Lunan Bay

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In general, lacking high pointy mountains, Angus always strikes me as one of the less dramatic parts of the country. However, I’ve visited the Lunan Bay area a few times and it makes a good escape for an afternoon.

There’s quite a nice beach…

  • Pebbles amongst sand
  • Decaying lump of tree bark on sand
  • A small floral life-form amongst the pebbles and sand.
  • Signs on a shed on the weay to Lunan Bay beach
  • Sweeping leading lines – where the Lunan Water meets the sea
  • Beach details: dead tree trunks/branches embedded in the sand, pointing at a hut amongst the dunes.

and the ruins of Red Castle stand out stark sandstone against blue skies – ideal with high-flying cirrus cloud in the background.

  • Pleasantly contrasty light illuminating the castle ruins, against a dramatic cloudy sky.
  • Pleasantly contrasty light illuminating the castle ruins, against a dramatic cloudy sky.
  • Quite an impressive ruined castle atop a small hill.
  • Mouth of the Lunan Water outflow through the beach below Red Castle.

It also looks quite good from the air.

  • Red Castle, Lunan Bay
  • Red Castle, Lunan Bay
  • Floor plans
  • Lunan Water
  • Estuary
  • Red Castle, Lunan Bay

And finally, I’m experimenting with a different art form – composite overlays, controlling visual information by selectively retaining structures. Essence of Lunan in one.

Composite: various aspects of an afternoon spent at Lunan Bay blended together.

Loch Rannoch Sunset

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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
[sphere img=http://soc.sty.nu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/IMG_5574-360-fixed.jpg” ]

Sunset on the shore was beautiful; contrasting deep blue ominous dark blue clouds and vibrant orange sunset across the water.

  • Beautiful glowing colours: warm yellow, orange and red sunset light contrasting with the thick passing clouds near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
  • Beautiful glowing sunset gold and blue colours, near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
  • Beautiful glowing sunset gold and blue colours, near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
  • Beautiful glowing colours: warm yellow, orange and red sunset light contrasting with the thick passing clouds near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
  • Beautiful glowing sunset gold and blue colours, near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch

Prints of some of these photos will be available through my ShinyPhoto website: photos around Loch Rannoch.

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.

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.

Spittal of Glenshee

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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.

Funky ruins:

Around Bangour

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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.

A few views from ground level:

And a handful of photos made with the drone:

Also see an aerial 360º drone panorama of Bangour I made using Hangar360.

 

The final ward closed in 2004 – worryingly one of those “in my lifetime” things…

Lady Mary’s Walk, Crieff

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Only catching up on photos taken at the end of April…

Lady Mary’s Walk runs West from Crieff along the side of the River Earn, mostly on the flat until one reaches the foot of Laggan Hill after a mile or so, where it forms a circular route back to MacRosty Park.

At the end of April I went for a stroll to hunt bluebells.

The path was particularly pleasant – quiet, leading on through the woods.

 
 
 

As an aside, I’m sure there never used to be such a profusion of wild garlic on these Perthshire woodland nature trails 10 years ago – I only first encountered the stuff whilst out in Galloway.

I was a bit early for optimum bluebell season, but did find a few areas of good blue ground coverage:

And at the western extremity of the route there is a ruined house – it could be quite eerie given the right lighting.

Dunnottar Castle

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Dunnottar Castle is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 2 miles south of Stonehaven. The current ruins date from the 15th and 16th centuries, but there is believed to have been fortification on the site since the Early Middle Ages.

The ruins of the castle are surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, with a steep path leading up to the gatehouse.

I made these photos over the course of a couple of hours after the eclipse in March, partly because I know the place well, partly because I was reminded of it by a photo in the local photo-club, and partly because I wanted to reshoot it at greater quality with newer processing techniques. It’s a pity the path down to the shore is so muddy – perhaps I should revisit either in winter or early spring instead.

For the record, the workflow for these is:

  • tripod, SRB ND1000 filter, multiple frames around 8s shutter-speed at source
  • RAW conversion in Photivo
  • HDR panorama in Hugin + enfuse
  • tonemapping in LuminanceHDR
  • post-processing in darktable
  • further post-processing in Gimp:
    • colour toning
    • film emulation (vintage, Ilford Pan-F or Rollei black and white film emulation)
    • wavelet sharpening
  • organization (tagging + metadata) in digiKam
  • bulk resizing with ImageMagick.

Around Kilchurn Castle

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It seems a while ago now, but last September I spent a weekend trundling around Argyll. The light on the Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful – so I spent a happy couple of hours standing on the shores of Loch Awe admiring the sunlight and mist on Ben Cruachan and Kilchurn Castle, as one does.

Around Cairnryan Point Lighthouse

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I walked maybe half a mile along the pebbled shores of Loch Ryan, attempting to make interesting photos in classical landscape style. Of this kind of scene, one particular favourite survived the editing purge:

Cairnryan Point Light
Cairnryan Point Light

    

However, the photo I favour most from this afternoon was a serendipitous find, a result of some gentle urban exploration. Just standing in the doorway of this ruined building, all the light through the windows and lines and curves somehow fell together into a classic composition, a celebration of abandonment in grunge:

Ruin

It also looks radically different in colour:

Ruin

Recursion

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image

…see recursion.

One of the many shots that have changed since I was last in Perth – the remains of an estate/letting agent, ironically now itself up for sale. It’s not like Perth didn’t have enough such shops elsewhere in the legal/restaurant/cultural district, so I’m a bit surprised they even bothered trying out here.

Moved On

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At a guess, I’m assuming the dental practice that was here has moved on.

A disused former dental practice building, Lewis Street, Stranraer

Perhaps the NHS should update their webpage, although the banner image serves to illustrate the former glory of the building.