27th June

... and more from the gardens of Inverewe. Almost at the end of this journey now. Wait for it, wait for it.

WELL, I HAVE JUST BEEN INFORMED THAT I AM OUT OF PHOTO SPACE SO THERE YOU GO TRAVEL PRO. IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE (AND HOW COULD YOU NOT) YOU WILL JUST HAVE TO BUY THE BLURB BOOK THAT WILL COME OUT IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE.

THIS IS THEREFORE THE FORMAL END OF THIS BLOG. THANK YOU FOR NOT LOOKING TOO CLOSELY AT IT.

26th June

Let's spend a few quiet days wandering around the majestic gardens at Inverewe which, as you may remember, I stumbled upon by accident while driving down to Glasgow. Appended below is the description given by the National Trust for Scotland which owns and operates the gardens.


"One of the most beautiful places in Scotland, this 50-acre garden was created in 1862. It is an oasis of exotic plants, bursting with vibrant colour, thanks to the warm currents of the Gulf Stream that flows along the west Scottish coastline.

Rhododendrons from the Himalayas, eucalypts from Tasmania, olearia from New Zealand and other species from such far-flung places as Chile and South Africa, all flourish here, in a display that changes with the seasons.

As well as the Garden we have over 2,000 acres which we manage for conservation including the Pinewood Trail, Inverewe Trail and Kernsary Path. At the edge of Loch Ewe is a Wildlife Hide full of interesting facts and interpretation where seals, otters, divers and a rich variety of wildlife can be seen".



So, there you have it. This is a wonderful place that rivals Kirstenbosch in South Africa and The Royal Botanic Gardens in Hawaii to name a few. I could have wandered round for days. You will see that some of the photographs I took there are highly modified. Don't expect any sort of apology for this ... because you won't get one. Also I am ashamed to admit that I can't identify the species shown here. I leave that to others better qualified to do so.

25th June

Tonight, I thought I would present you with a few images taken while on my journey south from the Assynt area to Glasgow. These first few images (including a few more from Knockan Crags) show the huge variability of the landscape and weather in a short distance. Here we go ....

Wet Car Tracks near Loch Assynt - heavy rain

Knockan Crags #3 - lichen on limestone

Knockan Crags #5 - snow!

Near Little Loch Broom #1 - showers

An Teallach - you guessed it, nasty weather

Scots Pine near Little Loch Broom = sunshine!

Broken Fence Near Little Loch Broom - cloudy

Gruinard Bay - sunshine again!

I have always liked the simple compositions that could easily be paintings. I think that Broken Fence, Scots Pine and Lichen could all be used as templates for the brush user. Who knows, maybe I will get round to it myself sooner rather than later.

24th June

Wow! Has it really been that long between posts. As you know, I was in sunny old Blighty from the 9th through the 18th June and since then have been variously recovering from jet lag and now strep throat (or something equally nasty). I must admit that slogging through the last few hundred digital images has been a bit of a chore but I am almost there!

Here are three shots from Knockan Crags taken on my trip down to Glasgow near the end of the trip. As you can see, they have a theme. The stone globe was done by Joe Smith a Yorkshire born stonemason. When I first blogged about this sculpture I mentioned that it looked like a work by the renowned artist Andy Goldsworthy (who's work I think is marvellous). Turns out that Joe Smith worked with/for Goldsworthy and lives near him in Dumfries, Scotland. Surprise surprise. I still think it's a lovely piece of work and I am in favour of these sculptures being placed at various points in the landscape - as long it does not get overdone.

7th June

It's my birthday today! Hooray, 50 something years old and you would think that I have better things to do than to post to this blog. I will be in Britain from the 9th through the 18th June and will be in Boston tomorrow so this will be one of my last posts (I can almost hear the bugle playing its' mournful notes) for a while.

Here is another effort from the grungy sea soaked group:

Anguish 1

6th June

As Monty Python so famously said "and now for something completely different".

