Sarah, Darrly and I jumped in my car and did a tour of Glen Lyon last Friday. It was a cold day but we still didn’t expect to hit as much snow as we did when nearing the top of the hills.

Sarah will be along with her pictures soon, if she can get her internet working…

YIEAHY! at last I have the internet back, woohoo! So Glen Lyon. Was great to get out and about in the day time for a change and a lot better than the team meeting I was meant to go in for!!!  It was a beautiful day too, bright sun, cold air, deep mist hugging the hollows and frost sitting in the shadows. We headed up an increasingly narrowing road into the hills, stopping for photos and pack lunch on the way. The higher we got, the more beautiful it became with that wonderful Scottish light hitting off the light snow. We really do live in a amazingly beautiful country, and can’t see why anyone would want to live anywhere else.

Anyway, half way up Ian decided to tell us that he wasn’t sure we had enough fuel to get back down, just to add to the excitement. So with watching fuel gage, aware that none of us had a mobile signal, we turned onto the Ben Lawyers Road and into the snow. What a wonderful view we got, but think the driving was a bit taxing and it wasn’t exactly easy to park on the snowy one tack road. But what we did manage to shoot was well worth it. All in all a very satisfying photo trip.

The Ben Lawers Road

Bothy Ruins

Ian decided that another night shoot was called for so after rushing around most the day and managing to shove some food down my neck I met up with him and Darryl and we headed out back of yonder to Glen and Loch Lednock at the back of Comrie. When we got there the place was deserted and the stars were out, but as there was no moon the place was pitch black, thankfully we remembered our torches. We set up cameras down by a nice falls just above the Loch with the stars shinning away happily overhead. With tripods left in there places we sat down on the grassy hillside and watched the stars disappear as clouds lazily rolled in over them. EEEK! so much for star trails.

We waited a few mins to see if they would pass and to try and figure out what the odd light moving on the other side of this remote Loch was. The light was strong and bright and bounced back off of the clouds overhead. Very odd. Then giving up on the hiding stars we went back to the car park and decided to play around with the torches and flashes with different gel colours. Using long shutter speeds and flashes or torches behind a solitary figure (Darryl) we got some good ghostly silhouettes. So the boys being boys decided to set up a light fight with Darryl blasting himself.   Using the different colours of flashes and Darryl standing for long period of times in set positions, Ian lit him up and by running back and forth and circling the lights created a light blast. Then on a 2nd shot Darryl did his being hit pose and again Ian lit him up with the various flashes. I put these 2 shots together in photoshop by cloning one into the other and fine tuning the overlaps by erasing the 2nd layer (which the cloned image was on) and also using the healing tool once the layers were flattened, to blur it a bit around some edges. Creating the finished photo (below). A bit of hard work on the computer but worth it I think!

Darryl destroying himself with a mighty blast!

Ian then went on to light up his car with the cornucopia of flash gels we had. While Darryl ate his make shift shutter release button and took very few photos, though he was a very good participating model for the light shots. As we were finishing off we saw the odd beam of light get closer and closer and for some reason I was put on guard to keep an eye on the road, typical men, leave the girl to face the unknown! Soon the light was heading up our road and straight for us where it transpired to be a local in a Land Rover with a very big spotlight who was out lamping (shooting foxes, which I have to say I don’t agree with!). He was very nice and told us that due to kids coming up and drinking etc at the Loch and causing damage at night that the gate was usually locked further down the road, and it was only open because he was out. Struggling to fathom why kids would come so far out to mess around we said we would lock the gate behind us when we went back down the road. So it was not what we had expected for our shoot and didn’t do so good on the star trails, but it was a good, fun night and we got some great abstract shots, even if we didn’t see an UFO after all!

Long shutter and a few flash gun flashes turn Darryl into a ghost

What I discovered on this shoot was how much torchlight is actually needed to bring objects into a shot when you are in complete darkness. A lot! A helluva lot!

I was shooting in bulb mode and had to drop my aperture from f10 to f4.5 just to make the light from the torch have any effect. My first frame was comletely black except for the light from Sarah’s camera which I didn’t even realise was in my frame.

