Trips - Part 3: Glencoe
Despite the need for a service technician to drive 2 hours from Glasgow to Glencoe to service the drive shaft of the bimobil, we were on our way out of the campground by 10:30 am that morning. Thank you Iveco Assistance Non-Stop.
We took our time driving through the main part of the valley, scoping out potential locations where we could park and photograph, until we reached the first location I’d decided would make for a good start to our Glencoe excursions . . . if we could find a parking spot. We made the right hand turn onto the Skyfall road (farther down the road is where they photographed one of the scenes in the movie), and as we drove past, all of the parking spots were taken. We had to drive a couple of miles before we found a decent turn-around spot, and when we drove back we got lucky, there was a space big enough for the bimobil.
You’ve already seen a couple of other images from this location. These are of the falls looking away from the mountain. As you can see, it was a beautiful day, though we had to wait to make images in part due to the number of photographers who would come, closely approach the site, then run off for their next photo.
At one point, later in our wait, Ann said, “What’s that?” She pointed off behind me towards the intersecting valley you can see in the background of the image above. “It’s a military aircraft doing radar evading flight training!” I replied, reaching into my coat pocket to pull out the baby Leica to get a quick shot of it flying by. You can see from the image below that it is flying below the ridge line. A bit later, another plane flew out the valley and went in the other direction, away from us. Later, as we were driving towards the next photo location, four fighter jets flew past overhead, one right after the other - all at low levels.
Turning back to our main photo subjects, as I’d mentioned in the Photographs post, I was thrilled to be photographing flowing water again
As the early afternoon wore on, more and more clouds filled the sky, and our wait for spots of sunlight between images took longer and longer. Still, we waited until the conditions were right before moving to the next image.
Eventually, the sky became more cloud than blue sky and we decided to move onward. We headed over to my second planned location and hiked along a river in a different part of Glencoe. It was nice taking our time to photograph whenever we found an image.
We also didn’t mind the fact that a couple of photographers were at the well-known falls. We just continued down river to photograph other things.
Eventually returning to make our own image of the falls and then head back to where we parked the car. By the time we made it back, the clouds had fully socked us in. But that didn’t mean that there was not one final image to make before heading back to camp.
We woke up to rain the next day. The forecast for Glencoe didn’t look very good, but a bit south, just north of Loch Lamond, the weather looked to be a bit better, so we decided to drive down to a falls I had mapped. It was still raining as we approached a town near the falls so we decided to have a warm breakfast. Smart move on our part because the steady rain had stopped by the time we finished, so drove the few miles to the Falls of Falloch. To be honest, they weren’t spectacular, but it was a nice short hike and an opportunity to make the first image of the day.
I was glad I did because the rains started up as we drove back north and Glencoe greeted us with rain, dense fog and clouds. We opted not to brave the elements fearing that one of us would catch a cold before the workshop. It helped that the forecast said the rain was going to die down over the next couple of days so we drove around, scouting out possible locations to explore when the conditions got better and returned to camp to download images, do laundry, clean gear and get a good night’s sleep.
The next morning looked promising as we drove out of the campground. Sure, there were low clouds, but by now that was no surprise. Disappointment hit hard as we crested the hill from the valley closer to town that leads into the bigger valley. It was totally socked in. We drove from one end to the other on the off chance that some areas were clear. They weren’t. Fortunately, one of the locations I’d researched had a hike around a lake in the part of Glencoe not far from our campground and we hoped was not socked in. So we drove back the way we came.
It turned out to be a lovely morning of photography. We were in no rush, because even from there we could tell the conditions hadn’t changed much in the valley.
The water was still and there were reflections to be had everywhere. People would come by, occasionally stopping to chat, but for the most part, Ann and I were on our own.
I think this is the type of photography that Ann and I enjoy the most. Find a place and just take your time to discover images and then make them. Places that aren’t necessarily spectacular (because that then usually means crowds), but are beautiful nonetheless. Plus, it forces you to push yourself, to try to make one image different than the next so that all of the images don’t look the same. It’s harder than you think.
We wound up spending a bit over 3 hours on a trail that would take no more than 15 minutes to walk.
We had lunch and hoped that things had cleared up in the main valley by then. The image below, taken from the next morning, shows what we faced that afternoon as well. Clearly the valley hadn’t cleared. Again we drove the full length of Glencoe and back (as we did the next morning) and nothing was visible. This was grand landscape country but no grand landscape to photograph.
As noted above, conditions were the same the next morning. So thank goodness for planning (identifying a range of potential photo sites and selecting them based on conditions), because we had another fall-back position. So back over the hill into another area - farther down on the river we photographed at the first day.
We found a good parking spot for the bimobil and started hiking down the trail. I quickly found a side-track that led to the river and we started photographing. Even with limited visibility, Glencoe is a beautiful place.
We knew from the day before that we probably had plenty of time to photograph, assuming that it would be obvious if the cloud cover started breaking up, so we took our time, trying to make the most out of each of our stops. (Ok . . . maybe making the most out of the effort it takes to take off and put back on the camera backpacks.)
But the weight of the backpack is worth it, given it means we have a range of lenses to work from, which allows us to diversify the types of images we can make and what we can emphasize in the image.
Sometimes we wouldn’t go more than 100 yards before we put our packs down again.
Other times we’d hike some ways before a possible image revealed itself.
While just past peak, there were still enough leaves on the trees and leaf fall to give the real feel of autumn transitioning to winter. Often, I’d just pull out the baby Leica from my coat pocket to make an image.
The quality is generally good enough to make a decent photograph . . . if you don’t blow it up too much . . .
. . . and sometimes the snapshot makes you realize that you need to drop the pack and set up the tripod to work on the image.
As I said, I think that this type of “take your time and explore a place” is my favorite type of photographing. Sometimes you come away with nothing, but other times you thoroughly enjoy a few hours in the woods and come away with satisfying images. Thing is, no one would look at any of these images and say, “Hey, isn’t that Glencoe?” That doesn’t really matter, does it? And in the weather circumstances we found ourselves in, there were no obviously “Glencoe” images to be had.
This time the clouds had lifted (a bit) during our long morning shoot. So we headed down (by “down” I mean south) the valley to make some of the shots we’d scouted before. Conditions still weren’t great for grand landscape shots, but I could get some closer images. I’d fallen in love with the red berries of the Rowan tree and was glad to be able to get this image which we’d stopped at twice before in less favorable conditions.
And one of another tree not far away. Image how majestic these shots could have been had the mountains been in the background.
It was our last full day in Glencoe and we were hoping to drive the length of Skyfall Road. As we drove down the main road we discovered that while some of the low fog had lifted from the main valley, the valley to Glen Etive (to the left of the mountain below) was as socked in as ever. Perhaps we should have driven down the road just to check it out anyway but given the speeds some people were driving (it seemed that as conditions worsened, folks drove even faster-nothing to look at I guess), even on the one lane roads. I didn’t relish coming across some maniac not expecting to find a giant grey elephant of a vehicle in the middle of nowhere on a road where there are no good options for avoiding a head-on collision. Sometimes you don’t get to see everything you want.
The drive south to The Borrowdale in the Lake District wasn’t quite a full day’s drive, so we decided that the next morning we’d take off early just in case the clouds lifted. But luck was not on our side - the valley was socked in yet again. By the time we were leaving the valley, it started raining as well. By the time the rains stopped, we were on highway-type roads. Sometimes that’s all you can do - give nature the opportunity to favor you. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
It was time to drive back to England and get into a workshop mindset. At least I wasn’t going to be the one having to figure out which location to go to for the next few days.