I had a few plans lined up for my week in Scotland, hoping to take advantage of the autumn colours by going up in mid-October rather than the usual November. The weather however had other plans, and while I left home after the most beautiful few days of crisp bright mornings there would be nothing but grey skies and rain north of the border. The break was nice enough, but it did mean that most of my landscape photography would be taken on day eight of a seven day getaway…

I’d wanted to photograph Kilchurn Castle for some time and renting a cottage just along the shore of Loch Awe seemed most fortuitous. Bad forecasts followed worse until the day I was due to leave, when something akin to a sunrise was finally on the cards. I set out and set up on the opposite side of the water, waiting for an age before the sun broke through and lit the mountain side up with russet tones just as the rippling Loch smoothed out long enough to allow for a reflection to form. A bit of low cloud would have made the shot but I was otherwise happy with the result, and dashed back to check out of the cottage and make the most of the day.

I was bound for Glasgow for the weekend, but first I was headed further north to see what I could find…

Rannoch Moor was resplendent in its autumn beauty as the sunlight weaved between the clouds and presented a great opportunity for a shot:

Described as one of the last great wildernesses in Europe it would be almost idyllic if the busy A82 hadn’t been right behind me…

A little further up the road to Glencoe and you reach the postcard staple that is Black Rock Cottage, with Buchaille Etive Mor behind. One of the windiest places on earth it seemed as my hat was blown clean off my head leaving me to chase it across the moors. Twice, narrowly missing some dog shit on one occasion. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the resulting picture but am posting it anyway:

Next stop was Glen Etive and I was on a mission to see some deer. It didn’t take long for me to find some either, them being pointed out to me by a lady visiting from Europe while a number of other tourists crept about with lenses of varying length, or trying to entice them with whatever snacks they had in their cars. They were pretty tame as it goes, my long lens causing me more problems than it solved on this occasion as I kept having to back away from the most photogenic stag to keep him in focus.

Here he is, the Monarch of the Glen…

I took many over the course of about an hour on that hillside but will just post one more here. Looks like he’s playing hide and seek with me…

With that I felt like I’d made the most of the day so packed up and drove down to Glasgow for the weekend.

The weather’s been perfect every day since…