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.
(NOTE: See a note to the Fujifilm forum at the end of the post… and in a Fujifilm forum post for anyone interested in discussing it.)
For people interested in the gear I used, a note about the equipment and why I chose it. The great majority of (almost all, actually) my landscape photography is done with a larger full-frame system, shooting from the tripod. But since this trip was six weeks of travel, much of it in urban areas, and because it also included a one-week walk in the Cotswolds… it did not make sense to cart the equipment on this journey.
So I altered my usual Fujifilm XT5 travel photography kit to support some handheld landscape photography. (I did bring a very small “emergency” tripod, too.) I brought one small prime for most urban/street photography. For subjects like these on Skye, I brought the 16-55mm f/2.8 and 50-140mm f/2.8 lenses plus the 1.4x TC.
gdanmitchell wrote:
t 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.
Having been there shortly after you were there and experiencing such cloudy conditions, I was surprised to see you able to come away with such great compositions featuring the sky.
I'm really enjoying these, especially #2 an #3. Good to know I wasn't the only one that got lots of rain! In fact, I was just speaking with a friend who lives part time on Skye and he said this past June was the wettest June in the last 30 years.
Lobohowler wrote:
Having been there shortly after you were there and experiencing such cloudy conditions, I was surprised to see you able to come away with such great compositions featuring the sky.
thanks!
It was not easy at times! In fact, I got somewhat skunked at a few spots, including The Old Man of Storr and the waterfall and Kilt Rock.
The Storr situation was disappointing, though I did get a few photographs there that I think work. Basically we showed up in steady rain with very strong winds…and debated whether to head up the trail or not. Since we can’t just hop back over to Skye on the next sunny day and re-shoot Storr… we suited up in full rain gear with warm layers underneath and headed out into the rain. We got pretty far up the trail before it became apparent that the formations were socked in and the rain wasn’t going to let up, so we made a few photographs and headed back down via a different route… where I did get a few shots that I like of a nearby valley with a loch and rainfall over the sea.
I have seen photographs of the Kilt Rock waterfall in lovely light… this wasn’t it. ;-) I’m still working on what I shot, and I think I may be able to coax some dark and possibly dramatic imagery out of it. We’ll see!
The next couple of days featured more mixed weather, and almost every time we got some light I quickly found something to photograph! Scotland’s weather changes fast, so you take advantages of the of opportunities when you get them!
amv8 wrote:
I'm really enjoying these, especially #2 an #3. Good to know I wasn't the only one that got lots of rain! In fact, I was just speaking with a friend who lives part time on Skye and he said this past June was the wettest June in the last 30 years.
Thanks!
While I photograph the icons, especially if I”m new to a place and may not be back, I’ll photograph any subject that is interesting and which gives me workable (or better) light.
#2 is kind of a case in point. Those two beautiful trees are way down a side road that few would drive on — it took us to the rather remote lodge where we stayed. As we drove back and forth on it each day, I started to see more and more potentially interesting subjects right there… including these trees.
#3 is also from a pretty remote place, the southwestern Skye village of Elgol. More or less on a whim — hey, it was off the beaten path! — we headed out there after doing a morning tour at the Talisker Distillery. Hey, it’s Scotland — you can do a whisky tour in the morning! The route took us down a long, winding single-track, and eventually to a hill where the little village began. From that hill there is a tremendous view out across the water toward a group of islands. The abstract shape of the island, with its details lost in the haze, seemed like a good contrast with the dramatic clouds and the reflections on the water.
(NOTE: Typing too fast without proofreading, I let a bunch of dumb typos remain when I originally posted this. The following has now been cleaned up a bit. I hope!)
Thank you, all!
Skye and Northwest Scotland (in photographs I have not yet shared here) were eye-opening, if sometimes a challenge to photograph. We have been to Scotland before, so I knew about Scottish weather, but this visit was a little earlier in the year than the 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 surprisingly cold. At first I thought that it was maybe just us and our California-adapted bodies, 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 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.)
