Early in October I was going to meet up with two photographers I follow on Youtube, in a way a strange meeting of fellow Northerners.
Ewan Dunsmuir hails from Stromness and he was the originator of the idea as he was on a fleeting visit from his home in New Zealand. He pitched the idea to Sam Bose as they had met in NZ when Sam and his wife Hannah were over there, Sam fits into the theme as he originates from Durness though he spent his adult life in Southern England.
They threw open the idea for a meet up with any photographers to come along as they filmed for use on their channels and maybe get a witty, talented, studious fellow photographers, instead they got me! OK Tom came from NE England but I'll skip over him as gave me a fake name, not that I blame him he may have been tipped off by some other Northern English tog or in general that know me! LOL
The plan was to meet up on the Monday morning at Loch Clair, I went down a few days earlier and was staying in Gairloch. Not being that well acquainted with the area I decided to have a test run on Sunday morning going directly to the meetup area so I had an idea of timing, then spend the day exploring with the camera.
Well the plan lasted about two miles and when I turned a corner and I was overlooking the bay with the low cloud and drizzle on the hill. I said I'd give myself 2 minutes and that was it, straight to loch Clair from there,
Camera packed I set off, the conditions got better but I stayed firm and passed 3 shots I should have stopped for but then as I reached Loch Maree I had to stop. 30 minutes I thought, then another 2 and a bit hours and I dragged myself away as the low cloud and mist eased off.
I got to Loch Clair but the cloud was still quite low so headed further west almost to Torridon. It was slowly lifting and as I got back near the carpark the meeting was to happen at I decided to stop and go down a but further west than I thought we'd be the following day.
For a lad from Caithness it was a bit of an overload, trees, hills, water calm enough for reflections.
Arriving on the Monday, unusual for me I was first there and between showers I was grabbing long lens shots of pockets of light, a theme that continued through the day.
When the others arrived it was decided to go back to the same spot I'd been at the day before. With the day before being much better I wasn't even going to take the camera out of the bag but I thought I'd look a right numptie doing that. So in the vicinity of Ewan I had to take a panorama, the obvious choice shooting into the wind and rain for 7 frames!
Ewan was running about filming, (I'll add a link when he posts it) talking composition with the others and I just carried on being the numptie pointing the camera at things and hitting the shutter button now and then. I had few chats with Sam as we scanned for light and he filmed for his Vlog.
After that we headed further West to a viewpoint overlooking Loch Torridon looking to some mountains and some more transient light and showers.
After that the plan was to go to Skye which the others did but I decided home was the best plan for me. All things considered I had a good few days away and great meeting up with Sam, Ewan and his partner Teri. A shame it was so fleeting but there's always another time.
