Three nights on Eigg

After 22 hours of travel I finally arrived at my base for the next three nights, an off-grid static caravan at the Bay of Laig on Eigg.

Eigg is a small Scottish Island with a population of 100 people lying just south of the Isle of Skye. It boasts some amazing volcanic geology and striking coastal views.

The epic journey had brought me from Cambridge over 600 miles away via train, bus, another train, ferry and the final 4 miles on foot. My intention was to take some landscape photos and to get away from it all for a few days. With no electricity, mobile phone signal or TV it sounded idyllic.

Laig Bay Caravan
3 landscape shots stitched
Canon 5dmk4, 24-70mm, 1/40s at f11, iso100, handheld

It was an amazing late September day, warm and sunny hardly a cloud in the sky and not a breath of wind. More importantly no midge! After unpacking my rucksack, I lit the gas stove, popped the kettle on and sat down to a well deserved cup of tea. I had uninterrupted views across the deserted Bay of Laig to the mountains of Rum. Not a single person as far as the eye could see.

Enough relaxing I was here for a reason. I grabbed my camera, filters & tripod and headed out across the beach and the rocky shoreline to the North. One part in planning this trip I had overlooked was the state of the tides. The realisation that high tide would coincide with every sunset during my stay was a little disappointing.

Scrambling over the foreshore on a rising tide I tried a few different compositions and various ND filter combinations, but the sun was still quite strong and the shadows a bit harsh. I was better off scouting out some suitable compositions with lead in lines and interest for a little later on. This was quite tricky on a fast rising tide with many of the interesting features disappearing underwater.

Lead in lines to Rum
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 1.6s at f11, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad filter

Fading light over Rum
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 2.5s at f13, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad filter

As the day drew to a close and the glow over Rum faded I headed back to the caravan for some food and drink.

Sunday morning (day 2) I was greeted by grey skies and set off to climb An Sgùrr, the biggest hill on Eigg. Not huge by any standards 393m, but quite a dominant peak on the skyline. The walk over to the Sgùrr from Laig Bay is about 4 miles, then there is the 4 mile climb followed by another 4 miles to get back. My rucksack was much lighter than the previous day, but nevertheless with extra clothes, waterproofs, camera tripod and water it soon adds up. I completed the first 4 miles quite quickly, but failed to pick up the path climbing the Sgùrr. The heather and shrubs were a nightmare to fight my way through on the steep slopes. I eventually managed to rejoin the right route which was made progress much easier. The Sgùrr is has a impressive eastern end, over 100m of sheer volcanic pitchstone at first sight it appears an impossible climb. However, to reach the top you skirt round the back up a gully before a relatively gentle walk to the summit.

The Sgùrr
Canon 5dmk4, 24-70mm, 1/30s at f10, iso200, Kase 0.6 ND grad filter, handheld

The views from the top are far reaching across to the mainland, Muck, Rum and in the distance South Uist just over 40 miles away. Pausing for lunch and taking a 360 degree panorama I headed back down the Sgùrr to Galmisdale and a much needed snack from the general stores. Just the 4 miles back to the caravan. By mid afternoon I had made it back and the few breaks in the cloud combined with the low tide revealed the wide wet sands of Laig Bay. The light was a little bland, but good for some long exposure black and white shots and an opportunity to use my 10 stop ND filter.

Reflections in the sand
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 64s at f11, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad & Kase 3.0 ND filters

While the tide was still some way out I headed across the bay a short distance north where there are some striking sandstone concretions formed of calcite. Like giant marbles scattered on the rock ledges they have been eroded from the surrounding rocks over millennia. These form an amazing foreground offset by some dazzlingly bright green seaweed with Rum as the ever present backdrop.

Concretions Eigg
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 0.8s at f13, iso100, Kase 0.6 ND grad & Kase 1.8 ND filters

The helmet
Canon 5dmk4, 24-70mm, 0.6s at f13, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad & Kase 1.8 ND filters

I was eventually forced back by a rising tide and my evening meal and a well deserved bottle of beer. The beauty of staying right on the beach meant that I was able to dash out day or night and grab shots at a moments notice.

Sunset bag of Laig
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 8s at f11, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad filter

Milky way over Rum
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 30s at f6, iso6400

Monday morning (day 3) started to follow a similar pattern. Wake up, light boiler, shower, boil kettle, breakfast, wash up, brush teeth, switch boiler off, head out. The plan was to head North to the Singing Sands a mile or so up the coast. The Singing Sands are so called as when you walk on the sand it makes an intriguing sound as the grains of quartzite rub against each other.

There is an amazing little waterfall which has cut an almost canyon like slot into the rock exploiting the geology to dramatic effect. I tried as best I could to keep my feet dry, but even my gore-tex boots were starting to feel decidedly damp.

