Damian Shields

For this image I ascended a wee ‘bump’ of
a hill by the side of the road not far from
the muddy car park where many a walker
begins the hard slog up to the summit of
Stob Dearg. After hanging my heavy cam-
era bag over the tripod for stability in the
wind, I set the camera for a long expo-
sure as I could see the thick cloud being
swept across from right to left in the
same direction of the flow of the Coupall
beneath. The rich light of the sun poking
through was being caught in the water
nicely linking up the two and drawing my
eye down and round to little Lagangarbh
cottage which gave a nice sense of scale
to the scene.

I shot this image during a pit-stop at the Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge. I was admiring the bronzed soldiers view of the mighty Nevis range to the south, the hills encased in a thick layer of snow. As my eye turned west I was stuck by the lovely profile of Stob a Ghrianain rising above a thick strip of pines. The soft and thick cloud formations moving over the scene made for a perfect backdrop to the crisp lines and contrasts created by the strong sunlight and I accentuated the mood in post processing by taking the exposure down to draw you in to the spill of light on the peak.

I was up in Skye for a few days with a fellow photographer staying at the ‘rough and ready’ bothy at Camasunary. Before heading home on the last day of our stay we made one final pilgrimage to the wonderful Elgol to take a last lingering look across loch Scavaig to the Black Cuillin beyond. Partially shielded from the elements by the wall to my left, I decided to go for a long exposure to give an impression of the approaching mood moving in from the west. This was one of the last exposures I managed before the wind and rain whipping in from the sea forced me back to the shelter of my car.