Photographs and commentary by Dick Snoke
I’ve always wanted to find out about how the Nat Geo guys get such great pictures, and Scotland has intrigued me ever since I read Hound of the Baskervilles. So when I found one of their tours and could afford it and had the time to do it, I did. This was eight days by van and foot called “Highlands and Islands”.
Pictures are here. My commentary follows.
It was a great trip, although I should have added a couple of days to allow more time to acclimate and to allow for shopping. We had almost no time off when the shops were open, so we had no time to see what was available in the places we stayed. An extra day at the end of the trip would have let me find what I wanted for souvenirs and another chance to photograph Edinburgh (perhaps withe better weather.)
I did have a half day to wander Edinburgh on my own since I flew in a day early. However, the weather was foggy and so was my brain after a long plane trip. I made it a point to tour Edinburgh Castle, and that was a good choice. Lots of history and great museums to display that history. However, the castle is not particularly photogenic inside, and the weather made long shots very fuzzy. But I tried. My best shot of the castle was from Bruntsfield Links the morning before the tour began (at 2:00 pm) . After touring the castle, I wandered down the Royal Mile to the North Bridge and crossed over to Calton Hill. That’s a weird collection of markers, monuments, the city observatory, and the National Monument (called a “folly” by the Scots.) Then I headed for the hotel and went via the Scottish National Museum. It was very nice, but I left my baseball cap behind while taking pictures. I also wandered past the Heriot School, a very pretty place, just as the kids were leaving for the day. A mob scene on very narrow sidewalks. I had dinner in the hotel bar and went to bed.
The next morning, I walked down the street to a coffee shop for a scone and soda as breakfast, the over to the links for pictures. I got back to the hotel for lunch and ran into my roommate, Rob Spruell, in the restaurant. We talked a bit, and then relocated to our shared room. This hotel (Best Western Bruntsfield Hotel) was very nice. We had a two-room suite.
That afternoon, the whole group met for introductions and initial briefing, then on to walk up Arthur’s Seat, a hill overlooking Edinburgh. The tour was supposed to include the castle, the Royal Mile and Holyrood Palalce, but there was a huge demonstration about the soon-to-be referendum on independence. The streets were far too crowded for a group of 18 of us to have any chance to stay together, let alone take pictures. But Arthur’s Seat was nice, and we got to know one another a bit. The day ended with a group dinner at the hotel.
Between the walk and dinner, Rob, myself, Tony Powell (one of our guides) and Jim Richardson (the Nat Geo photographer travelling with us) shared a beer or two in the bar. Jim had interesting insights into the current state of professional photography and some things we might consider in our photography on the tour. In his opinion (and I have no reason to doubt any of it), breaking into well-paid professional photography today is based on one’s audience on social media. Facebook and Instagram primarily. Before social media, a handful of magazine editors largely determined who were the most well-known photographers, but no more. Now an editor cares more about the size of your social media following than about the quality of your pictures. So Jim has hired help in doing that rather than take his own time to learn and manage social media. See the Aug 2014 issue for Jim’s story on the big archaeological dig in the Orkney Islands in the north of Scotland.
Day two (Sunday) we piled into the two 9-passenger vans which were our tour transportation and drove from Edinburg to Oban via Ben A’an. Ben A’an is a Marylin (not a Munro, Corbett, Graham or Donald) at a shade under 1600 feet, but the view of Loch Katrine from the top is very nice. The climb was straight up: 1500 feet in about 3/4 of a mile. Along the way we met quite a few Scots, two groups being of particular interest. One group was three women about to plant a Yes banner on the summit. They were very talkative and interested in our opinions on the referendum. The second group was a couple with their dog. They were ahead of us when we came on a mud patch about 30 feet across and quite wide. A bunch of branches had been laid down to walk across, but the dog just took off on his own. He got stuck in mud up to his belly and could not move. The woman slogged in to get him. She was in up to here calfs, but able to move until she lifted the dog out. As she lifted, the dog rose and she sank in further. She did get the dog out, but she was in above her waist. Her husband tried to get to her on his stomach as you would on ice or in quicksand, but he could not pull her out and started to sink himself. Dave Pickens, our other guide, ran across the logs, gathered other larger logs and threw them to the couple. That gave them enough platform for the guy to get out. Then more logs were piled in, and the woman finally could be pulled out. We left them completely covered in mud and trying to calm down. When we did arrive back at the parking lot, they were there trying to clean up enough to get in their car and go home.
