Mine Work Home Me Stripe

Photos - Mine

I like photography as something of a pseudo-hobby. I don't especially know much about it, but sometimes I get lucky anyway. Here are some.

Originally I only included photos here if I especially liked them. However, these days I often include photos in the diary. Different selection criteria apply. For the diary, I might include a photo that isn't especially impressive, if I especially want to include a photo of the subject to accompany the diary text. But that means I have all these photos already available on the site. I've therefore started including them here, because I might as well; it doesn't take any more work or space on the site.

Perhaps later, I will include a separate category for photos I have especially liked...

• UK Day Trips
• Dad's Visit (August 2002)
• Ironbridge Weekend (May 2002)
• Peak District (March 2002)
• Rhine Valley, Germany (February 2002)
• Scotland Trip (July/August 2001)
• Yorkshire (May 2001)
• York (May 2001)
• UK Trip (May/June 2000)
• Various other photos

Or, you can...

• See them all (HUGE download)

Scotland Trip (July/August 2001)
	Buttermere (94 KB). Buttermere, Cumbria, England; 30 Jul 2001. This is Buttermere, a small lake (and town) in the middle of a cluster of mountains in the Lake District.
	Buttermere panorama (188 KB). Buttermere, Cumbria, England; 30 Jul 2001. See note about viewing panoramas. Wow.
	The Royal Mile (431 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 31 Jul 2001. See note about viewing panoramas. The heart of Edinburgh is the Royal Mile, running from Edinburgh Castle to Holyroodhouse Palace. Edinburgh Castle is perched at the top of a volcanic core. When the glaciers came through, they couldn't budge the tough volcanic rock, so they had to go around and over it, so it looms over the rest of the city quite impressively. The land right behind the core slopes gently down until it meets the surrounding ground level again, right where Holyroodhouse Palace is. The street connecting these two is called the Royal Mile. In this panorama, you can see Edinburgh Castle at the far left and Holyroodhouse Palace at the far right. The construction cranes are building the new Scottish Parliament. The water in the background is the Firth of Forth. This panoramic has some stitching and focussing issues, so I'm not especially happy with it as a photograph.
	Holyroodhouse Palace (159 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 31 Jul 2001. Holyroodhouse Palace is one of the two anchors of the Royal Mile. Most peculiarly, it seems to be built up against a ruined abbey--even sharing a wall with it! Yet when you think about it, they probably were built at the same time. Certainly there was lots of history taking place at the palace in the 1500s. Probably the abbey was just allowed to go to ruin, and the castle wasn't.
	Iron window (61 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 3 Aug 2001. At Holyroodhouse Palace. I like the shapes and the colour.
	Dynamic Earth (101 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 31 Jul 2001. I like the way the hyper-modern Dynamic Earth pavilion is built on top of the much older layer...
	Forth Rail Bridge (115 KB). South Queensferry, Scotland; 31 Jul 2001. The bridge turned out to be quite picturesque, especially as we were approaching Magic Hour (which is near-interminable in Scotland when the days are long; it lasts a solid hour anyway).
	Bridge and walls (137 KB). South Queensferry, Scotland; 31 Jul 2001. I like the juxtaposition of the different ages, colours, and building materials.
	Boat silhouettes (119 KB). Blackness, Scotland; 31 Jul 2001. Near sunset at a hamlet with the wonderful name of Darkness.
	Arabic carving (174 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 1 Aug 2001. At the Royal Museum in Edinburgh.
	Jewellery statues (77 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 1 Aug 2001. At the National Museum, adjacent and connected to the Royal Museum. The National Museum has some really good ideas. For one thing, they treat the museum itself as a work of art, and the objects on display also as art, rather than just curiosities in boxes. They even work to make the backdrops and stands artistic, rather than just functional plinths. These guys are displaying (if I recall correctly) Saxon jewellery. The display cases are sited where the item would be worn, so a bracelet is located at a statue's wrist.
	Bishop (87 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 1 Aug 2001. The National Museum had several pieces from the Lewis chess set.
	King and queen (74 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 1 Aug 2001. From the Lewis chess set.
	Chapel glass (125 KB). Edinburgh, Scotland; 2 Aug 2001. At Edinburgh Castle. I'm a sucker for stained glass. I can never resist the combination of primary colours, dark frame, and (sometimes) back-lighting.
	Avalon (40 KB). Near North Berwick, Scotland; 2 Aug 2001. On the road to Tantallon Castle, east of Edinburgh. As we neared the castle, we found a perfectly-shaped hill in the middle of a flat plain, with its base obscured by mist. It was just like typical descriptions of Avalon in the various cheesy versions of the Arthurian legends. On the other side of the road was the sea, completely mist-enshrouded, with a single giant rock sticking up from it, with a lighthouse on it. Behind us was the ruined castle. Meanwhile the sun peeked out from the clouds, and the fields nearby were full of tiny red poppies. What more could anyone want?
	Blair Castle panorama (91 KB). Blair Atholl, Scotland; 3 Aug 2001. See note about viewing panoramas. Mostly for the benefit of American readers, this is a photo of a castle that people still live in. This one is relatively new, and self-consciously much more Disney-esque than most, but you can at least get an idea of what an enormous pile a castle generally is!
	Squall approaching Culloden Battlefield (49 KB). Near Newlands, Scotland; 4 Aug 2001. Culloden is the site of one of the many blood-soaked events that pepper Scottish history. Here on a cold and sleeting day in 1745 a Scottish army, in support of Bonnie Prince Charlie, lost utterly to an English force, who apparently proceeded to butcher the Scottish wounded. The field (which is behind me, not actually in this photo) is surprisingly large, and partly overgrown with bushes and heather today (although they employ sheep to help keep the growth in check), and, of course, innocent and peaceful-looking. It's impossible to imagine what it must have been like. Nasty.