Eigg canyon
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 10s at f14, iso100, Kase polarizing filter

Moving on I scrambled northwards along the rocky coast. Pausing briefly to take a long exposure panoramic shot of Rum.

Rum panorama
3 landscape shots stitchedCanon 5dmk4, 24-70mm, 70s at f11, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad & Kase 3.0 ND filters

Soon it was time to head back for lunch.

By afternoon it had clouded over a bit so I decided to try and climb up the ridge at the back of Laig Bay to a rock pinnacle called God's finger. It really was a steep climb, but soon leveled out with spectacular views down to Cleadale, Laig Bay and across to Rum. I followed the path along the escarpment with distant views of Skye opening up on the horizon. I was briefly joined by two Golden Eagles circling overhead, an amazing spectacle. The sense of remoteness was inspiring, wild places do still exist you just need to search them out.

A few miles later and I was back at the caravan, another brief sit down and another brew. No time for relaxing though as the cloudy skies were starting to clear. I headed back down onto the beach to capture some patterns in the sand left by a small burn on it's last leg to the sea.

Patterns in the sand Bay of Laig
Canon 5dmk4, 16-35mm, 1.6s at f13, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad & Kase 1.8 ND filters

Another full day, capped off by a moody sunset.

Moody sunset from Eigg
Canon 5dmk4, 24-70mm, 10s at f11, iso100, Kase 0.9 ND grad filter

Tuesday (day 4) was my last day on Eigg. I packed up my rucksack and headed off first thing passing along Laig Bay, the bothy, Laig Farm and onto the Giants Footprint lochan. Climbing up through the bracken I paused to take one or two final snaps of the bay on my phone. Twenty minutes later after losing another path! I broke free from the undergrowth onto the road. I diverted briefly to Kildonan Bay, but unfortunately the sands were covered by the tide. Arriving back at Galmisdale and the ferry I had just enough time to enjoy some haggis for my lunch before catching the ferry and embarking on the 600 mile journey home.

An amazing trip, excellent weather, some great photos and an opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.


Resources:

Eigg Flickr album
www.marona.co.uk/scotland

Another New Website - www.marona.co.uk

I first registered my domain name marona.co.uk back in 1999. Lots of people have quizzed me about the origins of the name, the simple answer is it's the name of my house. After searching through atlases (assuming it was a place name) I drew a blank. I then assumed the previous owners may have been called Mary & Ronald or a combination there of. Recently I came across a baby name website to discover the girls name marona (not in the top 1000 names) in Hebrew means "flock of sheep". So there is the answer.

Using Wayback Machine I was able to dig out one of my earliest designs from 1999.

1999 design

In 2003 I was featured in Amateur  Photographer magazine and was praised for my clean and simple design. Back then I offered 6 images for sale. The purchasing process required you to download an order form print it out and post it off with a cheque. How things have changed.

Amateur Photographer

By 2006 I had dropped my wife's art work, Cityscape & Cambridge images. Cambridge images had flourished and moved to it's own domain. I was now down to three categories, Landscape, Panoramic & Close-up. I also added in PayPal payments, the order form process clearly wasn't going to catch on.

2006 design

Over the next few years the bulk of my website hits and a few sales were for Close-up images. Although I enjoy taking macro shots I was far more focused on landscapes. Fast forward to 2010 and another design change embracing pull down menus and numerous galleries.

2010 design

Since 2010 not a huge amount changed other than adding new images and retiring a few older ones. The site remained non responsive and a bit of pain to use on phones since everything was so small. 

Almost a year ago I redesigned www.cambridgeimages.co.uk using a w3schools CSS template and it was finally time to start thinking about sorting out www.marona.co.uk

I decided to stick with w3schools, but have a slightly different feel from my Cambridge site. Using a menu which stays at the top of the page as you scroll enabled me to add more content to a single page. The portfolio pages are also dynamically sizing meaning tablet and phone use should be much easier and usable. I've stuck with PayPal ordering, it's trusted and reliable and effective to implement.

More fundamentally I've re-brand myself as "Landscape photography of the UK". No more cityscape, macro or foreign destinations. Hopefully this will work in my favor and give me a clearer focus when adding new work.

New design

I hope you enjoy my new site, I've already received some positive feedback with lots of suggestions so I don't think it will be standing still for any great length of time.

Resources:

Waybackmachine - internet archive

w3schools CSS templates

www.marona.co.uk

www.cambridgeimages.co.uk

Three men go to Arran

Lochranza - Arran

Back in October 2011, Doug Robar set up a CamPhotoWalk group inviting a bunch of men from Christ Church Cambridge to go out and take photos.

