Birnam Hill: Winter

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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:

Caithness Holiday Day 5: Badbea Clearance Village

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An unusual choice of place to visit on the last day of one’s holidays, but an important monument to Highland/Caithness history nonetheless, and one ideally suited to a bleak cold foggy day, too.

Forced off the land as part of the Highland Clearances, people from the surrounding areas (Ousdale, Auchencraig) sought refuge at Badbea. Not the most hospitable area to try and make home, situated right on perilous cliff-tops in a location so windy the cattle and even children had to be tied down to stop them being blown away.

The bleakness certainly suits black and white.

Caithness Holiday Day 4: Duncansby Head and Stacks

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Ignoring the previous post about offensive misuse of woodland, my fourth day of the holiday started out pretty well, with a trip to John o’Groats – awful tourist-trap of a place but at least they’ve renovated the hotel since I was last there and the ice-cream (2 scoops) was excellent. 

  • The famous hotel at John o’Groats. I’m pleased to see it’s had a much-needed renovation since I was last there. A total tourist-dump, but at least one of the shops offers rather good icecream on a sunny day.
  • The famous hotel at John o’Groats. I’m pleased to see it’s had a much-needed renovation since I was last there. A total tourist-dump, but at least one of the shops offers rather good icecream on a sunny day.
  • A ferry waiting in the harbour at John o’Groats
  • A ferry waiting in the harbour at John o’Groats

The sea stacks themselves are pretty awesome to behold, middle red sandstone showing evidence of having formerly been attached to the land but eroded away by the sea.

We proceeded to Duncansby Head – ignoring the lighthouse, walking down the coastline to the sea stacks. On the way, a large group – maybe 60 folks – were crowding some of the cliff-tops looking south, watching a small pod of Orcas swimming off distant headlands. Unfortunately the one kind of lens I didn’t have with me then was a long zoom – but the shouts of joy when one of the orcas blew or jumped were incredible.

  • The far north-east corner of Scotland – subtle haze looking south into the light through the mist. As I shot this from a well-known viewpoint, there was a crowd of approximately 60 humans around, all watching a herd of orcas swimming off the far headland.
  • The far north-east corner of Scotland – subtle haze looking south into the light through the mist. As I shot this from a well-known viewpoint, there was a crowd of approximately 60 humans around, all watching a herd of orcas swimming off the far headland.
  • Coastline around the far north-east corner of Scotland:
  • Coastline around the far north-east corner of Scotland:
  • A better angle on the stacks – with the sun bright due south at noon, I walked further down the coast beyond them and looked back up north instead.
  • A better angle on the stacks – with the sun bright due south at noon, I walked further down the coast beyond them and looked back up north instead.

On the way back, a disturbance in the water just away from the cliffs caught my eye: a peculiar kind of standing wave with the shape staying more or less constant. Obviously a conflict of two tides, one running along the north coast between the mainland and Orkney, the other flowing up the North Sea; on checking wikipedia later, that corner of the Pentland Firth is known for two tidal races, the “Duncansby Race” and the “Boars of Duncansby”. 

Wave interference – a standing wave pattern at the eastern end of the Pentland Firth – a tidal race as the east/west and north/south currents conflict around Duncansby Head. I’m not sure if this is the Duncansby Race or even the Boars of Duncansby, but it caught my eye as I was heading back up the coast.

Craig Varr: Misty Landscape

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Saturday was one of those strange days where the weather forecast changed, leaving me not particularly inspired where to go take the camera. But I carried on regardless up to Kinloch Rannoch and climbed Craig Varr. The views on the way up were pleasant: nice trees silhouetted against the sky, views along Loch Rannoch; as I reached the top of the crag, however, the mist came down reducing visibility to barely 100yd with low cloud flowing over the trees in front. 

Descending, below the cloud level, I could see clouds zipping along above Loch Rannoch like a steam-train, the mountains opposite appearing and receding in the mist.

  • Sparse trees on Creag an Fhithirich, better known as the Sleeping Giant: a beautiful lumpy shapely crag in the foreground before Meall Dearg across the valley from Craig Varr.
  • Simple things: abstract shapes of tree branches and twigs forming a fine filigree silhouetted against the sky beyond.
  • Some of my favourite landscape elements: a contrasty plasma-cloud sky and overlaping layers of mountains receding into the distance, the other side of the Black Woods of Rannoch.
  • Shape and solitude: a much-windswept lone tree battling the elements at the top of Craig Varr.
  • Shape and solitude: a much-windswept lone tree battling the elements at the top of Craig Varr.
  • On previous visits to the location I’ve tried to replicate another photographer’s work, getting the Sleeping Giant a mile away across the river in the corner of the photo; this time, however, thick mist at the top of the crag put paid to that idea, completely eliminating anything in the distance with a visibility of about 50yd.
  • On previous visits to the location I’ve tried to replicate another photographer’s work, getting the Sleeping Giant a mile away across the river in the corner of the photo; this time, however, thick mist at the top of the crag put paid to that idea, completely eliminating anything in the distance with a visibility of about 50yd.
  • An energetic climb up Craig Varr outside Kinloch Rannoch as the mist flowed over the mountains, followed by a quick descent to return to civilisation. This was taken from the way back down, as I paused to admire the clouds flowing fast along Loch Rannoch like steam trains.
  • An energetic climb up Craig Varr outside Kinloch Rannoch as the mist flowed over the mountains, followed by a quick descent to return to civilisation. This was taken from the way back down, as I paused to admire the clouds flowing fast along Loch Rannoch like steam trains.

