Tim Parkin - Landscape Photographer

Some days just don’t seem to work creatively, no matter that there is potential; your mind can sometimes only see what it is looking for. Sunday was one of these and because we had just arrived in Elgol, and I had the amazing rocky foreground and the Cuillins in the background, I wasn’t looking in front of my feet for opportunity. The day was overcast and often raining and even though I knew it wasn’t the weather for the Vista I was still looking for it, and in the process missing lots of opportunities.

Sometimes you need to forget what you came for in order to find opportunity.

The Monday was a total transformation however. By 10am we were over on the other side of the Cuillin at Fairy Pools and it was T Shirt off weather and I had a completely different problem; Too much light and a completely blue sky with no clouds. I also think I was in the same problem head space where I wanted to make the most of the larger vista; However this time at least I tried to take some more intimate shots, even if they weren’t forthcoming. The intense light bleached everything of interest and gradation. The best result I got was as follows.

I also, in desperation it must be said, took a single 4×5 frame of a tree in a ravine. I used an 81A filter (but the B might have been better). However I think I took a photograph of what I saw rather than what was on the ground glass, often completely different things. In this case, I saw the 3D depth of the ravine, the fine detail of the leaves and the flowing water – all of which don’t translate well into a composition. Next time I’ll close one eye and listen to my and go with my gut feeling when I see the groundglass.

The photo at the top of this is a picture looking up to where we walked (if you look carefully at the one of the river, you can see our car just below the forest).