"A photo walk is simple -- we gather at a specified place and time and walk around for an hour or so taking photos that fall within our pre-determined topic. When done we either all go some place to download everyone's photos to a laptop/projector  or if time is short commit to uploading to a flickr group within a few days with the object of delighting in the good ones, learning and encouraging one another about how our photos might be improved, and having a great time in the process."

I have to admit I didn't join straight away, but Doug didn't give up so easily inviting me along and before I knew it I was part of the group. Numbers swelled and we visited quite a few locations in and around Cambridge. Just over a year ago we spread our wings a little further afield and spent a weekend on the North Norfolk coast. 

Fast forward another year and three of the hardy CamPhotoWalk group have just returned from a long weekend on Arran. This last trip has been in planning since April, we could have gone earlier, but we didn't want to be getting up at the crack of dawn. After checking sunset and sunrise times we pencilled September into the diary. Flights, car, ferry & accommodation all booked we could sit back till a bit closer to the time.

All too soon September came round and the next thing I knew we were all travelling down by bus to Stansted for the relatively short flight to Glasgow. Phil had his trekking poles confiscated by security and Jeremy had a particularly dodgy looking flashgun he had borrowed from Doug which set off all sorts of alarms at check-in. After signing his life away and confirming he wasn't a terrorist we got under way.

Touching down in Glasgow we picked picked up the rental car and drove down to Ardrossan. 40 minutes later we hit the supermarket shelves to stock up on some essentials before checking in for the ferry. With still 2 hours to kill before our sailing Phil disappeared off with his camera taking some macro shots of the sea wall and foreshore, I didn't bother unpacking my kit opting to take a few snaps with my phone. After a pleasant crossing and all important tea on-board we arrived in Brodick. The light was starting to fade with no hint of a sunset so we headed off north towards Corrie and the famous boulders.

Corrie boulders - shot actually taken on our last day

Soon enough the light had almost completely gone so we packed up and headed for the hostel at Lochranza, our base for the next 4 nights. The hostel was very good indeed, great facilities, clean, tidy, comfy beds, friendly staff & perfect location, what more could you want?

Although I had made quite a detailed schedule of photo locations times etc. before the trip much of this was based around suitable weather. Having spent a week on Harris during the summer I wasn't holding out much hope. However, I couldn't have been more wrong the only rain we had was on Monday night when we were back at the hostel. 

I will rattle through our itinerary over the next few days with all of the locations we visited. I had to do lots of digging on the internet and flickr to come up with this list (pre trip). Hopefully if you are planning a trip to Arran it might help you a little.

Saturday:

• Early start at Lochranza, Castle & harbour reflections.
• Back to hostel for breakfast!
• Drive over to North Glen Sannox photos down the valley and then a stop off to take photos of the river.
• Brief stop at Corrie harbour
• Early lunch in Brodick
• Parked back near the brewery (off the A841) to start the walk up Goat fell via Glen Rosa
• Shots of the river and Glen Rosa (Not much water in the river though!)
• Over the saddle and then the scramble up Goat Fell from the north
• Sunset & packed tea top of Goat Fell
• Decent in the dark with head torches
• Back to the hostel 11pm, bed!

Lochranza castle & harbour

North Glen Sannox

Glen Rosa

Jeremy & Phil on Goat Fell

Group shot - Summit Goat Fell

Sunset Goat Fell

Sunday:

• Sunrise at Machrie Moor standing stones
• Breakfast back at Lochranza
• Walk to Newton point Lochranza followed by lunch
• Afternoon at Drumadoon, Phil walked on to King's Cave
• Sunset at Machrie bay
• Starry sky Lochranza 

Machrie Moor stone circle

Drumadoon

Machrie Bay sunset

Lochranza starry sky

Monday:

• Sunrise at Lamlash bay (sadly it didn't amount to anything)
• Glenashdale mushrooms in the forest
• Glenashdale falls & river
• Giants graves
• Kildonan (Jeremy fell asleep in the car)
• Arran cheese factory!
• Evening shoot at Glen Sannox & the Stone of Sannox

Mushroom magic Glenashdale

Glenashdale

Kildonan

Glen Sannox

Tuesday:

• Sunrise at Lochranza  (Phil & Jeremy had a lie in, Jeremy somewhat longer than Phil)
• Corrie Sandstone, harbour & sheep on jetty
• Another quick stop off at the Corrie boulders
• Brodick check in for ferry

Lochranza stag

Corrie jetty sheep

Sandstone patterns Corrie

Ten minutes for a quick souvenir dash in Brodick and we were back on the ferry homeward bound. Another very calm crossing followed by the short drive back up to Glasgow having only clocked up 250 miles. Slight delay on flight, but we still managed to catch the same coach out of Stansted after Phil had picked up his trekking poles! Home by 7:30pm a bit tired, but a great time away with friends. All I had to do then was go through my 400 shots!      

