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

A day in New York...

I'm writing this sitting in Newark International Airport. Having missed my flight I've got a few hours to kill. Phil and I have been visiting New Jersey on business and had the opportunity to extend our stay over the weekend. This meant we could spend a day in New York, taking in some of the sights and sounds, but more specifically taking lots of photos.

Although I've described it as a day in New York we did indeed catch the train in on Thursday evening and visited the Empire State Building at sunset and then dropped down into Times Square.

New York from the Empire State Building

The Empire State building was quite impressive, it took us about 20 minutes to get to the top, the queues weren't too bad, in fact they were much worse coming down so we opted to take the stairs for part of the way back down from the 86^th to the 80^th.

Photo opportunities were good from the top. Understandably they don’t allow tripods or from what I've read even gorillapods, but initially hand held seemed to work, I was taking 3 exposures for each shot and pulling out the sharpest one. When the light dropped off further and all the city lights came on, it was a case of finding a bit of wall to balance your camera on or trying to wedge it as tightly as possible into the railings.

By the time we had made it down from the Empire State building the sky had turned an inky black and despite the vast amount of light given off by the advertising hoardings in Times Square the contrast was just too great to get any decent shots.

Skip on to Saturday and a nice early start saw us sitting on the station platform Edison station at 8am in the morning.  The train didn't leave till just gone half eight and already it was starting to get quite warm. I hadn't anticipated such warm weather and as it turned out it was the warmest day since the previous September hitting about 26 degrees C or 80 Fahrenheit. To start the day there wasn't a cloud in the sky, not ideal for photos, but thankfully by lunchtime we did get some wispy clouds appearing, which provided a little more interest, but didn't provide any respite from the blistering sun.

We arrived in Penn station at about 9:30am and started walking up towards the Rockefeller Centre, we stopped off en-route to take some impressive skyscraper shots, looking straight up. 

Reach for the sky

When we reached Rockefeller I was surprised to see skaters out on the ice. I had chosen to travel light bringing just my 50mm zuiko and canon 17-40mm. I was glad of the extra wide angle even at 17mm I was only just managing to get a whole skyscraper from top to bottom into shot. After the Rockefeller we headed on to Central Park. Boy was it busy, a bit of sunshine certainly brought out lots and lots of people, there was no avoiding them.  After taking some shots at the Meadow and looking across the Lake we had lunch at the café and a much welcomed sit down.

The Lake Central Park

After lunch we continued walking this time down to Grand Central station and managed to take quite a few shots across the concourse. We didn't even attempt to get our tripods out instead using the tops of the balustrades to set off a long exposure. Again going wide was an absolute must here, Phil could only go down 27mm with his crop camera.

Hand on hip, Grand Central Station

After Grand Central we jumped on the tube down to Wall Street and set off towards Ground Zero. Passing Trump Tower and few other very tall and very impressive buildings. The wispy clouds from earlier had dispersed with just the occasional small puffy cloud to add interest in an otherwise brilliant blue sky. Ground Zero was very impressive, but even at  17mm I struggled to get a good composition including the water and skyscrapers beyond. From here we set off towards the Brooklyn Bridge having a much deserved rest in a nice square which was shaded by buildings.

After a brief sit down and an opportunity for Phil to take some shots of the Tulips we were heading over Brooklyn Bridge. It took us about an hour to cross over, it was very busy indeed lots of people going both ways, walking jogging, cycling, you name it it happens in NY.  We took a few shots of the bridge and also the padlocks fastened to lots of available spaces, some had been there quite a while and had even had a mandatory coat of beige paint added to them!

By the time we had walked over the bridge and down the other side we grabbed some tea at the Shake Shack, the queue for the toilets alone was almost out the door. Thankfully we got in when we did, because by the time we got our food it was even busier. After tea we headed over towards the infamous old jetty posts in Brooklyn Bridge park overlooking Lower Manhattan.

Get ready for sunset, if you can find a spot!

I've never seen so many photographers and tripods in all my life, probably around 30 or so all lined up with their expensive DSLR’s. Still 20 minutes to go till sunset. We managed to jostle into position and get a good spot, foolishly the people down to the left had to abandon their positions on the rising tide. It was also quite telling that the line thinned out about 5 minutes after the sun went down. Did people not realise that the best colours were still to come when the sky had darkened and the lights had come on. Oh well who am I to complain.

Long exposure shot of the "Famous posts"

While there was still quite a lot of contrast in the sky I tried some long exposure shots with my B&W 3.0 nd filter (10 stop) and then 30 minutes after sunset made use of a 0.6 Soft ND grad, 0.3 soft ND, and then unfiltered as the light levels dropped. Once we had taken lots of shots of the posts and as the light was starting to go we moved round a little further back towards the bridge to get some shots for stitching of the Manhattan skyline.

Packing up at the end of the day we caught the tube back to Penn and then the 10.07 back to Edison. Just turned 11pm we arrived back at the car for a short drive back to the hotel.

A long, but enjoyable day we walked 13.5 miles in total and I've got a spot of sunburn to show for my efforts. Who ever said you can’t mix business with pleasure.

Mandatory yellow cab shot!

Resources: 
www.marona.co.uk
Flickr - New York Album