A lunchtime wander exploring the walkway on the North side of the River Clyde with some of my work colleagues.
With the unpromising weather forecast this weekend, we changed our minds and took a wander across Muirhouse Muir instead of venturing further afield as intended. We started off at the lay-by on the A81, about a mile South of Strathblane, and headed through the delightful little Nature Reserve and along Loch Ardinning to the Muir.
The circular walk over the Muir is on of my favourite walks in and around Glasgow and always makes for a great afternoon walk with superb scenery all around from the Kilpatrick Hills to the West, the Arrochar Alps and Ben Lomond to the North and Drumgoyne, the Campsies and Kilsyth Hills to the North and East. To top it all, the walk circles not just through a varied mixtures of moorland, but also through Scots pine and broad leaf forests with little lochs, pools and peat black streams in abundance.
The afternoon turned out to be dreich, lacking the scattered showers and spells of sunshine as predicted. It stayed dry all afternoon, with a very heavy and often very dark and brooding cloud base. The sun was notable for it’s absence with only two extremely brief, very localised appearances. So much for the weather forecast!
Thankfully, we were in the right location coming down from the Muir to Loch Ardinning when a spot of sunshine travelled swiftly from West to East, providing a brief opportunity to capture the spot hitting the Campsies above Dunblane and below the Slackdhu Crags under a very dark and brooding sky.
I am very pleased with the unexpected photo, warranting an framed enlargement or even a print on canvas.
It had been quite a while since we had a wander out over Muirhouse Muir, but on Sunday we decided to head there instead of going further afield due to the weather forecast as you may already have read in my previous post: Spot of sunlight on Slackdhu Crags.
We did not just venture out on the Muir, but took time to get to one of my favourite photographic spots on the Muir, located in the dip behind the rise from Loch Ardinning and flanked by the central heights with the cairn to the East and the forest at Craigmaddie burn to the South.
When following the path circling round the dip, through the forest and up to the cairn, this Scots pine (and it’s substantial neighbouring bushy tree) will look boring and unpromising, but venturing of the path into the dip and closer to the two trees presents wonderful opportunities.
The Scots pine can easily be singled out from varying angles (to get rid of the uninspiring bush) with fantastic backdrops of Drumgoyne, the Campsies and/or Ben Lomond. On Sunday, it was overcast with dark skies and limited visibility, so it proved to be a great opportunity for a monochrome image with a backdrop of Drumgoyne and brooding skies above.
These are some of the images from my archive showing the same location at varying angles at different times of the year throughout the past 11 years.
The first shot was taken on Sunday.
The second shot, taken on film in 2003 shows the absolutely wonderful tree stump as well as the ‘lonely’ Scots pine with the adjacent bush.
The third shot taken in 2008 shows the same view, with the bush now doubled in height and the ‘long gone’ tree stump. Today this bush is doubled in height again.
The last three shots show the Scots pine isolated from the uninspiring bush from different angles and at different times of the year taken between 2009 and 2013.
This is the second year in a row that we have baby robins in the garden. Inquisitive and less shy than their parents, the baby robins sit around long enough to let me go inside, grab my camera and go back out to take a few shots from different angles while he watched my from his perch, before he flew away, following his mum in search of more food rather than being deterred by my presence.
This year’s fledgling is aptly christened Wee ‘Rocky’ Robin in view of his attitude and wonderful expressions.
On our regular walk at Mugdock, Lola and I decided to divert and go through the woods up the hill along a very narrow trail rather than our usual walk along the loch. And a good choice it was, as the wooded area, completely out of view from the main path below was carpeted with bluebells.
The coast at Dunure castle is one of my favourite locations for a Sunday afternoon, wandering round the old harbour, exploring the castle, scrambling along the rocky shore and admiring the views across the water to Ailsa Craig. In winter time, the Sunday afternoon’s wander becomes even more rewarding with the sun setting well before it is time to head back to the city for a Sunday night roast.