Resources:
www.marona.co.uk/scotland/
www.flickr.com/groups/camphotowalk/

Harris Landscape Photography

Seilebost looking across to Taransay

After what must be almost 25 years I finally returned to Harris. Last time I was a teenager holidaying with my parents, this time with my own family (10  & 12 yr old daughters!)

Photography back then was very much an ad hoc occurrence, I was keen, but certainly not driven. I've swapped my Velvia slide film for compact flash and my Olympus OM2n for a Canon 5D mk2. Back then I travelled light no cumbersome tripods, filters or accessories, just two prime lenses 50mm & 28mm. Now I pop an extra body and spare tripod in the car just in case!

Cambridge to Harris

Cambridge to Harris is a very long way. How I convinced my family that a holiday on Harris was a good idea I'm not sure, we looked into flying, but in the end decided to drive. Two stop overs on the way up, one near Moffat and the second at Dornie. Then a relatively short drive the length of Skye to catch the ferry from Uig.

Google maps said it would take 11 hours driving followed by 1 hour 40 on the ferry and another 30 minutes on the far side, unfortunately that didn't account for any traffic on the roads! The first day of travel was slightly slower than intended, but we were in no rush to get to Moffat. The second day the goal was to get to Dornie in plenty of time for sunset at Elian Donan Castle. This didn't go quite to plan since we got stuck on the A87 for 3 hours due to an accident. By the time we arrived in Dornie I had the choice of eating out with the family or taking photos of the castle. I had a packet of crisps for my tea and headed out in earnest.

Reflections Eilean Donan Castle

The next morning we were back on the road again. A quick stroll around Plockton and then over the bridge to Skye. The previous day when we had been stuck in traffic it was high twenties, now the weather was decidedly cooler with a thick covering of cloud. Sure enough by the time we passed Brodick it started to drizzle. Ever the optimist (it will probably clear!) we drove over to Talisker Bay. After sitting in the car for lunch we, or rather I, decided a walk to the beach would be in order. This was met with a certain degree of resistance and unfortunately it didn't clear as I had half hoped, but the rain just got heavier and more persistent. Very wet with slightly grumpy kids we headed off to Uig. We booked in for the ferry about 3 hours early had a cup of coffee pottered around the solitary shop and by this time the weather eased a little and despite a little resistance from the family we headed back up the road a few miles to Fairy Glen.

Fairy Glen Skye

To lighten the mood we had a family photo competition to see who could capture the Glen in the best possible way. I think Naomi's batteries went flat after about 2 shots, Julia got her iPhone out and Hannah did some strange acrobatics! We didn't officially judge the results, but here is my effort.

The rain didn't stay off long so we headed back down to queue up for the ferry.

After a good crossing we arrived in Tarbert for the final leg of our journey. Despite leaden grey skies and drizzle the light had a special quality, as we caught the first glimpse of Luskentyre Bay it simply shone turquoise out of the gloom. What would it look like when the sun shone!

The first few days we didn't see much sun, the weather was a little mixed, but that often leads to some of the best conditions for photography. You have to make the most of what you have. 

Harris isn't the easiest to get to and a very long way from Cambridge, but there are lots of great photo locations in a relatively small area. One of my bug bears with Scotland is that you have to drive a long way between good landscape locations. Harris is compact, I like that especially if you have a central base. Staying in Borvemore was an ideal spot, walking distance to Traigh Mhor beach and only a short drive to Northton (ironically in the South) and Luskentyre in the North.

Northton salt marshes

Luskentyre bay

Callanish Standing stones - Separation

Mid week we did venture a little further afield up to the standing stones at Callanish on Lewis. There was no visitor centre 25 yrs ago, but the stones themselves have remained unchanged for thousands of years. The challenge at Callanish was to try and get some photos devoid of people. I tried long exposures, standing around waiting for the crowds to clear in the end I decided to concentrate on a smaller sample of stones, giving them separation and room to breathe. However, I think my most memorable photo was one that did include a person snapping away in amongst the stones, a silhouette I converted to b&w. 

In amongst the stones

All in all we had a great week, I did get caught out early one morning without my midge hood (absolute must in August). Thereafter it remained in my camera bag and was frequently used. Here is a selection of other locations only a stones throw away from where we were staying.

Toe Head rays of light

Stripey Gneiss

Curves Luskentyre

On the return leg of our journey we spent a few days on Skye before heading down to the Lakes. The weather was much kinder to us despite an abysmal forecast. We hiked up to the Old Man of Storr in thick mist, but just as we approached it magically cleared. On our last evening I drove down to Elgol, it would have been rude to visit Skye without popping in. En-route I spotted two Golden Eagles, what a awe inspiring place it is.

Old Man of Storr

Elgol sunset

All in all we had a great Scottish adventure I look forward to my next trip North.

Resources:

www.marona.co.uk/scotland/