Caithness Holiday Day 4: when a forest is not a wood

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Sometimes I have to tell it like it is. Dunnet Forest is one of the least pleasant collections of trees I’ve ever had the displeasure of walking through. From start to finish, a total misuse of the land.

Within 50yd of the carpark are multiple signs warning owners to pick up after their dogs and to use the bin, even with the emotional manipulation that excrement left around could blind a child.

The woodland itself is awful – monoculture spruce with barren lack of undergrowth.

The only burn I saw was a stretch of ~70yd of stagnant scum-covered sludge, vibrant orange with industrial pollution.

There is a reek of unjust hypocrisy about the whole affair: one cannot help but think, even if there is some credibility in the idea of a small kid putting something off the forest floor in their eye, by surface area and decay-rate alone, they would be far more likely to encounter danger in the polluted stream than from anything left behind by a dog – which would, if anything, go some way to re-fertilizing the abused ground beneath the trees.

Toward the end of the ill-defined loop route are several sculptures carved out of the remains of some of the tree trunks. You’ll have had yer entertainment then – but not your walk in nature.

I could not escape fast enough.

Caithness Holiday Day 3: Strathnaver and Strathmore are not Caithness

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As the weather dictated, a slight detour from the east coast away out to the centre and west of the top of Scotland. I explored the road down Strathnaver, starting with a small church at Syre (a distinctive tin-tab construction originally built by the Free Church of Scotland as a mission to nearby Sutherland estate, but now joined to the Church of Scotland since 1929):

Having been there last autumn, the view from the head of Loch Naver was just as compelling (and just as windy)

A wide-angle panorama from the head of Loch Naver

A few hundred yards north of Altnaharra a small road leads off through Strathmore, passing some beautiful landscape scenes of Ben Loyal across Loch Meadie:

Further along, I discovered a beautiful but thought-provoking view: at Allnabad, a former shepherd’s house, now ruined and roofless, looks out over a barren landscape over the length of Strath Coir an Easaidh to beautiful undulating mountains beyond. Unusually for me, I made quite significant changes to the scene – the real lighting was strongly blue-green (a very Fuji summer landscape colour palette) but it works better with hints of relative colour beneath a pale sepia wash for a classic old-time look. (I’ve also slightly moved the small pile of stones relative to the building.) The resultant photo is called “The Story”, partly as a homage to the Runrig song of the same name, partly because of the sense of time – evolution of the land on geological and sociological timescales.

Continuing north up Strathmore, I found the remains of the broch at Dun Dornaigil – conveniently built beside the road 😉 – on a lovely sunny day, just had to fly the drone up where a location a bit downstream made an excellent composition of river leading to the broch and Ben Hope in the distance.

From there we drove up to the far north coast and followed the A836 east, keeping an eye on the landscape to the south. Ben Loyal makes an unmistakable outline with its four peaks; somewhere nearer to Tongue there was a convenient layby giving a comparatively clear view across to the mountain.

Caithness Holiday Day 2: Whaligoe Steps and Camster Cairns

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Many moons ago… the parents and I were on holiday around Caithness and having trouble finding the way to Whaligoe Steps. As his tractor turned by the end of the field, we stopped a farmer to ask directions. To southern ears, the instructions sounded memorably like “turn right at the fussky-osk”. With a little thought we established the meaning… and twenty-two years later I still remember the turn of phrase and was pleased to identify the first phone-box in this Spring’s return visit.

Whaligoe Steps themselves are 365 steps down the side of a steep cliff to a former port for offloading herring boats; women would gut the fish and carry it up in barrels.

The place itself is quite an impressive geo with a fault nearby in the rock – strata lines pushed up by thrust – and pleasant views out to sea.

Further down the road are Camster Cairns – quite impressively large piles of rocks with interior chambers, perhaps the oldest buildings in Scotland at 5000yr old.

It had been another ludicrously hot day, with temperatures up over 25-28ºC, so we finished the day’s explorations on the north coast at the Slates of Fulligoe in East Mey, where the setting sun was partially obscured by a thick sea haar – very pleasantly cool.

 

This was the second evening I’d set out to make a timelapse of the sunset into dusk. At least this time I was prepared for haar coming in off the sea (chose a safer less-cliff-top location near the path back, for starters). It did not disappoint: over the course of an hour the sun moved, the waves came and went, and a huge bank of fog moved in transforming the scene from brilliant sunset reflecting on the water, to complete white-out. All the possible moods of the landscape in barely an hour – quite awesome.
This photo is a temporal flattening of a timelapse sequence – using the intervalometer to shoot HDR brackets 3*±1EV at regular intervals which can be made either into a timelapse video or averaged-out into a still, like this. (The sun itself is blended from fewer images to avoid motion blur.)

