Tobers
Prominent Member
Those who have long memories may recall a trip by myself and 3 others to Skye a few years back. I enjoyed it so much that I took a week off last week to go up to the Isle of Mull of the west coast of Scotland and do primarily landscape photography. I had a pal called Mark with me this time, and we hired a rather lovely little cottage in Lochdon for the week. Aside from the low doorways (head still badly bruised!) it was just right.
I thought it Mull was a cracking location - lots of variety from waterfalls to cliffs to mountains. Lots of wildlife too. Weather was predictably variable - I was hoping for snow or at least heavy frosts which didn't materialise, though it was cold at 0-4C. It's a much bigger island than I expected, and with all the roads being single track with passing places it took quite a while to get around, and we covered about 300 miles driving all over the place.
The problem with going somewhere new is that we didn't know any of the locations at all. I arranged a wildlife tour for the first day, primarily to get a guide around some of the good photo locs, but also to get a look-see at some eagles and otters, more of which later.
With lots of studying of OS maps, plotting sun angles etc, we probably got 50% of our locations right. It was a fairly random process though, and I'm sure if I were to go back now I'd be a lot better prepared. A lot of the time we walked into our locations - good kit is essential. I was geared up with v.good walking boots, gaiters, tough trousers (Fjall Raven - excellent), merino wool thermal leggings, layers of tops, gore-tex jacket, gloves, hat & neck buff thing. Even in the pre-dawn cold I was plenty warm enough.
More blurb later - I've just started going through my pics. I took 536 shots using a Canon 1D mark IV and a Panasonic GF1. Lenses varied from a 400 2.8 with 1.4x extender (for the eagles) to a more usual 17-40 on the Canon and a 20mm and 14-45 on the GF1. Out of those 536, I kept 148, numerous of which are "snaps" of location setups and general mucking about. I've got 10 pics which I really like and that I'll put significant time into working on, and maybe another 10 that have "made the grade" for additional processing - and I'm quite pleased with that haul for the week.
Here's the first couple of pics. I'll put more up as I go through them and add some more narrative.
#1 some nice low skimming light at Loch An Eilein. This was a tough one as I got there at about 8am for dawn which was nice, but I struggled to find a good spot with a strong composition of the tree. Wherever I went it just didn't look right. In the end I waited about three and a half hours for the sun to move around to the right spot and side-light the tree and the grass in front, whilst keeping the hill behind shaded. I had plenty of time to think about the composition of the shot, and in the end elected to have the tree just sticking above the far hillside to give it better definition. The side lighting is odd - Mark thought I'd flashed it with some remote flashes and pocket wizards. Great idea, but swimming over to the island wasn't on the agenda. Canon 1D mark IV, 24-105 @ 45mm, 1/5th sec at f/18, ISO 100.
Setup shot for #1. You cant really see it but the ground was boggy and very wet. Scottish walkers will know the sort of thing - ankle snapping grass tussocks surrounded by disguised gaiter-deep sucking bog. #1 was actually taken just to the left of where the camera is here, but you get the idea of the location.
#2 this was a cracking location on the south coast. And finally a characterful sunset as well. There were so many interesting features on this bit of coastline that I hurried a lot of my shots as I tried to fit as much in as possible. Important lesson - take your time, less is more. Canon 1D mark IV, 17-40 @ 17mm, 1/40th at f/16 ISO 1250 handheld.
Some more shots to come as I go through them.
Tobers
I thought it Mull was a cracking location - lots of variety from waterfalls to cliffs to mountains. Lots of wildlife too. Weather was predictably variable - I was hoping for snow or at least heavy frosts which didn't materialise, though it was cold at 0-4C. It's a much bigger island than I expected, and with all the roads being single track with passing places it took quite a while to get around, and we covered about 300 miles driving all over the place.
The problem with going somewhere new is that we didn't know any of the locations at all. I arranged a wildlife tour for the first day, primarily to get a guide around some of the good photo locs, but also to get a look-see at some eagles and otters, more of which later.
With lots of studying of OS maps, plotting sun angles etc, we probably got 50% of our locations right. It was a fairly random process though, and I'm sure if I were to go back now I'd be a lot better prepared. A lot of the time we walked into our locations - good kit is essential. I was geared up with v.good walking boots, gaiters, tough trousers (Fjall Raven - excellent), merino wool thermal leggings, layers of tops, gore-tex jacket, gloves, hat & neck buff thing. Even in the pre-dawn cold I was plenty warm enough.
More blurb later - I've just started going through my pics. I took 536 shots using a Canon 1D mark IV and a Panasonic GF1. Lenses varied from a 400 2.8 with 1.4x extender (for the eagles) to a more usual 17-40 on the Canon and a 20mm and 14-45 on the GF1. Out of those 536, I kept 148, numerous of which are "snaps" of location setups and general mucking about. I've got 10 pics which I really like and that I'll put significant time into working on, and maybe another 10 that have "made the grade" for additional processing - and I'm quite pleased with that haul for the week.
Here's the first couple of pics. I'll put more up as I go through them and add some more narrative.
#1 some nice low skimming light at Loch An Eilein. This was a tough one as I got there at about 8am for dawn which was nice, but I struggled to find a good spot with a strong composition of the tree. Wherever I went it just didn't look right. In the end I waited about three and a half hours for the sun to move around to the right spot and side-light the tree and the grass in front, whilst keeping the hill behind shaded. I had plenty of time to think about the composition of the shot, and in the end elected to have the tree just sticking above the far hillside to give it better definition. The side lighting is odd - Mark thought I'd flashed it with some remote flashes and pocket wizards. Great idea, but swimming over to the island wasn't on the agenda. Canon 1D mark IV, 24-105 @ 45mm, 1/5th sec at f/18, ISO 100.
Setup shot for #1. You cant really see it but the ground was boggy and very wet. Scottish walkers will know the sort of thing - ankle snapping grass tussocks surrounded by disguised gaiter-deep sucking bog. #1 was actually taken just to the left of where the camera is here, but you get the idea of the location.
#2 this was a cracking location on the south coast. And finally a characterful sunset as well. There were so many interesting features on this bit of coastline that I hurried a lot of my shots as I tried to fit as much in as possible. Important lesson - take your time, less is more. Canon 1D mark IV, 17-40 @ 17mm, 1/40th at f/16 ISO 1250 handheld.
Some more shots to come as I go through them.
Tobers
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