Three photos from a pleasant afternoon’s stroll along the Baddoch Burn in Glen Clunie, just up the road from Glenshee.
Rocks can be so colourful at times, can’t they? 🙂
Tag Archives: highlands
Falls of Bruar: Flow
One Saturday lunchtime several years ago, I spent a happy hour bugging the assistants in my local favourite camera shop, trying to find the ideal tripod.
Having visited the Falls of Bruar the weekend previously, I had a particular photo of the waterfalls flowing around the rocks in mind.
As usual, Manfrotto was the most recommended make. I tried to believe in them, honestly, but with no combination of legs, invertible centre-column and 3-dimensional head being sturdy enough for the camera of the time, I emerged with a Slik. (This process has been repeated with the same outcome a few times since.)
That afternoon, I went back to Bruar with my new tripod and totally failed to get the photo I wanted, but by dint of pointing the camera the other way staring down the gorge after sunset had happened and the light was fading – what’s come to be known as the blue hour – I wound up with a photo that would be my No.1 most-popular on Flickr for about 5 years.
That was “Raw“.
The first of these is “Flow”, the photo I intended to make in the first place.
Water close-ups
A small series of closeup studies in flowing water, taken on a stroll around the Falls of Bruar.
I’ve admired the striation lines  in the psammite riverbed below the lower bridge at the Falls many times – yet every visit they’re still fascinating every time.
A Favourite Waterfall
A couple of views of a small part of a favoured waterfall on my walk up Birnam Hill.
Glen Affric: Landscape
Two final landscape scenes to close this series. It was a long morning spent watching the sun rise, walking around the River Walk and along the side of Loch Affric past An Tudair, before returning to the River Walk a second time and clambering up the opposite hill to the memorial to capture the passing light on pine-covered mountains above the loch.
Glen Affric: Rockery
There’s an impressive outcrop of rocks (psammite and semi-pelite, looking rather like limestone) near the waterfalls in the River Affric. Some kindly soul had balanced these pebbles on a boulder on their way past previously.
Glen Affric: Mixed Thoughts
Sadly, it’s not all good news at the glen – a few years ago, the Forestry Commission installed two paths, one wending its way between the trees like a play-park and the other using non-native sandstone paving flags to enlarge the walk beside the river – in the process, cementing its way through the pine trees’ roots. I am not impressed.
The other two photos in this set are a bit strange by my standards, too: shooting directly into the sun with only a few seconds to capture a crepuscular ray, I extended my usual HDR bracketing from 1EV to 2 stops either side; it’s taken me the last 6 months and no fewer than 10 re-processing iterations to make the best I can of that scene and the results are necessarily unrealistic in order to capture detail in both foreground and sky. The scene is from the path along the south side of Loch Affric to Kintail, beside Loch Salach a’Ghiubhais (“dirty loch of the pines”) – I have no idea what they did to merit such a title, as it seems a pretty gorgeous place to me.
Glen Affric: Trees (4)
Lots of Scots Pine trees around Glen Affric.
Favourite Trees can be seen from near the carpark above the River Walk around the glen – these are the same pines that appear in Heather and Trees.
Gnarly struck me as a pleasant old character, enjoying the morning sun, on the way up the side of Coille na Feithe Buidhe to the memorial.
The trees is Pinus sylvestris are to be found along the south side of Loch Affric, on the path that ultimately brings you out in Kintail near Skye.
Glen Affric: Tree Closeups
Glen Affric: abstracts from reality
There’s an art to this kind of abstract – seeing, reducing the scene to an interplay of lines and shapes and seeking a kind of balanced visual weight across the frame. Hence, spatial distribution – nothing so crass as having one subject on which the eye can focus, but a pleasing arrangement nonetheless.
Glen Affric: Trees (2)
Further studies in the shapes of characterful trees, Glen Affric: this time, in black and white.
Glen Affric: Trees (1)
It’s no secret that Glen Affric is my favourite place on the planet. We’ll come to why, later. Meanwhile, the first in a short series of posts studying the more characterful shapes of trees at the glen.
Cairnwell
It’s been years since I visited the Cairnwell in Glenshee. The road is still just as steep and the glens are just as glacial as ever I remembered. This is the view from the ski centre, Glenshee.
Around Mull
A small selection of photos from a weekend trip to Mull last September – a couple of views around Lochdon, Duart Castle from the ferry and Lismore Lighthouse basking in the sunlight  on the way back.
as dusk turns to dark
I haven’t been around this area for a few years, but happened to be passing through Kenmore as dusk gave way to outright dark.
Mist rising on Ben Lawers in the distance:
Update: this image has been well received, so I’ve made it available for sale via my landscape photography site.