A beautiful evening yesterday, after a day with 12 hours of sunshine, the first for quite some weeks. So good in fact that I tottered up along the Pentland ridge for some minutes and ported the wee camera too.
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What a beautiful view a couple of nights ago as I glanced out the window at 10pm. Best guess I can come up with is a lenticular cloud. I’ve seen lots of these clouds in photos by Galen Rowell, most commonly associated with mountain areas. There are mountains not too far from here I suppose, but whatever caused it I’m glad it did. Perhaps it’s time to call in the cloud busters, aka The Cloud Appreciation Society..
All this changeable weather we’re having is playing havoc with the river levels. I suppose it’s a good thing given the incredibly dry May/June period. It’s also a good thing because some of the evening skies over the past days have been terrifically beautiful.
I’ve been meaning to ‘upgrade’ my fishing/general pottering camera for a wee while. After much research I’ve now got a lovely Canon S90 to replace the Fuji F10 I’ve been carrying around for the past 4 years.
First impressions are outstanding. It’s low light capabilities in particular are a good stride away from what I’ve grown used to in a compact camera (the sensor is great, but even better is the f/2 lens). Only thing left to do now is replace my aging (and leaking) waterproof camera bag to protect it from inevitable dunkings.. For some bizzare reason though, the best looking one I’ve found, the Simms Dry Creek, doesn’t include a shoulder/neck strap.
If any reader has come across a well-padded, small and waterproof camera case I’d much appreciate hearing from you.
For the rest of this week there’s a beautiful sight to be seen in the western sky at dusk. A heavenly triad of a waxing moon, the bright planet Venus, and the more rarely seen planet Mercury. I’ve only been able to spot Mercury using binoculars. Here’s a photo, in case it helps anyone who’s interested. Can you spot which is which? Click the picture and you’ll see my highly swish overlay to guide your attention.
As a true space geek I’ve been keeping track of the planets with the amazing (free) Stellarium planetarium software. If you are at all interested by space and the night sky it’s a must.
I can’t help but feel excited by seeing a planet like Mercury, almost hidden in the orange afterglow of sunset. Perhaps it’s the fact that without looking, you’d never know it was there.
It’s not fishing as we know it, but it does involve standing around looking at the sky (which just about sums up my fishing so far this season).
Was out fishing at the weekend. Didn’t catch anything. A bit rubbish really.
So rather than post photos of a high and dirty river, stoneflies and grass (the summation of Saturday), here are a couple from the weekend before, from way Up North. And I thought the southern part of Scotland was pretty…
The new fishing season opens in less than 2 weeks on some rivers. It’s hard to image it at the moment though. Snow lying just outside the towns, with metres of it in the highlands. Somehow the thought of wading through icy spring water in driving drizzle seems less attractive at the moment that I thought it would at the end of last season.
So my attention has been drawn back to making pictures and dreaming of a warm summer evening rise.
Glen Coe is quite possibly the most (over) photographed region of Scotland outside of Edinburgh’s Old Town. The sight of the great Buachaille Etive Mor greets everyone who passes by the Glen on the way to Fort William and beyond. She really is a magnificent mountain, endlessly photogenic and wonderfully poised facing onto Rannoch Moor. Last Sunday I spent a couple of chilly hours in her company, blessedly alone, admiring the blue glow of winter sunset and trying to avoid getting stuck up to my waist in the snow drifts.
Been offline for quite a few weeks.. But we still seem to be gripped by cold weather, with snow on the hills and icy breaths. The best solution?
Pie.
I can’t seem to get enough of these snowy stories. Is anybody bored by all the snow? Hardship and tragedy aside, I have to say I love the stuff, it’s great to have a proper winter. And just to cap things off, Aviemore has had to close its ski centre because….wait for it… there’s too much snow. Too much. Aparently there are 5 metre drifts over the roads near the centre. Not 5 feet, 5 metres of drifting snow. As someone who’s watched ever warmer winters develop over the last 15 years, it really is enough to warm the cockles. Or is that cool the cockles?
Happy new year all you reader of Tamanawis!
Went for a wander up to the Black Mount yesterday. Stunning evening light. Dry flies not required. Happy year’s end.
In autumn, who needs words?
Down by the river today. I saw creepy crawlies, daddy-long-legs a-skipping by, and rusty sedges waving in the breeze. Frogs and trees and sun and leaves, I saw them all and stood and waited. The season’s ’shrooms and last winged olives, they all were there as the shadows lengthened.
But the river stayed brown, and high and coloured, from no matter which angle I looked and stuttered. Perhaps a bugger would have done, but somehow it didn’t seem right. I walked and walked, then turned and tried, to photograph the sight of clouds drifting by in a golden sea of light.
