Beauty of the Isle of Skye

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The week here on the Isle of Skye is flying, so is the wind…. or the rain and sun in an ever evolving game of who wins the battle for supremacy for the day.

So photographing Skye isn’t an easy thing. The light changes constantly. The same moment you find a composition the rain may well force you away from it as soon as you have your gear ready.

I haven’t taken many photographs so far. But the ones I got are meaningful. None more so than the image of the Old Man of Storr – of course – but this one here is also an image that evoked emotion when processing the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom.

It’s an image with  a small story behind it. As it goes I was taking in a smallish hike along the ruins of St. Mary’s church outside of Dunvegan. During the way up I looked back down into the valley and immediately the vista stroke me as the perfect picture of what Skye is all about. Rolling hills, lush green grass, rain clouds and fog hanging low in the mountains….

But the light wasn’t there. It was a nice vista for the human eye to see in flesh then but appeared flat and dull as a photograph. So I finished the hike which was a loop and lead me back to where it began. All the way promising myself to head back up again if the light would change to see whether I could capture the image as envisioned in my mind.

The outcome is the lead photo above. It started to rain minutes after pressing the shutter.

Apocalyptic Degollada de La Yegua

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Standing atop the Mirador Degollada de La Yegua, mother nature’s force in full swing – one could imagine how it feels  when the time has come and the end is near.

Standing there at sunset hour? Anyone can do that. Standing there when the winds reach 100 miles an hour and the rain hits your face hard? You got to be devoted.

Gran Canaria, October 2016 

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Just back from a ten day long trip to Gran Canaria. No Internet, no phone, just the focus and the beauty of the island. A full blog on the trip will follow in the next couple of days – for now I only want to share the experience on this photo:

Hiking the Barranco Guayadeque at this time of the year can cause surprises. The sun was sky high when starting the hike, though things turned for worse midway through. Thick fog and heavy rain made life miserable.

Nonetheless I vowed myself on the way down that I would get my cam out at this one place where human history and nature meet in a compelling play of colour and force. Despite lashing, I got to shoot some interesting compositions – this one the one I loved most.

This lonely three, a stand out there for its wonderfully green leaves, as if it would say: I’m strong; I’m standing here proud and loud. Rain, wind and fog – you can have my a**!

Just another day in Ireland

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On Sunday I wanted to shoot the famous Mourne Mountains (famous for featuring prominently in Game of Thrones). Splendid sunshine in Dublin – what could go wrong?!

Well, this is Ireland; arriving a good hour later at the shores of Carlingford Lough, torrential rain had arrived too while a thick wall of fog veiled the mountains in its entirety.

It was devastating. There was nothing to see – literally zero!!! Mountains? Not here my friend! So I hid away in my car, annoyed at myself for not checking the weather forecast, now hoping for a miracle….. but this being Ireland, help was just around the corner: slowly but steadily the sky broke free as the wind pushed fog and clouds away, and with it those seemingly vanished Mourne Mountains presented themselves in their full beauty.

The shot below was taken during this process of nature’s force at work.