A Trip To Torrin
With extremely changeable weather blowing through, conditions are brilliant for photography right now (late October). With nothing else to do, I thought it would be a good opportunity to head over to Torrin for a spot of photography.
But on the way I was seriously distracted by the scene over the Sound of Sleat looking across to the mainland. Heavy showers were running up the Sound, pouring thousands of gallons of rain onto the hills. I love it when the weather is like this. The light changes so quickly. Clouds bring character to the sky. Haze and rain provides depth to the landscape.
I had to stop and spend a delightful hour watching the scene unfold in front of me. I had my Leica Q3 rigged up on a tripod, with some serious filter stacking to lengthen the shutter speed to 300 seconds. I ended up with an ND1000 and ND8 on the lens which proved ideal. This big shower hit the coast opposite and provided just the drama I was looking for.
An umbrella is invaluable in this situation. It is one of the most overlooked photography accessories. It kept rain drops off my lens and sheltered my camera from the wind. Always have an umbrella handy.
Then I did head over to Torrin, via the Coffee Bothy of course. A couple of weeks back I took a 1-1 workshop client to this area, and I found this composition for him. I was jealous of the resulting image that he got, so vowed to go back my myself (I never take my own images when out with clients).
This is a particularly interesting area to photograph, but also incredibly difficult. It has a lot of great features, including a stunning backdrop, fractured rocks, shoreline etc. But it is nightmare to knit them together into something coherent in two dimensions. This is always something I love about photography - the puzzle solving. This particular composition works very nicely though, with this little pool of pebbles pointing in the right direction and being much lighter in tone than the dark rocks surrounding them.
To simplify the image as much as possible, I went with another long exposure (bit of a theme in this set) to smooth out the water surface in Loch Slapin. This is a really important aspect of my photography. I like to reduce distractions as much as possible, and with an already quite “crunchy” image I wanted to get rid of as many distractions as possible, the ripped loch surface being one of them.
I also waited a long time for a squall to come through and provide some depth-enhancing layering to the background. The tone of the distant mountains matches that of the loch surface which really helps the image. I really like the end result. It was well worth the complexity of setting everything up and waiting all that time for the conditions to be just right.
After I had exhausted this little area, I wanted to spend a bit more time on the salt marsh at the head of Loch Slapin. Salt marshes are one of my favourite subjects, but they are also one of those very frustrating things to photograph. I love the clean lines at the edges of the pools, and the curvaceous channels weaving their way across the surface.
I spent a good couple of hours looking around this big area, hopping channels and crawling on all fours to find a decent composition. Every time I visit this place I can’t find the place I was at previously. It really is a bit of a mystery.
Eventually I found this excellently shaped channel. The curve at the bottom of the image holds everything in nicely. I deliberately didn’t use a polariser to get a light surface on the water to lead to the mid-ground which is full of organic brain-like channels. The backdrop is rather epic of course, with soft light skimming off the ridges.
What a brilliant day of photography it was. Simply wandering around absorbing the space I was in was so revitalising. I started to notice things that I’d otherwise miss if I was rushed. I revelled the freshness of the air, which is so pure and fresh it is almost liquid. The weather was elemental. The scenery was spectacular. The photographs are just an accessory to the beauty that surrounded me.
