Around Comrie

Posted on 2022-04-24 by spodzone

A few years ago I discovered a pleasant gentle walk route around the Water of Ruchill outside Comrie. Almost entirely flat, it follows a loop from the village centre through scrub woodland (ideal shade on a sunny day!) along the side of the river past fields formerly occupied by a Roman fort, down to Cultybraggan PoW camp and back along the main B-road for a bit before taking a detour along a path from a standing stone over fields into the southern end of Dalginross and back along the streets to where it started.

In the town centre, the White Kirk stands out for its architecture with prominent tower and spire. Formerly the parish church, it is now home to a community centre.

Scrub woodland detail: a plethora of small gnarly trees amid a sea of wild garlic. Taken on a stroll around the Water of Ruchill walking route.

One of a handful of standing stones in the West Cowden farm area, hinting at possibly being a stone circle, the cup-marked “Roman Stone” sits beside the B827 south of Comrie.

A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.

Finally, a drone overview of the whole town – to the north, Dalginross, Comrie, Melville’s Monument and Glen Lednock; to the south, the Highland Boundary Fault runs from Glen Artney in the west right along the field across the road from Cultybraggan through Cowden Loch, Mill of Fortune and Newburgh Wood.

A map of the area, courtesy of the BGS Geoindex:

Morvern 2/4: Walk in the Woods

Posted on 2017-09-21 by spodzone

A handful of photos from a walk in the woods in Morvern – mostly native birch and oak trees, back-lit by low golden late-afternoon sunlight – absolutely beautiful. Come walk with me.

Lady Mary’s Walk, Crieff

Posted on 2017-09-11 by spodzone

Larger Map

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.

Around Here 5: Subtlety

Posted on 2017-06-01 by spodzone

A short series of photos made while walking the Doglet at some length yesterday evening.

With the scenery of Strathearn along the end of the street, it’s kinda nice living around here.

And the clouds merited a bit of appreciation too.

Around Here

Posted on 2016-06-12 by spodzone

It’s been a lousy grey and wet day – definitely dreich – here, so here are a few photos of a walk I took down the road one evening a few weeks ago, on a lovely sunny day.

Graveyards? Not exactly my usual photographic cup of tea, but OK then…

Landscape is a bit more my scene, however. There’s some lovely undulating pastoral scenery around here, with views across to the distinctive shape of Ben Effray.

All photos made using the Olympus Pen-F and the four-thirds 12-60mm f/2.8 lens using 5-shot handheld HDR technique.

A Favourite Walk

Posted on 2015-06-09 by spodzone

Around January I discovered a new walk near Dunkeld that quickly became a favourite way to spend a weekend afternoon. Starting from the Pass of Birnam, head up the track from Bee Cottage and turn left to go around the south side of Duncan’s Hill then rejoin the path up to Stair Bridge Viewpoint and the top of Birnam Hill.

As routes go, it gives a mixture of sheltered woodland tracks and sweeping landscape views, complete with my favourite feature – you can watch the rocks changing from till to slate to psammite and semi-pelite as you cross the Highland Boundary Fault. Small wonder I’ve done it half a dozen times dragging various folks along with me, gradually exploring further each time as the winter receded.

These photos are from an experiment with a Prakticar 24mm lens (M42 fit) – acquired for cheap from ebay and stuck on a wonky adapter which might explain some focussing issues. Several of them depict the line of the HBF through the landscape, with hills on one side in the Highlands and on the other in the Lowlands.

A Change of Direction

Posted on 2014-07-11 by spodzone

Sometimes, one’s photography takes quite a turn.

A few years ago, I was all interested in large-format landscape work, when a fellow member of the photo-club inadvertently threw the spanner in the works by saying his particular approach gave results that represented how he felt at a given scene. Hang around: how come every LF landscapie I know feels exactly the same way then, if that way is defined by 5×4 format, tripod low on the ground, golden-hours (normally morning, strangely), portrait orientation, near-mid-far, Fuji Velvia film, grad-ND sky and rear-tilt perspective, amongst other things? Having seen that as a clique fashion rather than individual expression, I rejected it and promptly went digital, making a photo a day using overcast dull light to show the shapes of trees in the local woodland realistically.

Last Saturday marked something of a milestone: 4 years of posting a daily photo on Blipfoto. Over time, the idea of forcing a photo a day (especially one as considered and well-processed as I strived to achieve) has become artistically unhealthy and my enthusiasm for the site has waned considerably, so I called it a day.

In some ways, the future looks to be a return to landscape; certainly I intend shooting a lot more of it than I have previously, but I’m intending letting the inspiration drive matters not forcing it by the calendar. I’m hoping to post more often on this blog as well, but using the real camera as well as the mobile, so there’s been a bit of re-branding happening too…

So it was, on Sunday afternoon, with head slightly reeling from the decision, I set off with Dog for an afternoon stroll, with no idea how far or where we’d go except that I wanted it to be a long walk. And it was the longest we’ve been on since moving here, I think – left Portpatrick and walked past the golf course to Port Mora where I usually turn inland and walk through the Dunskey Glen, but this time I continued past Port Kale and the transmission huts (where cables came ashore for monitoring communication during the Troubles in Northern Ireland)…