March 2024 – Dave's Place

Sunday – Glencoe

I rose early on the Sunday and took myself off for a pre-breakfast walk along the main road and then retracing my footsteps back along the bank of the loch. It was drizzling and rather windy again although that wasn’t going to put us off I knew. The plan for the day had been settled the night before and so after breakfast we headed out in the van to see what we could do with the day.

Whilst our plan was to simply go with the flow and see where the light took us we started the day at a little waterfall in Glencoe that Dave had researched online prior to our visit.

Clachaig Falls is a lovely small waterfall on the lower reaches of the River Coe just outside Glencoe and repaid us handsomely both at this initial visit and at another later in the week. Despite rather unpromising weather, and more importantly, light, we made the best of the conditions.

From there it was a short hop across the road to a very popular lay-by which looks on to a beautiful cottage. Discovered by excavators for the National Trust for Scotland, the Achtrioachan Cottage is a thatched dwelling that existed in the previously lost city of the same name. A witness to some of Scottish history’s most bloody battles in the heart of Glen Coe, it’s believed to have been lived in by Clan MacDonald during the Jacobite Uprising.Despite not long having had a brew with breakfast it would have been rude not to have another and so Dave got busy with the kettle whilst I played with the camera on my iPhone.

Playing with the long-exposure mode on the iPhone.

The Three Sisters. iPhone sweep panorama

We spent the rest of the daylight pottering around in the van, exploring minor roads and generally scouting out ideas should there be an opportunity later in the week with better conditions. Oh, and the, by now, obligatory tea stops along the way, lunching like Kings from the packed lunch we’d hastily cobbled together before we left the cottage.

Next time – drone flights both before breakfast and at the shipwreck.

Saturday – Loch Leven

Footpath along the edge of Loch Leven. Fuji X100T

Saturday dawned, wet and windy, but undaunted I left our rented cottage before 7am to explore the loch that ran past the end of the road. Sadly, most of the ways down to the loch were barred; “Private. No Entry” being two signs we encountered a lot during the week. We haven’t been to Scotland for around five years and quite frankly had never encountered so many “Keep Out” instructions in the past.

It turned out that there was a stretch of around three-quarters of a mile along the bank that was accessible before encountering another “Private” directive. I ended up walking this stretch on all but one of the mornings we stayed in North Ballachulish and making a few images on each day. On one morning I even managed to capture a few aerial images but they are for another day.

Back at the cottage following my pre-breakfast walk, Dave and I discussed the plans for the day. Loch Leven is a location we’ve passed many times over the years but never explored so, as it has a road that runs around it to Kinlochleven and back down the other side to North Ballachulish, we decided to start our week with the drive. Thinking it would be a good way to spend an hour or so we set off not realising that we’d spend most of the morning pottering about on the shores of the loch.

Typical of the landscape around Loch Leven. Fuji XT3

At the eastern end of the loch is Kinlochleven, a village formed from two previously separate small communities – Kinlochmore to the north of the River Leven in Inverness-shire and Kinlochbeg to the south of the Leven in Argyll – following the construction of an aluminium smelter and associated housing for its employees. The processing plant was powered by a hydroelectric scheme situated in the mountains above, and made Kinlochleven the first village in the world to have every house connected to electricity, coining the phrase “The Electric Village”.

These days the village is a popular tourist destination but on the day we visited it was very quiet.

The road around Loch Leven goes through some stunning scenery. Fuji XT3

My favourite stop around the loch was at the “Seagull Island Viewpoint” according to our map. I presume therefore that the island we were viewing was called Seagull Island.

I will include the film images in a dedicated blog post.

This photo-stop ended up being a bit lengthier than we’d anticipated. I got out the Intrepid 5×4 camera and the Chroma 617 film back loaded with Ilford FP4+. Dave meanwhile got busy with the kettle and gas stove to brew up another mug of Yorkshire Tea, definitely the drink of choice throughout the week.

Loch Leven flows into Loch Linnhe, one of many sea lochs in the area. The loch side was our chosen spot for our lunch although given how the wind was howling along the loch we chickened out and sat in the van to eat it. As the light was deteriorating (see above) we took a ride along the loch but with little expectations.

We’d planned on including a couple of castles in our afternoon itinerary and although we reached both we only broke the cameras out at Castle Stalker (above). A wait of an hour or so produced very few opportunities and by the time we moved on from the beach we were rapidly losing the daylight.

Friday – Travelling (part two)

The final leg of our journey north took us through Rannoch Moor and Glencoe, two locations I’ve been to many times.

One of the last remaining wildernesses in Europe, the Great Moor of Rannoch is a vast stretch of land composed of blanket bog, lochans, rivers, and rocky outcrops. With flat light however as we drove up the A82 we chose not to stop for the usual photo opportunities but pressed on north towards the holiday cottage and our tea. The plan was to go straight to the cottage, unload the van and explore our surroundings.

We certainly weren’t expecting to stop and photograph the oft-photographed Black Rock Cottage in Glencoe.

But we did!

Given the number of times I’ve driven the A82 it may surprise some that this was the first time I have ever photographed this cottage. But, the scene that briefly unfolded before our eyes as we approached the scene was too good to miss.

