So, just home from a fantastic three-day trip north to Ullapool and beyond, as far as Durness.  This was a first for Aileen and I, no kids involved, quite a novelty.  I had the aim of capturing some good photos, helped by mixed weather and some very good light.  Meanwhile, Aileen wrote a few poems while I was taking my shots.  This first shot was taken just north of Rhiconich, headiong towards Durness.  The skies had just dumped a huge torrent of rain on us but there were a few gaps of sunshine like the one shown here.  It was pretty gloomy so I had to increase the ISO as I was taking the shot handheld due to trying to be quick to avoid getting soaked (me and the camera).  The result is that the original shot was pretty noisy and in reducing the noise (using Nik Define which is pretty good normally) the image has softened a bit, but the dramatic lighting makes it worth keeping I think.

The next shot was taken at Achnahaird looking across the expanse of peat bog northwards towards Suilven and Quinaig.  This worked quite well in colour, with the contrasting blue sky and yellow grass abd bog but I really liked the more dramatic impact
of the clouds in the black & white version.  The newly cut peat and the neat stacks show what might appear to some to be a wild landscape is actually managed by man and along with grazing this culture has defined these fantastic landscapes in many ways.

The rest of the shots here represent the best of what I managed to colelct, digitally at least.  However, I did take a few on 35mm B&W film and 120 B&W film.  Finally, at Balnakiel, Durness, I used my new pinhole lens for my Intrepid 5x4 film camera to try and capture the expanse of the beach.  Once I get round to processing those, if the work, I will scan them and post them as well.

I posted these photos last week on Facebook and Instagram but thought I ought to also put them up on my blog since I like them and they deserve to be there.  The first was taken from the ferry from Canna to Mallaig on Saturday morning using my mobile phone.  I know this is a bit of a sad thing to admit but in fact I did not have my didigtal camera with me as I had made the trip with my Bronica medium format film camera, so this was the best I could manage.  Actually, I am quite pleased with the results, so I guess it doesn't matter what you take the photo with, it is the result that matters.

This one was taken on my way back to Armadale from Mallaig.  The light was really interesting with low cloud hiding Kylerhea and the hills beyond.  The light was illuminating the small yacht and the hills of Knoydart were just peeping through the clouds on the right.

I got this shot of a handsome stag with antlers in velvet on our way to Applecross last night.  It stood perfectly for a shot, taken handheld from the car window.  In truth there was a rather ugly deer fence just behind it and I have spent most of thisd evening cloning it out.  The cloning is not perfect but considering the complexity of all the wires I am pretty happy with the result, it certainly makes for a better picture,  It is interesting, when you zoom in on his antlers they are covered in little flies, and there were masses of little grey streaks across the sky where flies were buzzing about in a blur, more cloning needed there to tidy that up.  All that being said I like this shot, certainly then best of a red deer I have taken.