I’ve not been overly prolific with my photography this year and was somewhat playing catch up when I head north for a bit of a road trip covering three of my favourite places. I’ll write about Northumberland and North Yorkshire in future posts, but this week I was back in Scotland – and it immediately felt good to be out doing something and coming back with a decent shot.
There’s something about heading to Falkirk to shoot something lit up at night that fills me with utter dread. Followers of this blog will doubtless recall the Falkirk Wheel debacle – a photographic catalogue of disasters that reached such levels of farce one could imagine Sid James and Bernard Breslaw running the show with the sole intention of pissing off Kenneth Williams. If you missed it you can read it here – I’d forgotten just how exasperating the whole thing was. Anyway, it seems that Scottish Canals are actually rather fond of making a big statement and lighting it up, and this time we had another in our sights…
Andy Scott’s striking Godfather tribute provides an impressive centrepiece to the newly reopened Forth and Clyde Canal, its 30 metre horses heads piercing through the night sky like white diamonds on blue silk, distracting unsuspecting motorists on the adjacent M8. We’d passed it many times before on the return leg of a failed visit to the wheel – which tonight was frustratingly lit up for all to see for miles around. We even planned to stop there once had the SatNav not directed us to the nearest bit of motorway hard shoulder as an end point. This time we got there in plenty of time to take them in and wait for the light to balance out.
The twin heads rise Goliath-like from the ground, a tribute to horse power in Scottish history, at once as menacing as they are beautiful. Standing underneath I felt like one of the children from Jurassic Park when the diplodocus loomed over them – not a parallel I expected to draw and less so one I expected to write about here, but imagination is a curious thing. And this is the kind of place you can just wander and imagine. I got what I came for, pleasantly surprised by the experience, a few shots in the bag and done at the first attempt.
While researching this piece I came across some different angles on the Falkirk Wheel by night. Maybe I’m due a revisit…