A New Discovery

Ruined House at Coille Ghillidh, Applecross (Canon EOS 250D, Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII VC lens at 18mm, 1/1600 sec at f/8.0, ISO 200, handheld)

Despite the weather forecast being a bit poor I decided today to venture north over the Bealach na Ba to the Applecross area and check out a location I have fancied for a while.  The above shot was taken at the shore at Coille Ghillidh, just a few miles south of Applecross.  This small settlement is situated about 2km off the beaten track, with a footpath leading to two small settlements by the shore overlooking the Inner Sound.  The above shot, while not very exciting in terms of quality of light, does serve as a useful development piece compositionally, with the old house providing an interesting foreground set off against the backdrop of the Cuillins on Skye.  The angle of the front of the house leads the viewer's eye nicely into the frame.  I am sure I will revisit this location when the forecast is better and the timing can provide better light.

The following few shots were also taken in the same vicinity, looking north towards Raasay and Rona from a lovely coral beach.  The clouds provided enough contrast in a generally grey sky to make me believe this might make an intersting view.  I have made these two images using three bracketed exposures to balance the exposure of the brighter sky and the darker foreground, and merged them in Lightroom, using the HDR merge function, and then copnverting to black & white in Nik's Silver Efex Pro 3, using some selective colourisation to try and capture the bleak palette that we had today.

Looking North across the Inner Sound towards Rona (Canon EOS 250D, Sigma EX DC 10-20mm f/3.5 lens at 10mm, 1/200 sec at f/16, ISO 400, handheld)

Looking North across the Inner Sound towards Rona from the coral beach at Coille Ghillidh (Canon EOS 250D, Sigma EX DC 10-20mm f/3.5 lens at 10mm, 1/320 sec at f/16, ISO 400, handheld)

The final image illustrates the connection the residents of this small settlement would have had with the sea.  There remains an area of the shore which has been cleared of larger stones to form a basic slipway and this old winch would have made retrieving the boats form the sea a whole lot easier than doing it by hand.  The colours of the rusty metal were interesting but tended to overwhelm the lovely textures so I opted for a sepia conversion in Lightroom to try and highlight that aspect, which worked well I think.

Old Winch & Chains at Coille Ghillidh, Applecross (Canon EOS 250D, Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII VC lens at 65mm, 1/80 sec at f/5.0, ISO 200, handheld)