Another brief visit to the Isle of Skye and a stay at Sligachan campsite. I had made plans, prior to my visit, of the photos I wanted to capture. These plans were disrupted almost immediately with the ever changing Scottish weather.
I arrived to very windy conditions, which meant setting the tent up was no easy task. My wife and I struggled significantly and a five minute event turned out to be 40 mins. With the Met Office news that the winds were dropping every hour, I became somewhat more relaxed and relieved.
After a five hour journey to the campsite and fighting to get the tent up, I was remarkably tired and thoughts of searching for that elusive photo had gone. It is just as well that a stroll across the road and a 3 minute walk and I’m staring at utter beauty. Bridges, steams, waterfalls!, Sligachan has everything you want as a photographer.
I took a few shots of the tourists view, with the bridge in the foreground with the dominating Cuillin mountains in the back. The sunset was beautiful! I snapped a few pictures in aperture priority at F11 for depth of field and then switched to do some long exposures. Without thinking really, I checked the 10 stop setting on my phone, put in the big stopper (10 stop filter) and fired off a 3 minute exposure. Everything looked good on the back of the camera and with the light dimming, I adjusted the settings further to 3.30 secs for the second shot. As sunsets only last for a very short duration, I was thinking that that would be it for that evening. As time ticked past, I got a sinking feeling that something wasn’t quite right. That exposure should have been much longer!!! I know rough times of settings with filters attached and this was all wrong. It could only have been that the ISO had changed significantly. Thinking “I only ever change ISO for portraits, weddings and night photography” Night!!!! I had been out a couple of nights prior trying to capture the aurora.
Well now!! There is a mistake I have not made in years, 1000 ISO on every shot.
I must admit, I wasn’t too pleased with myself and was thinking “I just wasted a evening” but to be honest, just being there watching the sun slowly fall behind those incredible jaggy peaks of the Cuillins was special enough.
The following days forecast set to be glorious sunshine with zero clouds. It was actually hard to get out of the sleeping bag the following morning, a frozen tent and temperatures at -5, I set out up Sligachan, looking for a composition that would allow me limit the sky to minimal in the photo. Unfortunately, I was too early in the season for the water to be gushing down the valley, or should I say, the Scottish winter has lasted a lot longer this year.
The first waterfall was barley a trickle, the second one was better but I couldn’t find a composition. Finally, I came across a scene with promise, a waterfall that actually had some flowing water. As I was trying to eliminate as much sky as possible (a plain blue sky doesn’t make a great photo), I went for a vertical shot getting very close to the water. Using a wide angle lens and the mountains in in very top of the frame, the waterfall was exaggerated while the morning pink hue from the sunrise behind me illuminated by the glorious white hills.
I did go back the following day for some sunrise shots in the same area, but I wasn’t too happy with the results. The thoughts that morning were to create something a bit different to what I have researched online. As previously mentioned in the waterfall shot, the sun was rising from behind where I was shooting, making my preferred shot of the mountains unlikely due to the “good light”. However, as there were no clouds in the sky, the rising sun would hopefully light up the peaks whilst keeping the foreground darker creating a lovely contrast.
Here are a few shots from that morning.
The following day, I drove to my favourite location in photography and to the Quiraing. It forms part of the Trotternish Ridge which was created by landslips. It is full of hidden gems for landscape photographers, but if you’re not a walker, you can get out your car and literally start shooting. My plan was to go for a long walk over the top of the ridge itself (the opposite route from the tourist path) but the weather was not on my side. There were extremely high winds with massive gusts making hill walking slightly dangerous, especially where I had planned to walk. I decided to give it a go, the ridge was on my left had side and the winds were swirling as we headed up the steep, rocky hill. I had my wife with me on this occasion, and I was a bit wary of this as the path is close the the cliffs edge and she is just a wee thing.
As we climbed higher, I could tell that this was certainly not a day for exploration. The wind was just about knocking me off my feet, as I turned to check on my wife, she was down on all fours like a panther praying on it’s kill, “time to call it a day I think”. Safety is paramount on any walk so we headed back down, this was really only a reccy to find a new location.
A quick stop at Elgol was the final destination for the day. Although having been here lots of times, there is something that keeps me coming back, whether it be the mountains or seascape. The only problem is (for my style of shooting anyway), I look for a dominant foreground subject. All the rocks are the same regardless of how far you travel round the coast, and the although the wind speeds were extremely high, there was little movement in the water which was very unusual.
I stayed for a couple of hours shooting different scenes but nothing stood out. Elgol is a very beautiful place to visit where most visitors go to catch a boat ride, but a very hard place to get a unique photo.
On waking up on the final day, it was a feeling of disappointment with another grey sky looming over the beautiful landscape. All the usual thoughts were entering my head, black and white? High contrast?, seascape? Eventually I thought Eilean Donan castle! Like most of the photos from the last few days, another shot of a previous location. I was a bit disheartened with going to another location visited by millions of people, but It is a gorgeous castle and suits black and white photography!
We left early with the hope of slightly better light ( although grey skies, a rising sun with full cloud cover would act like a giant soft box ). Like all visits to this majestic castle, it was simply stunning! I always want the best available light, and although it was grey, the light was still fantastic. The sun was shining through the gloomy, almost dark sky with the sun shining directly on the left hand side of the castle. I shot this both in horizontal and vertical for a alternative perspective.
The shots were ok and well worth taking!
Overall, the the weather got the best of me on this trip. The photography as shown, wasn’t the best but the experience was still superb.