And Now the Photography—My Top Ten

by | Dec 28, 2024 | Photography

I admit it. I have more than ten photos. But I just could not make up my mind. First, I sorted about 3,000 photos to find my favorites. Then, I broke them down and consulted my wonderful bride and my grandson. Both gave me some good advice. I got down to 28. Six of those were puffin photos from the Isle of Lunga in Scotland. One was easy because it was one of a kind, but the others were really good. Kathleen liked one to add to the top ten and Mason another, so with that, I give you my puffins.

A special note (and I will only say it once, I promise): Don’t forget that if you click the first shot, you can scroll through it with your arrow keys or by swiping. And please don’t look at my photography on a phone.

 

And now for the honorable mentions that aren’t puffins. I will put the locations I shot them in the captions. Again, please click the first one and view them in full-screen mode.

This brings us to the Top Ten. Let’s count down to #1. I have set them up as a single photo gallery, so you can click them to view them full-screen.

Number 10—Djupevatn Lake above the town of Gearanger in Norway. I did a quick pano to get the full wide angle. I heard from someone who was on the cruise before ours and, therefore, had visited this lake two weeks before us. They told me it was still frozen over with tons of snow. You really need to click this one to see it in full-screen mode.

Number 9—Eileen Donan in Dornie Scotland from above. This is Kathleen’s family castle. You see, her mother’s maiden name was McCray, and this is the ancestral home of the McCrays. You may recognize it because it has been in many films and is commonly known as one of the most photogenic castles in all of Scotland. I took a ton of photos of it from ground level, but I knew there was a way to get a shot of it from above. As we were leaving the grounds, I asked one of the parking attendants how to get to the ridge above the castle. He swore me to secrecy and gave me exceptional directions that enabled me to get this shot.

Number 8—Lisbon below the Hotel Portugal. We were having our last dinner with our good friends we travel with every October (Steve, Jamie, Mike & Cathy) in a restaurant on top of a nearby hotel when I took this shot of an open-air market about a block from our hotel. It isn’t often that I get two almost aerial shots in one year.

Number Seven—A political demonstration in Lisbon. I don’t think I have ever taken a newsworthy photo before. Something that covers the news that is happening wherever we are. I was walking back from Lisbon’s Pink Street when I crossed a bridge and saw this march below me. It was so unusual for me that I had to include it in my Top Ten.

Number Six—The Tulip Stairs in the Queen’s Castle Greenwich, England. This beautiful photo is all about the angle. I took about 20 shots of this staircase, but the best of them was looking up its spiral.

Number 5—A pastoral scene just outside Plockton, Scotland. We were driving down a very remote but beautiful road headed to Plockton, Scotland, where we were looking for highland coos. We had seen a YouTube video that there were coos in Plockton (if you don’t know what a highland coo is, wait until my number one photo shows up). But there were no coos. But there was a cow on the other side of the bridge over a creek that just grabbed me as I glimpsed it while driving by. Seriously, I had to jam on the brakes (thankfully, no cars within a mile or so) and back up until I could line up the shot. This shot has grown on me since so many people who have seen it told me they really liked it.

Number 4—Incredible Glencoe in Scotland. Besides being the scene of a terrible massacre of Scottish families by British soldiers in 1692, Glencoe is maybe the most beautiful place I have ever seen. As we were driving from Fort William back to Glasgow, we had two routes we could have taken. One was the quickest and easiest, but we had driven up that way a few days earlier. The other way was longer and went through Glencoe. We were tired from our week in the Highlands, but at the last minute, we decided to do Glencoe. On that route, there is a stretch of road with pull-outs for photographers like me to jump out of their cars and shoot the glorious scenery. I think I stopped at all of them. And the weather cooperated with an amazing combination of sun, clouds and blue sky. These mountains are magnificent in every way, and this would have been my number one shot, but like the puffins, I couldn’t decide between the hundreds I took that day. This one is my favorite. One more thing. Please click it to see it full screen—it needs the space to really understand why I love it.

Number 3–Puffins in action on the Isle of Lunga, Scotland. As I mentioned above, when I wrote about my puffin experience, I took a TON of photos that day. I want to say the total was in the high hundreds or low thousands. The hardest part was getting a decent shot of them flying. I lay or sat on the ground, focused on a particular area and shot at least 200 shots. In all of those, the flying puffins were either blurry or so fast that I missed them completely. This was also one of those times when I didn’t know what I had until I got back to our Bed and Breakfast that night and could look through the shots. I had no clue if I had that shot I wanted or not. It turns out I did. Out of those hundreds of attempted action shots, this isn’t the best puffin flying shot I got…it is the ONLY puffin flying shot I got, but it’s a good one, and I worked hard to get it.