Caithness Holiday 1

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I had a few days’ holiday at the end of May.

The first day started in Perthshire and finished on the far north coast of Scotland – almost as far north as one can be – at St John’s Point, Caithness, looking north to Stroma and Orkney (disappearing as the distance haze turned to haar) and west to the setting sun.

Autumn Years: Abandoned A93 Road, Craighall Gorge

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On a recent excursion elsewhere, a friend tipped me off to the existence of the gorge at Craighall, through which runs the remains of the abandoned A93 road from Blairgowrie to Glenshee.

It’s funny to think that the bridge was constructed in 1994 and the road decommissioned in 2008, both of which are well within my lifetime – and given how I visited Glenshee several times in my early years having just moved up to Perth in 2004/5, it’s entirely possible I might have used the old road unawares.

These days it’s little more than a 40-minute saunter for dog walkers – almost like wandering through a woodland but with crash-barriers beside and the occasional painted stripe of a white line former road marking peeking through the inch-deep mud and moss.

With the leaves turning gold in autumn, it’s a post-urban delight in its own way.

Another day… another sunset

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“Slight chance of convective weather” is rapidly becoming my new favourite weather alert, especially coming at the end of the day where it signals turbulent blends of low sun, rain and thick clouds.
It doesn’t get much better than last night, either. With sunset happening just after dinner… perfect 🙂

And my favoured view of the receding hills into Strathearn was looking particularly lovely in orange-pink tones too:

Sunset and showers – beautiful warm pink light despite the rain pouring down.

Gear Change Time

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Back in May I had a bit of a holiday. Figured the primary camera would be occupied taking timelapse video sequences for a couple of the evenings, and what happens if I find something else to take a photo of? So a friend suggested I get a Fuji X-T20.

Loved it.

Sold the K-1 dSLR and all the other Pentax kit, bought a Fuji X-H1 and some nice lenses to augment it.

Having spent all last Friday having the day off for the purposes of swapping the gear, I called in at Portknockie to make some photos of the well-known Bow Fiddle rock. The tide was low, requiring more care scrambling over the rocks.

Getting a bit more artistic, a long exposure view of the clouds passing by and a toned and tweaked edit:

The Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 Touit Fuji X-mount lens is a beauty. Being for APS-C crop-sensor only, it’s comparatively small, but elegantly formed with the curves flowing from lens-hood to body where the aperture and focus rings are smooth rubber perfectly integrated into the body.

I still maintain the most interesting views are to be found within the caves beside Bow Fiddle, not just staring at the lump itself. This is the first test image made with the Zeiss lens – sitting inside one of the caves, looking out, an HDR composite of 5 frames ±2/3EV each and even so it took a delicate touch getting the best RAW conversion and blend (haven’t used LuminanceHDR in ages!).

Testing my newly acquired Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 Touit lens – inside one of the caves looking out, of necessity a 5-shot HDR ±2/3EV. That lens is awesomely sharp, even with slightly elevated ISO around 640-1600.

Finally, one to relax with: the most serene simple composition of blue-grey sky with warm crepuscular rays spreading from behind a cloud. Light and sea, what more does one need?

Beautiful simplicity: a very cool blue-grey sky with orange crepuscular rays in the distance.

West Woods of Ethie

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It was one of those crazy late-spring days with a clear divide in the weather – everywhere north of the highland boundary fault was meant to get extreme precipitation, while Fife and Angus remained cool and dry. So we walked for a while in the West Woods of Ethie, admiring the lines and shapes of tall beech trees and subtle light and shade under the canopy.

Aberdeenshire Coast: Catterline

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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:

Peace: blue sky, blue sea

Birks of Aberfeldy

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A few weeks ago, I spent a happy Saturday afternoon strolling around the Birks of Aberfeldy, testing the newly acquired Fuji X-T20.

For context, a general landscape of the lower end of the gorge with the Moness water flowing around rocks and pebbles in the riverbed:

The Moness river flowing over rocks and pebbles

For consistency, everything else was shot coupled with the Helios 58mm f/2 lens using the Acros+Yellow black&white film emulation mode and ISO 200.

Some abstract tree foliage patterns:

Details of tiny flowers closeup:

Of all the mini-waterfalls up the left side of the gorge, I’m particularly fond of the way the water flows over the moss on this one:

Statue of Robert Burns sitting on a bench:

Scultpure of Robert Burns sitting on a bench at the Birks of Aberfeldy

Shortly after these photos were made, the heavens opened – a huge cumulonimbus cloud the shape of the Starship Enterprise disgorged itself over a lot of Highland Perthshire, flooding the roads in Aberfeldy itself; as I was walking down the north side of the gorge, it was quite disconcerting feeling the sandy gravel getting washed away in the channels underfoot. Fun fun!