You may recall that I mentioned that I was about to develop the roll of film that took a dunk in the ocean at Sandwood Bay and that I did not expect anything good to come out of it. Well, the film was trashed (of course) but out of failure comes success, as they say. The film was covered with salt crystals that had acted like little radioactive tracer bullets and gave a very interesting effect rather like a night sky. In addition, the clear film around the edge of each image was 'beaten up', looking like it had been exposed to light. There were smear marks (water marks?) on the film as well as hints of what the original subject matter had been. The result was an interesting mish mash of texture that I think will be exciting to use as backgrounds for future images. I have some ideas formulating in this weird head of mine about what some of those images could be. I am including one such 'precursor' image here for your eternal amusement. The image MAY be the first in a series of highly distorted portraits set on the backgrounds mentioned above. I have called this first image "Nightmarish Apparition" in honor of the Zombie craze that is sweeping the USA at the moment. If I decide to use myself as a model in this series I won't even have to distort the face - ha ha! Of course, I may also do a series of 'straight' portraits against these backgrounds - who knows where this will lead. That's part of the excitement of photography.

Nightmarish Apparition

3rd June

..... and more from Scourie Beach:

Echinoderm and worm burrows

Seaweed

Dried out seaweed

2nd June

Some shots of Scourie Beach (day 6 of the trip). This is a perfect little beach for the natural history enthusiast rather than the beach lounger. It has a wonderful assortment of sand ripples and braids easily seen due to the copious amounts of black sand mixed in with lighter quartz sand. There were good showings of seaweed, worm casts and even the odd echinoderm washed up at low tide. More to come tomorrow.

Scourie Beach (triptych) looking north

Sand braids

Seaweed

Sand Ripples

1st June

Just to let all my avid fans know - I will be in the UK from the 9th through the 18th June so there will be no posts during that period. Until then ....

The Blue House at Inshegra (B/W film version)

30th May

This is a view of Foinaven and Arkle (two of the greatest racehorses - now you know where they got their names from!) from the A838 road that leads to Durness on the north coast of Scotland. Nice light and a nice moody day at this point - perfect for photography. Later on the clouds largely disappeared. Can't trust the Scottish weather.

As you read this (or don't as the case may be) I have just loaded the last B/W film into the canister. This is the one that got dunked at Sandwood Bay. It released from its backing paper with an audible clack clack clack as it pried itself free. While this does not bode well (I expect nothing from this roll so that's the good news) one never knows. Maybe some shots will come out like the plastic bag series on steroids. I'll keep you informed.

29th May

From Stoer Point I beat a retreat to the "main" road (ha! main road my foot). Once there I turned left or north and eventually east and followed the little B869 along the coast past Clashnessie (which has a lovely beach so I am told) and thence to Drumbeg which supposedly has one of the finest village stores in Scotland. Alas, the stores were closed for some reason - maybe because it was still considered 'out of season'. Amongst other places I reached Loch Nedd where there were several of my favorite subjects strewn along the rocky little beach - boats. From a single boat one can, if luck is with one, make a number of interesting shots. I managed to collar a small group of abstract images from the peeling paint along the sides of an old and decaying boat. Here they are (the actual boat is the first image naturally):

Continuing along this road one gets some great views of snow capped Quinag with various foregrounds:

While turning seaward there are nice views of a lovely and ever changing coast line, like this one near Drumbeg:

Eventually this road joins with the main Ullapool-Durness road just south of Kylesku. At this point I turned for home and pretty much called it a day.

27th May

For all my thousands of faithful blog afficionados out there (ha ha) I suppose you've been wondering what has happened to the blog recently. The answer, in short was WINE! Yes, Carol and I took time to go out to Sonoma and Napa Valleys in California to taste wine. That is a strange thing because I am currently on a type of medication (nothing serious, honest) that forces me to drastically cut down on my normally prodigious alcohol consumption. So, the wine region did not get its true due from me although we both still had a very fine time. In the meantime, of course, there were no blog posts. But I didn't desert you. Just think of it as an enforced rest break from all the photo prepping.

Just to get things going again, albeit slowly, here are a few shots from the gentle but cold and fairly muddy walk along the cliff tops to the Old Man of Stoer, and also from the road trip leading to Stoer:

Church Ruin, Stoer

Passing Place

The Old Man of Stoer and coast

The Old Man of Stoer

Crashing Waves near the old man

The Old man of Stoer