Driving the A9

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:

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…


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.

On the Way to St Fillan’s

A few months ago now, I spent a happy Saturday afternoon driving around the countryside – visited some old haunts and refreshed memories. I had it in mind to spend some time shooting the well-known statue Still by Rob Mulholland in Loch Earn at St Fillan’s, but was more taken by the landscape en route – a little mist rising off a forest, clouds so low they obscure the outlines of the mountains.

So the majority of these photos were actually taken whilst parked in a layby off the A85. But I couldn’t possibly admit to that. 😉

Morning Blur

Having discovered one or two people on Blipfoto who use it, I’m finding intentional camera movement (ICM) interesting as a means of artistic expression. 

I make at least one photo per day; a few weeks ago I settled on wiggly wednesday as a theme – the results arising from multiple images taken with random camera movement, chosen for their visceral response, blended together and toned black&white as always. Making it a “Wednesday” thing is a great way to balance exploring the effect regularly with not overdoing it to the point of boredom.

Anyway, this morning I discovered it’s also viable on the mobile phone – in low light of a dull day among the trees its automatic exposures were long enough to let rip and see what happened.

Motion-blurred ferns/bracken

(two frames blended in the Gimp and toned and processed in Darktable).