occasional views back to the Kessock Bridge in the distance.
Odd: I’ve lived around Perthshire for over a decade and driven this stretch of the A9 many many times, but never explored Ruthven Barracks before. I was fortunate enough to arrive just as the moon was rising in the north-east – a lot larger by eye than it appeared in the photos, but it made a good backdrop to the ruined buildings. Otherwise, in the cold late afternoon light, the ground covered in a dusting of snow, it all looked rather bleak…
A view from behind the well-known Ruthven Barracks ruin looking straight up the Inshes along the River Spey to the moon rising in the distance.
Classic use for a drone – fling it up and over a ruin and admire the former Ruthven Barracks innards from on high.
Ruthven Barracks, near Kingussie, Speyside.
For a final subject, just as I was packing up the drone to leave Ruthven Barracks, I noticed a splash of soft light on very low clouds clipping the Cairngorm mountains in the distance. Long lens; click; got it.
No eagles found flying this day – but the distant gorge is on Creag na h’Iolaire in the Cairngorms.
An interesting photo to make – I had been standing beside the road, flying the drone around the adjacent ruins, when I spotted the low cloud and soft light in the distance. On closer inspection, one can just about make out the snow-covered slopes of the adjacent a’Chailleach peeking through the cloud.
No eagles found flying this day – but the distant gorge is on Creag na h’Iolaire in the Cairngorms.
An interesting photo to make – I had been standing beside the road, flying the drone around the adjacent ruins, when I spotted the low cloud and soft light in the distance. On closer inspection, one can just about make out the snow-covered slopes of the adjacent a’Chailleach peeking through the cloud.
We made it up to the Rannoch area mid-afternoon in time to admire the pure calm stillness and misty distant mountain reflections on Loch Rannoch.
Beautiful simplicity: flat calm, mirror reflections on Loch Rannoch.
(Obligatory plug – the above image is now uploaded to my main fine-art / landscape website: Blue Stillness, Loch Rannoch.)
Drone photos also happened – flying around inversion layers over the Black Woods of Rannoch.
Patches of mist above Loch Rannoch near Croiscraig / Camghouran.
..then we went for a stroll underneath all that mist, too.
And the forest was its usual welcoming self, albeit in subdued winter mode:
Black Woods of Rannoch late in the day – hints of mist rising in the distance, colours turned cool.
It’s interesting how this end of the Black Woods is so much more densely planted – even though the Scots Pine is a native species, it’s still not naturally evolved. Indeed the history of the Black Woods includes attempts to log the forest – one can only presume this was an attempt to replant, with native species, but still with some potential degree of profit in mind.
A couple of weeks ago in the middle of December, we were treated to a quick overnight blast of snow. It remains my favourite season for photography, so I staggered up Birnam Hill to fly in the late afternoon light.
Landscapes:
Snow-capped hills either side of the Highland Boundary Fault line – catching the last warm rays of sunset in the distance.
Snow-capped hills either side of the Highland Boundary Fault line – catching the last warm rays of sunset in the distance.
Straight-down abstracts – trees and outlines of the Birnam Burn flowing through the snow:
Wiggly shapes – the Birnam Burn running down past Stare Bridge viewpoint.
Wiggly shapes – the Birnam Burn running down past Stare Bridge viewpoint.
Ground-level tree abstracts:
Detail of tree twigs and filigree – lichen-covered branches silhouetted against the low winter sun.
Detail of tree twigs and filigree – lichen-covered branches silhouetted against the low winter sun.
As an experiment to help learn my way around the Shotcut video editor, I made a short video of the area too:
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 🙂
I’d never really explored much of the Aberdeenshire coastline. On Saturday, however – feeling liberated from EV range anxiety – I discovered Catterline, just south of Fowlsheugh and Dunnottar. Towards the end of a beautiful sunny day, with just enough low golden light on the landscape… I had to fly the drone a bit, too.
The coast enjoys many large rocky outcrops (all conglomerate for a few miles around):
Perhaps my favourite shot is one of the more unusual by my standards: quite a thought-out composition of receding layers of rock, with the cliffs behind casting a huge shadow mid-way up one of the rocks, with Todhead Point lighthouse in the distance – near and far, light and dark, mankind and nature all rolled into one:
Todhead Point Lighthouse from Catterline Bay
Not bad going for the little Fuji camera; having set it to f/16 for depth of field, I’m surprised it chose exposures 1/52s and 1/26s at ISO 1600 and 1/60 at ISO 1000 for its HDR bracketing, but the results are excellent, no noise problems even in the shadows.
To finish, a simple statement of peace: nothing much, just sky above, a gentle disturbance in the sea below; all is calm, all is blue:
I don’t remember much about the hotel in Spittal of Glenshee – I suspect I saw it a few times when passing by up the glen, but that’s about it. I didn’t have recourse or time to visit the area for a few years, during which time it burned down in 2014 – quite a transformation, leaving the land just fenced-off to decay.
Nice setting:
As an aside, a friend and I were recently nattering about the saturation slider and how there’s always a temptation to overdo it. I mentioned that some images seem to “resonate” at multiple spots across the saturation axis – maybe fully saturated like slide film of old, maybe flatter like colour neg film of old, maybe artistically desaturated, maybe full-on black&white. The above image seems to work at 3 degrees.
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.
Situated outside Livingston, the psychiatric hospital at Bangour Village was founded in 1906 as Edinburgh District Asylum – one of the first in Scotland to be modelled on a village. In 1918 it housed up to 3000 patients. During the second World War, patients were transferred temporarily to Hartwoodhill Hospital. Around 1924-1930 it gained a multi-denominational church in the centre of the village.
These days the site consists of several listed buildings, most in increasing states of decay – ideal territory for urban exploration.