Number 2—Isle of Staffa, Scotland. This is one of those photos that makes people gasp when they see it: This guy is so high on this cliff. I love it because it teaches me something as a photographer—you need humans for scale. I have two versions of this same exact shot. One with a human and one without. The one without is boring. The one with a human catches your eye and pulls you right in. Also, please note the naturally occurring basalt columns at the bottom of the cliff. That’s the reason that Staffa is so famous. You should see the cave below the cliff—WOW!

Number 1—My favorite Highland Coo on the Isle of Skye. This guy just called out to me. Actually, he is kind of tired of me. I have an entire series of shots of this guy posing, but this is my favorite. After being disappointed in Plockton when we didn’t find any coos, we were driving by a farm on the Isle of Skye with a small herd right near a fence. We pulled over, and I took quite a few shots. Our forever neighbor Lisa thinks it should be framed and hung in our house or maybe in hers. Either way, I agree. I love it, and I love pretty much all Highland Coos. They are glorious creatures.

Please let me know in the comments what you like or how you would have rearranged the order. I love discussion. 

Which brings us to the end of 2024. This will be my last post of a pretty darn good year with lots of travel, lots of memories and lots of photography. 2025 looks interesting but with a little less travel. We have nothing scheduled until July, when we head to Southern Africa to fulfill my one remaining photo milestone—shooting a safari. BUT…In the meantime, I do have a photographic project coming on January 1, but you will just have to wait until that day to find out about it. Thanks for sticking with me all year long. Travel safely.

That’s all, folks   —Porky Pig

 

 

Castles & Coos

by | Jun 11, 2024 | Photography

First, THE castle

On Sunday morning we again woke early at the Balintoy. We enjoyed one of Gillian’s great breakfasts (she makes a GREAT cup of coffee) and headed out to find two things—an extraordinary castle and coos.

A little Scottish history, as I understand it. In Scotland,  you have clans (extended families) and you have castles. Many of the clans had what is known as an “ancestral home.” For instance, the castle I wrote about two days ago in Armadale (where we had to run from the rain) was the ancestral home of the McDonald clan.

If you are not aware, my wonderful bride is of Scottish descent. Her mother was part of the McCray clan. The ancestral home of the McCray/MacRae clan is a castle you have undoubtedly seen numerous times in photos and films. It is, in all likelihood, Scotland’s most famous castle. It has been in multiple movies (a couple of James Bond films and a rom-com with Patrick Dempsey called “Maid of Honor”), and if it is not the most famous, it is undoubtedly the most photographed. Only Stirling Castle and possibly Edinburgh Castle are more famous but not more photogenic.

So, we needed to make a pilgrimage to Kathleen’s ancestral home. We had been to Eilean Donan in 2003 on our second trip to Europe and our first to Scotland. That was in November, and it was cold and rainy. We were looking forward to seeing it in June with better skies and to see if they had changed anything since we had been there before.

It took us about two hours to get there because, of course, there were things along the way I had to stop and take photos of to show you the incredible beauty that is Scotland. For instance, here’s our stops…another mountain, another waterfall and a vista that rocked.

We finally did arrive at Eileen Donan, and WHAT A ZOO! When we were here in 2003, we paid for entry (It was a small donation of a couple of pounds) and toured the two rooms that were available to view inside the castle. Most people stopped on the road across from the castle and took a photo. While we were there in 2003, we talked to one of the docents who toured us through the rooms, and she said they had expansion plans someday. No kidding.

When we pulled into the car park today (see, I have stopped calling it a parking lot already), there were already more than one hundred cars there. When we got to the brand new Visitor’s Center, gift shop, and restaurant building, we paid our £14 per person admission (and that was senior pricing) to tour the castle. You would think McCrays would get in free ?. On the way to said building, we must have passed more than 200 people.