On the afternoon of the second Sunday in November, I took a large amount of photos round the harbour and the castle, but these two sunset photos are my favourite.
The island of Ailsa Craig is a prominent feature visible from nearly everywhere along the Airshire coast. The dome shaped island is a volcanic plug left behind by an extinct volcano in the Irish Sea and is nick named Paddy’s milestone because is is halfway between Glasgow and Belfast, as the crow flies.
If you like solitude, the 220 acre island with a ruined castle, a small cottage, a lighthouse and a granite quarry is for sale for a mere £1.5m.
While walking back home from the Glasgow Mela in Kelvingrove Park to Dowanhill, we spotted this urban grey hero fishing in the shallow waters in the park, completely unperturbed by the hustle and bustle of the festival.
A Saturday afternoon of culture, noise and colours at the Glasgow Mela in Kelvingrove Park. The highlight of the afternoon were the Dahl Foundation Drummers. They are simply fantastic.
On a day of snow showers and sun, we headed up to Loch Ardinning and Muirhouse Muir to walk to the cairn on the Muir. When driving up through Milngavie, it became very dark and grey. Shortly after, the snow hit us. We drove on, as the day had been a mixture of snow and sun, hoping it would shortly clear up again for our intended walk.
We parked at the weir at Loch Ardinning and waited for about ten minutes in the car until the snow wore off before heading along the path beside the loch.It wasn’t long before we were walking in glorious sunshine. With Lola mooching through the high grasses, we were admiring the views to Drumgoyne and Arthur’s seat with a fresh covering of snow.
We reached the cairn and after a brief rest, headed back. As you can see in my previous post, the snow storm started to approach us fast shortly after leaving the cairn. Thankfully, when the snow hit us, we already had past the turn and had the strong wind behind us for the walk back to the loch and the car.
Not just cold and miserable, the horizontal snow across the loch was nearly a white out.
Walking back in the snow storm didn’t stop Lola from venturing of the path and running through the undergrowth and high grasses in search for phantom voles and rabbits. We marched on to the dry comfort and warmth of the waiting car.
While out on Muirhouse Muir in glorious sunshine, black clouds started to roll in from the North East. Shortly after we could see a wall of heavy snow fall rolling down the Kilsyth Hills, filling Glen Glazert in minutes and heading our way fast.
We swiftly headed back from the cairn on the Muir to the Loch while admiring the dramatic view unfolding literally in front of our eyes. I only stopped twice to take a few shots.
I’m chuffed with capturing the dramatic sky, as from the moment we spotted the black clouds to the snow hitting us was around 5 minutes.
The first three are from a sequence of two shots taken while on still on the high ground, obviously the first two being a monochrome and colour version of the same image. The third giving more of a 20:20 view. The last shot was taken while part way down towards the loch, just before the snow hit us.
I have never lost my passion for black and white landscapes, but had lost my way a bit with my own images. Since going digital, I have never really got the hang of converting my own shots to black and white. Yes, I got a few good ones over the years, but I never seem to achieve the desired and satisfied results.
Now I have got myself a licence of Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin to Lightroom, I am finally achieving the desired results that I was wishing for and consequently have found my spark back.
I am slowly going through my back catalogue and re-converting some mediocre black and white images with surprisingly good results.
The highlight so fare, without a doubt, has been the above image of Sgorr Dhearg taken from the North end of Glencoe Loch in November 2010. I am not only chuffed with this new version when viewed on the computer, but I am actually over the moon with a large print on Da Vince heavy fiber paper. The framed and mounted print is just superb.
Originally, I made several attempts to convert the below shot of a lonely Scots pine on Muirhouse Muir. These were either flat, lacking depth and contrast or had loss of detail in the Scots pine’s needles. Without any sweat, at the first attempt, I got the desired result using Silver Efex Pro.
So anyone who is into black and white photography, must check out Silver Efex Pro.