Diary of my Perthshire Trip

19 November 2010

I am just back from a highly productive and successful 4 day photo trip to Perthshire.

My base for the trip was a B&B situated near Kinloch Rannoch which had amazing views over to the pyramid-shaped mountain of Schiehallion.

DAY ONE

After leaving Aberdeen early on the Saturday morning (though not early enough for sunrise!) The Hermatige provided me with the perfect stop to get out and stretch my legs and get into the swing of things. I walked around the ‘Big Trees’ unhurried and did not feel like I had to get the camera out of the bag. I was not interested in photographing the over-photographed main falls, instead I just soaked up the scenery and enjoyed myself. The camera did not make an appearance until I was heading back, when I found an interesting composition on the River Braan. Not the greatest shot I will ever take, but an interesting compositional exercise.

From there I headed straight for Kinloch Rannoch. The weather was pretty poor so I decided I would make my way up Allt Mor (a stream which falls through numerous waterfalls for about 300 metres ending up in the heart of the village) as the slopes around are all wooded. I would then head up onto Craig Varr to then pick my way down an unnamed waterfall which travels down the hillside parallel to Allt Mor.

I made numerous shots on the way up the waterfall as certain things caught my eye – my favourite of the bunch being a trident of fern fronds growing above the rushing water. I then gained the top of the hillside and traversed the boggy ground until I came across the path to Craig Varr.

I arrived on the summit to gusty winds swirling the heavy cloud around the ancient and twisted collection of dead and alive Pine trees. I had anticipated awesome views over the valley floor to the mighty Schiehallion, but unfortunately the mountain was all but invisible. I did not get my camera out but enjoyed wandering around the startling array of trees. It will definitely be a location I visit again - it would be quite superb at both sunrise and sunset.

I then made my way down, following the unnamed stream, stopping to photograph a broken larch branch resplendent in its golden autumn colour dangling over the stream.

I arrived back in the village a while before sunset but the conditions looked hopeless. I thought about checking-in to the B&B but thought I should be using this time to recce locations for the next few days.

I picked the North road along Loch Rannoch to see what I could find. I stopped at a conveniently placed lay-by next to a stream. About 10-feet out on the loch were a series of dead trees. I got out and decided to have a play, even though the conditions were not conducive to great photography. The ever-changing Scottish weather was on my side and I was lucky enough to have amazing golden sidelight illuminate the scene to get this shot.

The full story behind this shot can be found here.

With that shot in the bag I headed to my B&B.

DAY TWO

The weather around sunrise was pretty bad. Thick cloud and rain hampered any chance of photography so I decided to drive around Loch Rannoch taking in Rannoch Station to see if I could find any other loch-side locations. After arriving back in Kinloch Rannoch with a few spots looking promising for a revisit I decided I had to head to woodland to make the most of the dull weather.

I had decided to head to the Falls of Bruar. Lots of great woodland and a swollen river due to the recent bad weather made it a no brainer.

I arrived and parked up at the House of Bruar during the start of their famous annual sale – D’OH! The place was pandemonium and I thought the woodland walks would be heaving with people. Luckily, however, the bad weather kept the walks relatively quiet! I spent a good few hours wondering around the woods but nothing really caught my eye. I had been here before and was determined not to shoot the same waterfalls that I got before (and that everyone else gets).

The water levels where indeed high, meaning the water velocity was much faster than I had seen there before. The large pools at the bottom of the bigger falls had lots of foam swirling around so thought I could do something with it. Wading into one of the pools in my wellies, I started doing some long exposure work when I noticed in one of my shots a beautiful whirlpool. This is truly what I mean about “The Invisible Landscape”, those subtle nuances exposed by long exposures – despite knowing where the epicentre of the whirlpool was I just could not work out how the camera could “see” it! I stared for ages, watching the water move about and just could not see how the whirlpool came about. I eventually just accepted it and got some really striking shots. At the top left of the shots you can see the bottom of the waterfalls.

Happy with my lot I headed back to Loch Rannoch for sunset. I found another set of trees submerged in the water and silhouetted them with really nice gloaming colours of sunset behind!

DAY THREE

When I awoke the conditions looked ripe for an amazing sunrise! I headed to Dunalaister Water as I know of a location I wanted to try with Schiehallion reflecting in the water. After 20 minutes I realised that due to the large hills all around I was in completely the wrong place for sunrise. I got back to the car as quick as I could and headed straight for Kinloch Rannoch. As the scenery opened up I could see amazing pre-dawn colours slowly fade from the sky. Cursing myself I got to the loch side, got out of the car and headed up the beach, quickly trying to find something before the colour faded completely.

Thankfully I happened upon two trees submerged in the water which seemed to be entwined in an ancient dance of trees. Without really thinking I knew how I wanted to frame and expose the shot. On autopilot, I got my shot and after reviewing it on the camera decided that the more subtle colours in the sky probably suited the shot more than a full blown riot of colours.

Happy that I did not totally miss the pre-sunrise I headed back to the location of my last shot on Monday to see if I could get any sunlight on schiehallion (due to being 1000m above sea level and mountains towering above me the sun wouldn’t actually show itself until it was quite high in the sky). Settling on a composition, I tried really hard to make the shot work but by the time the sunlight hit loch side slightly East of my location the sun was too high and the light too cool for my taste. I think if there was more cloud in the sky the shot would have been far more interesting and I would have been able to shoot earlier.

For the next 4 or 5 hours the sunlight was really too harsh in a cloudless sky so I did not really achieve much.

On my way back from Pitlochry after a lunch time pitstop I decided to drive the south road of Loch Tummel for a change of scenery. There was nothing that caught my eye until I started to head down towards Tummel Bridge. In the deepest part of the valley the rays of the low winter sun could not penetrate leaving the hoar frost on the silver birches from the previous evening. I immediately found a place to park and headed onto the hillside. There was quite literally an infinite number of compositions to be had from this feast! It was not long until another landscape photographer had parked next to me with the same idea in mind! I made several compositions, a few of which accentuated the obvious bands of colour created by brown bracken, silver hoar frost-covered trees, the misty hillside and blue sky. I also made another few shots looking over towards the impressive Beinn a Chuallaich.

On arriving back in Kinloch Rannoch it had started to rain heavily so headed back to the B&B

DAY FOUR

Only had a morning left as I had to be back in Aberdeen for a late lunch, so I only had the option of sunrise. I drove through Kinloch Rannoch and up Schiehallion Road. I rounded the shoulder of Schiehallion to be confronted with amazing colours in the sky. I got really excited really quickly and was desperate to have a composition to make the use of this amazing colour. Again, luck seemed to be on my side when I came across a reedy and completely iced-up Lochan an Daim. I got out of the car, shoved on my wellies, grabbed my camera kit and headed down to the loch-side. It really was unbelievably cold and I did not have my layers on. Shivering, I knew I didn’t have time to try and find a way to the other side of the lochan, which would have been the obvious place to shoot this scene. Instead, I used my tripod to break the ice and waded out until the water was really close to the top of my wellies. I set up and made my shot which I was really happy with. The snow-clad mountainside was positively glowing under clouds tinged by pinks through to reds. The icy lochan and wonderful reeds helped complete the shot.

Happy, but really quite cold, I made my way back to the car for the long drive back up to Aberdeen.

I had a brilliant time in the area and just cannot wait to go back again!

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