In May and the first part of June we spent six weeks traveling in Scotland, Ireland and England. The first part of our trip was in Scotland, and after a brief stay in Inverness we headed to the Isle of Skye. (A few days later we headed north from there to loosely follow parts of the NC500 route.)
The weather, it being Scotland and early May, was... interesting. It rained at least some almost every day we were there. Sometimes this simply meant gray skies — and challenging photography. But when the sun broke through it often produced a misty, luminous atmosphere and often impressive cloud-filled skiers.
What follows are a few monochrome photographs from Skye... and one from "almost Skye." The Eilean Conan Castle is located along the water just before you get to Skye, but I t think it is close enough.
Ross Martin wrote:
These are all a delight for my eyes this morning, Dan! Really beautiful and tasteful monochrome work. Easily wins my vote.
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junglialoh wrote:
Well portrayed classic photography with fine composition
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Lobohowler wrote:
Love these. Great work.
Thank you, all!
Skye and Northwest Scotland (in photograph I have not yet share here) were eye-opening, if sometimes a challenge to photograph. We have been to Scotland before, so I knew about Scottish weather, but this was visit was a little earlier in the year that previous, and that was enough to shift things in… “interesting” ways.
It was often cloudy and wet. Some days were entirely cloudy, and rain ranged from pretty solid (and sometimes momentarily quite intense, with strong winds) to periodic showers. The fully cloudy days were a photographic challenge, for sure, though even on those there were occasional lighter moments or interesting mists and shafts of light.
It was also surprisingly cold. At first I thought that it was maybe just us, but locals I spoke with confirmed that, yes, it was unusually cold for the first half of May. The highest peaks here in Scotland are just over 3000’ feet, which seems pretty modest to this Californian who is familiar with the Sierra Nevada, but they are rugged for their height, and several times we saw new snowfall on their summits.
In some ways, I suspect that September or even early October might be good times to photograph there. For one thing, being so far north, by May sunrise was already very early and sunset very late, making for extremely long days — and in the early autumn that would not be an issue.
But, all of that aside, Scotland is truly a wonderful place and we’d go back yet again in a heartbeat. (Don’t know that I qualify as an expert on the country yet, but if anyone has questions, let me know.)