I had visions of an epic photograph of the water (which would be lit by torch) and really long star trails above it, mainly as I had intended to leave the camera sitting for about 45 minutes doing its thing. After just 10 minutes, the sky had a different plan which involved a cloud coverage en-mass.

Not a lot came of this shoot from the photo side of things (from my point of view) but it was a lot of fun!

Torch lit falls

As my photo bud is working lots and looking after 2 kids when he’s not working I dragged my mother out for photo trip instead. The advantage of going out with mother is that she supplies lunch too, we originally said we would have a picnic but when Sunday morning came it was dull and wet and windy so we agreed to to Gloagburn farm instead, YUM! Gloagburn is between Perth and Crieff at Timbermore and does wonderful home cooking using organic ingredients off of their farm. As we munched on our lovely food and discussed the weeks ongoings the heavens opened and to say it poured down is an understatement. It was rain of a more biblical nature and just as we considered making us an arc it calmed down and left behind it a lovely sunny and warm day. So after lunch we decided to venture out into the world and headed away from the dark bruised clouds that were fleeing to Perth. The sun was shining over Crieff so we went that way instead and on the spur of a moment went to Loch Turret just beyond. I have been there I few times but always in the autumn and winter and have been met with snow, mist and a very full loch. But this time, in summer, it was very different. The glen was lush with greenery and the loch itself was somewhat shrunken revealing little stony beaches underneath its edges. It was beautiful with the sun shining over the hills and sparkling blue water.

Legoesk hydro building

The whole place was maybe a bit too perfect and had an unreal feel about it like someone had painted it on . The colours were bright and harsh in the Scottish light, but the most unreal thing is the Hydro building. The loch is a dammed river and is looked after by Scottish water. At the base of the Dam which looks like a steep green hill is a building which home the pumps and on this day had an alarm going off. It is a stone building of grey and red and with the steep hill behind it and the blue sky above it looks like it is made of lego or some child had painted it on. Very odd! After deciding that the alarm was not a signal that the dam was going to burst open we headed up to the loch and a view point which was sign posted but we never actually found.

The loch looking lovely before the storm

As the day was now so wonderful, though still a bit breezy we walked along the path at the side of the loch, a path which turned in to a small river at times due to the mornings rain. We got about a mile down it when it gave up being a path and turned into a grassy track and eventually into nothing but heather on a hillside. We did find a stream tumbling down to the loch and a little waterfall which I at a couple of shots of with a low ISO and  Shutter speed  although they were a bit blurry as in order to get them with the wide angle (I didn’t have another lens with me) I had to lean over a very slippy stone which was too slippy to stand on and balance the camera on the edge of it at arms length, surprising I managed to get any good ones really! After this stream we thought we should head back as the path was no longer obvious and the sky was darkening. Back up through the heather we went to the path/ river which we had followed up and after passing a few tourists in t shirts and no jackets (fools they are, do they not know about Scottish weather) the sky turned a deep dark navy and the sun disappeared behind some very heavy clouds which closed in around the hills and cried their woes to us. Like someone had ripped them open the clouds threw their contents at us and I was very glad I had brought my waterproof jacket which is big enough to zip up over me and my camera. It seems we did not beat the storm after all.

With thunder rumbling in the distance we speed back around the loch and over the dam to the car and reached it well and truly drenched. And although the scene was pretty spectacular with a moody sky over loch and glen I was not getting my camera out of my jacket and subjecting it to the buckets of water that were being hurled at us. The drive back down the one track road was interesting with the rain bouncing off of its uneven surface and obscuring our view. At the bottom of the glen is the glen Turret distillery and we sought sanctuary there with it’s giant Grouse until the rain eased and revealed yet again a beautiful sunny day with a blue sky and cheerful white, fluffy clouds. If it wasn’t for the soaked ground and drenched people you would think it had always been a lovely day. Good old Scottish weather, just like its people and a bit on the unpredictable side and often full of surprises!