Feeling very happy with this chance encounter we restarted the journey full of optimism. It was probably the best “first day” we’ve had on our many joint travels.

Friday – Travelling (part one)

Milarrochy Bay is a bay on Loch Lomond, in southern Scotland. It is near the village of Balmaha and known locally as Bakey Bay. Fuji X100T

Our rented cottage is around 350 miles from home meaning a six or seven hour drive depending on the roads. However, Dave and I are photographers so we know from experience that it will take considerably longer given the photographic opportunities en-route. We therefore set off at 6:30am with bacon butties wrapped in foil and a flask of strong Yorkshire tea (the latter just for me).

We were very restrained however and apart from a wee-stop we didn’t break our journey until 11:30am when we arrived at Milarrochy Bay on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond in southern Scotland. This was a location that Dave had researched and was a popular spot for photographers so I was expecting it to be busy. Not so. We had the shore to ourselves apart from the occasional tourist who pulled up, took a phone snap or two and then departed as quickly as they’d arrived.

The light was unpromising as we arrived so our first priority was to get the kettle on the portable hob and make a fresh brew which we drank sat peacefully on the shingle shore. Whilst the light never truly sparkled for us we spent quite a while there with the tripods seeing plenty of activity. I took my Intrepid 5×4 out of the bag and fitted the Chroma 617 roll film back for only the second time since I bought it late last year. Time flew.

We spent around three hours on the beach. Photographing and simply sitting and enjoying the view whilst drinking tea took up more time than we’d realised.

I had exposed a roll and a half of Ilford FP4+ in the Chroma 617 back and two sheets of 5×4 film using the Intrepid along with a few digital images including the one at the top of the page with the venerable Fuji X100T. Happy with our morning’s work we packed up and turned the van north once more. Our next planned stop was to be in Glen Coe, exact spot to be decided as we passed through.

This is the first in a series of diary posts from the recent trip to Scotland using digital images. Once I have developed and processed the films I will put digit-to-screen and bring you those too.

Wot – no film?

I seem to have started 2024 very slowly blog-wise. Just seven posts so far compared to nineteen in 2023. I can’t help but wonder if the reasons are two-fold. In early 2023 I was starting to explore the world of fifty-year-old rangefinders which was providing a fair bit of material for the blog. In addition, thus far in 2024 I have only exposed and developed three rolls of film. Shock! Horror!

Over the last few years as I have really immersed myself back into film photography I have used a prodigious amount of film. It was great fun but I had to do something to slow this drain on my pension especially with costs in every area of living escalating as they are. However, truth be told, I’ve probably over-egged the cake as they say and cut back rather too harshly.

One strategy I decided upon at the start of the year was to use my digital kit more, especially for my ongoing 366 project. This has been so successful that all of my 366 images this year have been made with the Fuji X100T apart from a few with the Fuji X-T3. My phone hasn’t got a look in. Allied to this I’ve started using Lightroom on my tablet too and I’ve been busy learning how to use that. So, it’s truly been a digi-centric start to the year. Not least however because I’ve also not been able to clarify the approach that I want to take to my film photography for this year.

However, I think I’ve finally confirmed in my own head the way to go this year. Film remains my main interest photographically but I’m going to use it more deliberately. It’s no exaggeration to say that I carry a camera at all times. I make images every day, partly for the 365/366 Challenge and partly as my way of keeping active and engaged in the world around us. Over the last few years this inevitably meant that I was loading a roll of film most mornings and developing it the same day. Even on days when the light was poor I’d still have the mindset that I needed to finish the roll that morning.

Honestly? It was wasteful.

Interestingly, I’ve just been looking back at the images from the first sixty-five days of this year on the Fuji X100T and some days I’ve made just half a dozen exposures. Last year I would have finished the film regardless in order to have my daily image ready to post. That’s one habit I can look to change although I will need to keep notes when using film for the 366 to keep me on the straight and narrow. Even more interestingly, on the days when I’ve exceeded this handful I’ve ended up with between thirty and forty images …. I couldn’t have got closer to a 36 exposure roll of film if I tried.

It helps that I’ve turned the LCD screen off on my digital cameras and have dropped the habit of “chimping” as I go. By using the camera in the same way I might use the Leica IIIg I appear to have adopted a similar frugality of approach. With digital it’s too easy to make six exposures when one would do!

So, changing the way I use the film cameras, especially when using them for my 365, is definitely the way to go. Making more use of my digital cameras will complement this very well.

I’m shortly off to Scotland with a good friend for a week of photography. Dave and I have been out together numerous times over the years, countless day trips and this is I believe our seventh photographic holiday. My camera bags are packed and film has been removed from the fridge in readiness. I will blog my experiences in due course, some digital images as I go and then once I’m back there will be plenty of film photography to share I hope.

I bought myself a 6×17 roll film back for my Intrepid 5×4 camera just before Christmas and apart from one test roll it’s not yet been used in earnest. Scotland will I hope be the perfect opportunity for a good field test and a subsequent blog post.

I am off now to load the Leica IIIg or perhaps the Canon VTDM and see how long I can make 36 exposures last!

Good light all!