Five years ago I stayed in a cottage on the shores of Loch Awe and spent a week largely killing time waiting for better weather and better light. Not so this year, with the varied autumnal weather conditions making for rich photography pickings.
I’ll start with the image at the top of the page as it was my main reason for coming back. In 2018 I had managed a nice picture of it lit up by a warm sunrise at the very end of that dull and wet week, but it lacked the atmosphere of a bank of mist or the perfect reflection I really wanted. This time, my week on the eastern shores of Loch Awe had barely begun when I woke to unusually still conditions, and despite the unpromising cloud, I sacrificed my warm bed for a 20 minute drive along the water’s edge to chance the prospect of some golden light when the sun came up.
By the time I arrived in the stillness of the pre-dawn a mist had formed and was swirling round the ruins of Kilchurn Castle, and before the sun even got near the horizon I took a shot I was immediately happy with through the gloom. In that moment I knew that if I took nothing else, I would leave pleased.
It got better of course when the sun peered over the eastern horizon and bathed the scene in golden light, resulting in the main image at the top of this post, and eventually the one below. Even here in the regular daylight, the enveloping mist separating subject from background makes for a lovely shot and I’d happily include any of them in my calendar. I came away with several alternatives in different light and was glad to have taken that chance drive in the darkness when I did – neither the light nor the mist nor the reflection would be comparable for the rest of the week.
While the mist lingered I head back towards my holiday home down the long single-track road that served the lochside settlements, and decided to continue beyond before I had breakfast, thinking that the island-bound Innes Chonnel Castle would look great in the prevalent conditions. Alas, I’d arrived in between two storms, and driving right up to some men and machines it became apparent that the road towards the castle was still being repaired after a succession of landslips the previous weekend. I wouldn’t get the shot I wanted here, but did go back at the end of the week to capture this just-about-passable take on it. It would have looked so much better in the still mistiness, and I could have made good use of a boat at this point to have an island adventure, but alas, I didn’t have one.
The following day I was up early again, this time bound for Glencoe. The lingering stillness had now allowed for a beautiful frosty sunrise and my journey through the spectacular scenery was adorned by low mist and cloud inversions, of which I stopped in a lay-by to point the camera at and to try and capture the scene. I wasn’t expecting this, I hadn’t planned for it and there is no specific foreground interest, but I’m still pleased with them:
Shooting the ‘Three Sisters’ of Glencoe that morning was hard work on account of the deep blue sky and the mountains being in shadow, so after an initial attempt I drove off down in to Glen Etive instead, the roar of distant stags echoing round the valley as I went. Disappointingly I didn’t see any of the beasts this time and read afterwards that they are being actively culled to manage numbers and protect trees.
I could hear them though, as I stood at the end of the road through the Glen and looked out across Loch Etive, the perfect reflections on the water giving away the stillness in the air:
In the wilderness landscape you could almost feel like the only person on earth here. If it wasn’t for the small car park behind the camera and others coming and going to do the same…
Driving back up the road I spied some waterfalls and scrambled down the embankment to take a closer look. At this point the sun was high in the increasingly hazy sky and I was shooting almost directly into it, but I just about managed to create something nice from the scene without ruining it with lens flare:
Following a nice lunch in Glencoe I went back to my vantage point at the Three Sisters for another go at this morning’s shot, and under the greying skies and more even light I managed a much better take on the scene. This particular one includes Ralston Cairn, a memorial to a young man that had loved the area. There’s not a lot going on in this one, it’s all about that stunning geology and the sense of peacefulness.
The only other interventions to this great wilderness are the handful of cars on the A82 snaking towards the very badly vandalised Allt-na-Reigh cottage. I’ll let you Google that one…
At the coastal end of Glencoe is Ballachulish, and in the harbour there you’ll find an interesting little bit of industrial history. These slate boat sheds were built by quarriers in the 1860s to keep boats in for the purpose of supplementing their incomes through fishing. It’s likely that the sheds themselves will have an element of ‘Trigger’s broom’ about them and may have been rebuilt several times over the years, but they remain a curiosity worth taking a look at – albeit one categorised high risk by the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland.
And the harbour was peaceful to sit by for a while too.
In Inveraray I was presented with another perfectly still scene and the opportunity to capture images I’d always wanted to but never had the right conditions. I really like these kind of places, all independent shops, cafes and eateries, and it was an equally nice way to spend a wet day later in the week. But on this occasion the high water, bright sun and autumn colours presented the whitewashed buildings and Gothic-revival castle at their best:
I did say it was a good week for photography…
Final shot for a bumper post, this is the old jetty near Portsonachan, close to where I was staying. A long exposure blue-hour shot smooths out the now far-from-still waters around the rotting timbers in the near darkness, one evening before I put my feet up for the night. I love this kind of thing – it’s naturally ruined, serves no useful purpose and is barely hanging together but it’s just there, because it’s always been just there.
The end of my week was a little more unsettled – there was another storm by this point battering the east coast – but in between a couple of power cuts, some strong wind and patchy light rain, this enclave escaped the worst of it and was all very enjoyable.
After so many visits to Argyll & Bute over the years I did wonder if I could find enough to shoot, and if the conditions would even deliver. Turned out to be a bumper year with still more to give…
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