Of course, I took a BUNCH of photos of Scotland’s most photogenic castle. Eileen Donan sits at the intersection of three lochs (Loch Long, Loch Duich and Loch Alsh), so it has played a significant role in protecting much of Scottish real estate. And it is the position of the castle, on a tiny island at the intersection of these lochs, that makes it so photogenic. So, without further ado, I have for you here my ground-level take on Eilean Donan. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I would love to show you photos of the inside, but there are numerous signs and numerous docents telling you NO! Suffice it to say it combines Scottish history and Pirates of the Caribbean. Many documents, artifacts and exhibits mixed in with kitchen scenes with mannequins dressed in period clothes trying to stop dishes from falling off a shelf. Seriously. Let’s say some of it went a bit too far. And getting through the place took some time as it was PACKED! Nothing like our November 2003 visit when we had been the only ones there. I am glad to see them so prosperous, but I am also sad to see people treating it as the Scottish version of Disneyland.

Once we had toured the interior of the castle, we went to the restaurant and grabbed a latte and some Scottish shortbread. Then it was off to the gift shop to find the first coo we were to see that day. You see, we were on a hunt for two kinds of coo. One would be a tiny piece of pottery and the other a full-size coo. We got both. The first one we found was in the gift shop. Whew!

Kathleen had seen a very cute ceramic coo at the Balintoy. And when we asked Gillian where she had purchased them, she was pretty sure she had done that at a pottery shop in Uig. The same Uig where we had had lunch the day before. She said it was on the backside of the big car park. We had parked on the front side of the big car park and never seen it. That meant if we didn’t find it in downtown Portree or someplace else, we were driving the 50-mile round trip to Uig to get one. Sadly, we didn’t find it in the Eilean Donan gift shop. Thankfully, Kathleen found one she liked even better!!!! Check that off our list. Now we just need to find the real thing—a live coo.

In researching the trip in Scottish FaceBook groups I had learned that there was a little-known place you could drive up to on a tiny one-lane road to take a photo from above the castle. We asked one of the car park attendants and he was nice enough to give us explicit directions (but swore us to secrecy) and off we went. His directions were right on the money and these photos are the result. My best shots of the castle— either this year or in 2003.

When we were up at the top we had one of those fun travel experiences. The night before we had seen a group of six people eating in the Rosedale when we were having dinner. We could tell by their accents they were Americans. And where should we run into them again? At the top of this hill. They admitted they had not found out the location from the secret guy in the car park but that their guide (who we got to meet) had driven them there. We talked and joked and I took their group photo and the guide was a huge help to get us on our way.

On to the real coos!

For those of you who are not sure about what in the heck I have been writing about when I talk about coos…coos are Scottish Highland cows. In the wonderful dialect that people speak in Scotland, they become coos. They are different from regular cows. They have to be the shaggy, hair-in-their-face kind of cow. You have undoubtedly seen them (if you have ever followed a Scottish FB group or anyone Scottish on Instagram—as they celebrate Coosday every Tuesday). We had not seen a single one yet except when driving at breakneck speed to get to Balintoy and make our dinner reservation.

Having seen a YouTube video taken in the small, nearby village of Plockton, that featured numerous coos we decided to head that way. And our SatNav (no longer a GPS to us) took us on quite the ride to get there. It was supposed to take us on an A road (one lane in both directions) but ended up taking us through some scenic countryside on a B road (one lane in ANY direction). I did get some decent photos on the way. Especially this one that Kathleen spotted for me. You can actually see a regular cow in the distance in the first pic. I couldn’t decide which photo I liked better, cropped or uncropped, so you get both.

We finally got there and were rewarded with exactly ZERO coos. The video had shown a whole bunch along the roadways, but they must have been at Coo church (after all, it was Sunday) because they weren’t out anywhere we could see them. So, sadly, we decided to head back to Portree. That route took us over the Skye Bridge, which is an architectural marvel. Had to get pics of that and when I did, I saw this cool lighthouse under it so I got one of those.

After crossing the bridge and driving back onto the Isle we were still looking for coos. Lo and behold— just outside the village of Sconser, we saw them—COOS! I quickly pulled off, grabbed my camera, and started shooting. Hope you love coos because here they come. I call this gallery The Many Faces of the Scottish Coo. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping… and PLEASE… don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Like the puffins on Lunga, I shot about 300 photos of the Coos of Sconser. Luckily for you, the rest are just for me to look at with fondness ?.

After our coo encounter, it was back to Portree. Kathleen for a nap at the Balintoy and me for a walk to the village, where I hit some decent weather and got some great photos of the downtown. Here they are in all their glory.

That does it for our third and final day on the Isle of Skye. We were headed back to Glasgow the next morning (a six-hour drive). More about that tomorrow…or maybe later today.

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland.  —Alexander McQueen