But the walk up the mountain was difficult. While there was a path, it was very stony and uneven. We were all glad to have trekking poles for balance and leverage. There was not much opportunity to take pictures, but I did get a few. The fog/mist from Edinburgh was still with us, so the vistas were lacking.
And so we drove on to Oban, on the west coast of Scotland. This is Tony’s home town, so he sleeps in his own home while we’re there.s Oban is the shippinng and ferry center of the Argyll & The Isles, as the territory is known. It is also home to the Cathedral of St Columba, the cathedral church of the diocese of Argyle and the Isles. The harbor is shielded by a large hill on the east side, so sunrises were not all that colorful. Still the early light made very nice pictures of the harbor and hills on the island of Kerrera across the bay. One morning there Rob went out well before sunrise to shoot, and I went out just at sunrise. To my surprise, Rob, Jim and I were the only people in the group who were out. Rob was going back in to prepare for the day, so I got a private tutorial on photography for a Nat Geo photographer. We walked downtown and shot some of the inner harbor, then back to the hotel shooting along the way. The lessons were (1) since Nat Geo allows very little alteration by software, one must shoot all those options so you have many different exposures of the same scene, and (2) a bit about how to compose an interesting picture. I generally shoot from a poor vantage point, and I need to learn to move around more to get the composition right.
That first day in Oban, we took the mid-morning ferry to Kerrera. Its about a 10 minute, 300 yard trip, but the ferry only holds 12 people. So our group of 18 required two trips. Once we all got there and got past the typical British red phone booth, we walked about 2.5 miles to the nearest tea room and castle, stopping at a bay with a derelict boat beached. We had to eat in shifts since the capacity of the tea room is only about 8-10 people. I went to shoot the castle in the first shift, and it was wonderful. The ruins are up on a cliff overlooking the ocean and bay, with sheep grazing in the lush green grass all around. Glyen Castle was a stronghold of the clan Donald (MacDonald was his son and successor) in their wars with the clan MacLeood, base at Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. Side note: one of Jim’s pictures of this castle was used in the iPhone 6 introduction. I opted to eat lunch but a few folks skipped lunch to have more time to shoot. They were lucky since the sun came out just as I was finishing.
But we had to cut that short and get back to the ferry to catch the final crossings of the day. Too bad. We could easily have spent 3 hours or more shooting the castle. But we all returned to Oban for a tour of the distillery there. Of course a tour in Scotland must include Whisky, and so we toured and sample the 14 year old Oban whisky. Good straight, but better with 3 drops of water. Dinner was later at the Seafood Restaurant. Lots of straightforward names like that: The Bakery, The Music Store, etc.
The second day at Oban was a lot of travel. First we took the ferry to Craignure on the Isle of Mull, then drove to Fiannphort (pronounced finanfort) to catch “Davey’s boat” to the Staffa. Staffa is a very small island out in the Minch, nesting place of puffins and other seabirds as well as home to Fingal’s Cave. Since the birds had long departed for the open water and other points, the cave was the purpose of the visit. The cave is impressive and difficult to reach. You walk on the tops of columnar basalt, and that gets slick as a whistle when it gets wet. Since you’re just above the tide level, it can be “a wee bit trickky”. But we all made it safely, along with many others who came to visit that day. I also climbed to the top of the cliff, and that was another nervous climb up rocks and a couple of aluminum ladders. We all concluded, this sort of dangerous stuff would probably be either disallowed by law in the US, or the owners would be sued out of existence. The tide was coming in while we were there, and as we were leaving, the waves were breaking over the boat waiting for us. Several in the group were soaked because they chose to sit in the open stern section.