It’s been quite a while in the making, but today I’ve finally put up the new version of my online photo gallery. The Tamanawis Gallery is separate from the blog, and is designed for easy browsing (I hope..) and simple presentation. I will be updating it continuously, but to start with there are quite a few wee pages to have a look through. Head on over if you’ve got a moment.
Thanks for looking,
Mike
Fishing trip posts coming soon…
I actually went fishing last week…post upcoming..
In the meantime..
Still trying to work out some fishing time this week, positively itching for some grayling action. In the mean time..
In other news, Mr Tamanawis had a software update to Dr Tamanawis yesterday afternoon. Took 4 hours (well, 4 years really) and a lot of debugging, but I think it’ll stick. Time to go fishing I think.. some of the grayling streams have been looking very tempting, so I think I’ll try and get out this week.
Extra points for anyone who can identity the munro..
Taken from the Oban to Craignure ferry back in July. Rain showers, windy, cold and beautiful: this is why the west coast is so fantastic.
On Saturday I went up the west coast to Oban for a wee day trip. ‘Twas a fine day indeed, particularly since the forecast all week proclaimed doom. No fishing featured in proceedings, but a sight seeing stop by the bonny shores of Loch Awe did reveal a strange aquatic beast. Lying on the bank, next to a half-burnt fire containing a fine collection of rubbish, was a large fish skull. Unquestionably that of a pike, and a pretty big one too. The array of teeth was particularly impressive. Certainly makes me glad I’m not a perch..
I wondered how it had got to be there. I’d like to think it was roasted and eaten as part of an enjoyable fishing trip. But given the state of the rest of the place, I couldn’t help but suspect a more brutal, pointless history. From what I can understand, killing large pike like that, even when they live in a trout loch, is not a particularly good idea. Along with eating the weaker, often sick and injured fish of smaller species, they stem the tide of young jack pike that can really do damage. I won’t go into the subject of the state of Loch Awe any further at the moment, for if I start it will be a tirade of venting… holy $%^£(*^ are some people stupid.
As we were walking up back to the car, a bright red mushroom was spotted. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’m still trying to find out what it was, because none of my books show anything so deep a red. There were a few of them together, buried under the long wet grass. If anyone is an expert (or otherwise), I’d be delighted to know it’s name.
Wish it was me…
Ansel Adams was one of the greatest photographers ever. His landscape photos of Yosemite in the west of the USA really did set the standard for black and white photography of that genre. Photos like `Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico‘ have a kind of magnetic power to draw your eye around the frame. The sharpness, depth, tonality and composition of such photos remains unsurpassed. The fact that many of his great photos were taken in the early part of the last century does sometimes seem hard to believe.
Folks in the UK now have a great opportunity to see a wonderful selection of his own hand-printed photos at the `Ansel Adams – A Celebration of Genius’ exhibition which is now on display in the centre of Edinburgh. If you stand at the east end of Princes Street and look south across the top of the station you’ll see a big poster proclaiming ANSEL ADAMS. The exhibition is on at the City Art Gallery, which is right below the poster.
I’ve been twice, and it really is absolutely fantastic. It’s also a very rare chance to see the real thing, hand-printed by the Master and simply incredible to behold. Well worth the trip from Glasgow, Fife or anywhere in the UK really.
The photo in the first link above link is a horrific JPG version of the original. If you go to the exhibition and see the original you will be truly amazed at just how good a hand-printed black and white photograph can look.
Have a look at the (slightly poor) promotional website here.
Included in the exhibition is a display by a Scottish photographer called Lindsay Robertson. I hadn’t heard of him before, but his photos are also wonderful. He shoots using large format black and white film (like Ansel), and some of the prints are more than 5 FEET wide. You stand in front of them and truly feel like you could step into the frame and feel the cool breeze creeping across Rannoch Moor. His contribution to the exhibition is really excellent.
What else can I say? GO!
At the moment I’m getting more and more interested in photography. My new dSLR has really opened my eyes, and now I’m photographing more with my old manual gear too. During my internet browsing I’ve come across a few great photographers, but Bruce Percy has stood out as particularly excellent. Have a look at his site here. He seems to be based in Scotland, but his photos are from all around the world. Well worth a look.
There has been some incredible weather this winter. Wild rain, freezing fog, bright sunshine and snow. One of the most memorable days was the 12th of January. I drove up through the central highlands, and took loads of photos. I thought I’d share my favourite one.
I recently got a new camera, and it’s been a bit of a beauty. Photography provides a nice distraction from winter fishing blues. I suppose taking photographs of rivers is about as close as I can get at the moment..
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