Photo of the Week 2024-12-30

 

There were an overwhelming number of things to see for the amount of time we had on Skye during our September trip. Both The Quiraing and Old Man of Storr were at the top of the list, each hike would require a few hours but given logistics and the duration of our visit we had to choose just one ...

... and now you see which won out.

' The Old Man of Storr '

It was a two hour hike up, counting stops to rest, take in the views and of course make use of the camera. This was the ultimate goal, the scene from the lookout, back south to The Old Man and points beyond. It was clear, sunny, very very windy as we reached higher ... and a thrill I'll never forget.

 

The Storr is a prime example of the Trotternish landslip, the longest such feature in Great Britain. The area in front of the cliffs of the Storr is known as the Sanctuary. This has a number of oddly shaped rock pinnacles, remnants of ancient landslips. The most well known of these is 'The Old Man of Storr', a 55-metre-high pinnacle of basalt rock which is all that remains of a 2,800-million-year-old volcanic plug.

Every direction you could look on this hike offered sunning views and scenery. With more time I would have liked to continue the trail further north and perhaps around to the other side of the Old Man, but that may have been a little much for this old man ;-)

 

It will be the Quiraing next time we visit Skye, -with a tip of the cap to to The Old Man on the drive by ...

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-10-07

Recently, day two in Scotland had us picking up a rental car and navigating our way out of Edinburgh (a story in itself) to the Battery Road Bridges Viewpoint in North Queensferry. All three of the bridges, The Forth (rail) Bridge. The Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing are something to see. As a retired Civil Engineer, my interest in what we build remains keen and I was particularly eager to make this stop at the base of the Forth Bridge because of it's historical and engineering significance some of which which can be read via this link.

 

Worth singling out is that the Forth Bridge, once the longest single cantilever span bridge in the world, is a Scottish icon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and today, second longest to the Quebec Bridge which I intended to visit again with sufficient time to photograph (spoiler alert: potential future blog post).

 

' Forth Bridge '

Following my intention, as laid out in a previous post, to look for something a little different, something creative and unique to my vision in "Photography When I Travel", I created the image above. Getting close to the north support base, I was able to use an ultra-wide focal length to capture this powerful composition. Of all the images I made during the brief stop we had on Battery Road, this is my favourite.

 

DJE