Another visit to Glencoe in the Scottish highlands with no high expectations of great photography!
The weather forecast was actually too good with blue sky for the majority of the day, certainly not ideal conditions for a good landscape photo.
As I was aware of the cloudless sky, I wasn't really bothered with a sunrise shoot so left the house much later. After a couple of hours drive in really icy conditions, I approached Rannoch Moor (about 10 miles shy of Glencoe). Unexpectedly, I arrived about half an hour before sunrise and the sky was absolutely gorgeous, albeit with no clouds. It was glowing a soft magenta colour which in turn was reflecting off the snow. I dumped the car at the roadside and headed for the moor franticly searching for some kind of foreground interest. Luckily there was a solitary frost covered tree with a beautiful backdrop of snow covered hills with a hint of orange glow, almost christmas card like!
From there I headed to my favourite place which I have shot countless times, a small waterfall nearthe entrance to Loch Etive. I ventured out the car to temperatures of -11, as expected, the waterfall was solid. I took a couple of quick snaps as it still looked like an interesting photo with remarkable details in the ice.
Onwards to the Devils Staircase for a gentle stroll up the mountain! as I climbed higher I came across this beautiful bridge. Much like the previous photo, its the different conditions that attracted me to take this shot. Snow all around with some some small contrasting black tones in the mountain. Its probably not a location I would shoot at any other time of the year but I think it made a lovely composition.
Of course, I couldn't resist a wee selfie at the top!
Back down the freezing mountain and back to my waterfall for sunset. There were clouds in the sky now so I was hopeful of a nice sunset image, even with the waterfall frozen solid. The light was changing every few minutes as was the temperature, you could almost see the frost developing minute by minute turning the whole landscape arctic like. I tried to look for a different composition with my first shot, something unique rather than the usual wide vista. A portrait composition with two trees framing the mountain with a waterfall as a leading line, I think it works quite well!
Although I liked the image, I still found the most popular place to stand was best for this scene (popular for a reason I guess) These two shots were taken within 10 minutes of each other with very different outcomes. The first shots was a standard exposure of 1/10 of a second with the usual base ISO, there was some movement in the water which I wanted to slightly blur so I had to use a very unusual F22 to reach 1/10 shutter (I was tempted with filters at this point to reduce the shutter speed but my whole body was too cold). I was really happy with how it looked on the back of the camera and was ready to leave, it was so cold I could hardly feel anything anymore!.
As a glutton for punishment I decided on one more shot! From the exactly the same position, I got out the filters. I put on the polariser to take the glare away from the water, A soft edge grad to balance the sky and a six stop ND for a longer exposure time of just under 2 minutes. A very different looking image within minutes of each other.
I packed the gear away and headed home!. Not long after getting in the car I came across this gorgeous scene, beautiful white trees with an autumn feel at the base, I just had to stop! As the sun had gone for the day, the lighting was quite flat but I'm glad I stopped. It looked like something out of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, very surreal and peaceful with mist rolling through the scene and very stark contrast.
