A few photos from a trip to Glen Lyon in autumn. An ideal route for an afternoon walk-with-Dog took in 3 distinct kinds of woodland: artificial monoculture (spruce etc, clear barren ground) (fortunately being felled with a view to replacement with native trees), some birch and oak, and (another artificial) an avenue of beech trees.
Anthropocene influence:
Very natural native flora basking in the golden light:
An avenue of beech trees looking quite spooky
In the middle of January, I went for a drive around Glen Lyon. There was enough snow lying that the road was slippy on corners, so I didn’t get anywhere near as far in as I would have liked, but still, the light was a special kind of low cool glow.
Just a few twists along the road into Glen Lyon from Fortingall – we’re going that way into the glowing light, folks.
Trees draped like a fuzzy fir coat over a snowy mountain
This is a pretty commonly shot view from a small layby – but beautiful in the cold winter light, showing the shapes of craggy mountains:
A beautiful view – rugged crags descending to a smooth glacial U-shaped glen
And that was as far as I dared go for the snow. Turning back, I stopped by the roadside to check out a particularly photogenic little lochan lurking on the edge of the forestry:
Snow resting on a frozen lochan, Glen Lyon – I loved the way it sits on the edge of the forestry.
And I just had to take a photo of the beloved Doglet while I was there 😉
The one and only…. 🙂
By the side of the river, dusk was long gone and the blue hour had well and truly set in.
Snow lying on craggy hillsides beside the River Lyon
Late November, very late autumn – short days of chilly weather and cold light – I set off for a drive through Glen Lyon. I’d not been there for at least five years; felt like ages. Yet very little changes. The river Lyon still burbles on merrily past the Roman Bridge (that isn’t in any way Roman – it dates from the late 18th century); the mountains were all the same shape, with a light dusting of snow hinting at winter yet to come; the Scots Pine trees were still where I remembered them being (and, more to the point, I’ve since learned that they’re a remnant of the Caledonian Forest). There are, however, yet more potholes in the road from the dam at the end of the Glen up and over to Glen Lochay and someone’s plonked a cattle fence across the way. So it goes.
I had some fun with the Pentax 50mm f/1.8 lens, using it for landscapes (not a usual choice for me) and closeup work, even using a hole drilled in the lens-cap to make it into a pinhole.
Ansel had his “Moonrise, Hernandez, Mexico” moment. On the way back along the glen, I had my “Moonrise, Glen Lyon, Scotland” moment: the dullest of grey fading light, a clear view along between the mountains, dark bluey clouds passing rapidly in the distance and the moon rising beyond. Better yet, there were two boulders – one to climb, from which the other made a nice foreground feature. Click. Or more accurately, cliiiiiick, click, cliiiiiiiiiiiick – the sounds of a long exposure HDR sequence (1s, 0.25s, 4s) to capture the contrast on the scene. Categorically the best photo opportunity of the year.
I drove back over Ben Lawers in the pitch black with the rain turning to sleet.