From Staffa, Davey took us to Iona, home to a beautiful old (like 9th century) abbey. The abbey was originally catholic (don’t recall which missionary founded it) but became a couple flavors of protestant and is now non-denominational. No stained glass windows, but gorgeous woodwork and stonework. Reminded me a lot of the Nativity church in St. Paul. The town is also nice, but I found the water and views most photogenic. So after a long day, we reversed the route back to Oban.
On the ferry between Oban and Craignure, and on the return trip, the sky was changing rapidly. Lots of clouds moving around creating spotlight effects on the shore and water. We passed the Lismore Light and Duart Castle both going and returning, so I have lots of pictures of those and the water. One of my favorites is the view leaving Oban, with the cathedral being sort of spotlighted.
Dinner that night at Eig-ugg, pronouced roughly “egg”.
The next day we left Oban to go over the sea to Skye (look up “the Skye Boat song”) to Portree. Along the way we made two stops. First we came to Glen Nevis, the valley below Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK at 4,431 feet. Our guide there was John Hutchinson, president of the John Muir Trust of Scotland. We hiked up the glen to a waterfall on the far end. This glen was not as photogenic as I had hoped it might be, but it was fun. There was a three-wire bridge across the Nevis River that I opted not to cross. I rock-hopped/waded the river instead to get nearer to the falls. Our second stop was at Glenfinnan, in “Harry Potter Land”. Glen Nevis is where Haggard’s home was filmed, and Glenfinnan is the site of the viaduct used in one of the movies. Tony and Dave timed this so we were there as the train from Malaig to Fort William crossed the viaduct. This is really the train filmed in the movies. The train was 20 min or so late, so we had to hurry to catch the ferry at Mallaig. And we did catch the ferry and arrive in Portree for a late dinner.
Next moring in Portree, I got up again for a morning shoot with Jim. We began right outside the hotel, overlooking the harbor. Then we walked down the hill to the beach to shoot the buildings and reflections. Then the clouds and fog began to build, so worked back up the hill to the hotel and breakfast. Typical breakfast options were porridge with honey or scrambled eggs with salmon.
This day we headed for Dunvegan Castle and its gardens. It was good that this castle is on the far western shore. We got out from under the fog bank and had good light. Dunvegan is home the the clan MacLeod, and the clan chief lives part-time at the castle. We were not allowed to photograph inside, but we were allowed to shoot out the windows. There were some great views up the loch. After the tour, I worked around to the far side of the moat for some shots, and then I wandered the gardens, finding a couple of nice waterfalls. The flowers were mostly done for the season, but this would be spectacular in the spring and early summer.
From Dunvegan, we headed for the Quirang, a range of hills on the north end of Skye. We walked up to “the prison” on the east end of the range. The fog cam and went as we walked, so we all got a variety of interesting pictures. I did not get all the way to the top because I stopped too often along the way.
Then back to Portree via the Old Man of Storr, dinner and to bed.
The last day on Skye we drove to the town of Elgol to catch the Bella Jane for the trip to Loch Curuisk, just a wee trip up the coast. Along the way we passed a seal colony and endured a host of puns by the skipper: the seal of approval was not there. When biologists have tried to count the number of distinct shades of color the seals have, they always give up at 50 shades of gray. And so on…. But Loch Curiusk was good. Not much of a trai, mostly just walk across the rocks. Fortunately these rocks were gabbro rather than basalt, and thus not slippery at all. We did have a wee bit o’ rain here, the only time we had to use our rain gear and put away the cameras. But it did not last a great long time.
The final day of the trip was the drive from Portree back to Edinburgh via Kyle of Lochalsh and Dunkeld. Just across the bridge we stopped at the Eilean Donnan castle. The group I was with stopped once on the east side, then on the west side, then again on the east side. That was al because the sun came out, and the best light was on the east. Tony was beginning to understand how photographers think. Our last stop was the Hermitage, another folly of some duke in the old days. He actually hired a hermit to live in a remote spot so he could show off to visitors. There is a very nice waterfalls here along a very nice woodland trail (no forests in Scotland, only peatlands or woodlands.) While we were there, a wedding party assembled, so we had to leave carefully to avoid those proceedings.