	Clava Cairns (166 KB). Near Newlands, Scotland; 4 Aug 2001. There are three cairns on the site, each within its own ring of standing stones, thought to be something like 4,000 to 5,000 years old, which makes them contemporaries of the Pyramids. Wow. This is a snippet of the stone circle around the third cairn; you can also see one of the other cairns off in the distance. Typically, the single-track lane that brought us here actually runs through one edge of this stone circle; one of the stones is on the other side of the road, and one stone is actually part of the stone wall on this side of the road.
	Thistles at Cawdor Castle (134 KB). Cawdor, Scotland; 4 Aug 2001. Yes, the one in Macbeth, at least in name. These probably aren't really thistles either, but they look quite a lot like them. I like the glowingly-translucent purple shade.
	Trotternish Ridge (57 KB). Near Dunan, Skye, Scotland; 5 Aug 2001. This is the most impressive bit of geology I've ever seen: an enormous ridge, gently sloped on the west, rising to a knife-edge and dropping off suddenly on the east. This is the spine of the Trotternish, an entire section of Skye. We are still quite a long way away from it; it's miles long and very tall. This is not a terribly good photo, even after Mike tweaked it, because of the distance; but by its nature, you have to be far away to take a photo of the whole ridge; so you can't win.
	Trotternish Teeth (117 KB). Flodigarry, Skye, Scotland; 5 Aug 2001. This is a view of the eastern face of the Trotternish ridge. Impressive chunks of the backbone have fallen off and been left standing as jagged tooth-like ridges. The teeth near the background of this picture are, oh, a few hundred feet tall.
	A headland near Kilmuir (88 KB). Kilmuir, Skye, Scotland; 5 Aug 2001. This is fairly typical of the Skye coastline. Mind that first step; it's usually a few hundred feet.
	A house with a view (109 KB). Kilmuir, Skye, Scotland; 5 Aug 2001. Most houses on Skye have an astonishing view either out the front or the back. Or both. This house's location rather reminded me of Uncle George's. The neighbour ratio is similarly satisfactory.
	Approaching Squall (47 KB). Uig, Skye, Scotland; 5 Aug 2001. A quick-moving storm heading into Uig, on Skye.
	Uig Harbour (60 KB). Uig, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. The ocean is so smooth you can see perfect reflections. Apparently this is not the normal state of affairs in Uig.
	Sunset on Skye (33 KB). Kilmuir, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. The islands off in the distance are Lewis and Harris.
	Eagle at Flodigarry House Hotel (72 KB). Flodigarry, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. Sun and shadow, shape and texture. I just like him.
	Waterline (75 KB). Near Glashvin, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. Where do the ocean and sky meet? Look again...
	Waterline panorama (143 KB). Near Glashvin, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. See note about viewing panoramas. It's easier to tell where the waterline is in this panorama, but it's still deceptive.
	Kilt Rocks (124 KB). Near Staffin, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. This area of cliff consists of basalt columns, so from a distance they look pleated, hence the name.
	Green rocks (125 KB). Near Staffin, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. These are at the base of Kilt Rocks. They're huge, I'm zoomed way in. I like the green tinge.
	Cyan rowboat and blue sky reflected in a pond (83 KB). Near Staffin, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. I like the colours.
	Sky, water and wheat (128 KB). Near Staffin, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. More of the colours in that small pond.
	Erosion near Lethe Falls (127 KB). Lealt, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. Lethe Waterfall plunges into a gorge which shortly reaches the ocean. The cliffs on either side of the gorge are quite high, steep, and impressively lethal. This picture was taken at the mouth of the gorge, where it has widened and flattened quite a lot. (For an idea of scale, the white dots are sheep.) See the strange irregular terracing covering the hillside? We suppose that's probably erosion, but it often looks like agricultural terracing. It's everywhere on Skye--everywhere that isn't flat or perpendicular, that is. What really boggled me was the picnic area along the edge of the gorge. Picnic tables sit within ten feet of a fenceless plummet. Families casually lunched right next to the edge, their children running around without much (apparent) supervision. In thinking about it, most houses on Skye are perched within a few hundred feet (at most) of a cliff, and they can't very well put fences around the perimeter of the entire island. I think the residents must take the hazard for granted. The cliffs were so impressive, and the drop so imminent, that I actually had dreams that night that I was falling off them.
	Glass ocean (50 KB). Lealt, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. We constantly boggled at how perfectly flat calm the ocean was while we were on Skye. I like the textures made by the tiny waves.
	Islands panorama (221 KB). Lealt, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. See note about viewing panoramas. Looking across to the Scottish mainland. I quite like these small rocky islets. Again, note the absurdly calm ocean. (For viewing panoramas, I recommend opening them full-size in whatever your viewer is, then scrolling slowly to the other end. This creates the sense of standing there and turning your head.)
	Dunvegan Head (68 KB). Trumpan, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. Taken from miles away. These are serious cliffs. I like the swoop.
	Distant Cuillin (104 KB). Near Roskhill, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. The Cuillin is a dramatic and mysterious-sounding part of the island of Skye. There is only one single-track road into that region; hiking is the usual way in. It's a tiny region, yet has something like 20 peaks over 3,000 ft. And my my, was it photogenic. So we thought we'd drive toward them and see what we could see. The chase itself was fun, trying to extrapolate from the map what our best route for further approach should be, even as we watched the lighting on the peaks change and watched them get closer. In this photo, they are still quite far away; you can see the compact nature of the region--jaggy, jaggy, jaggy, whoops done. We agreed that they seemed Tolkienesque--the kinds of mountains that Tolkien characters are always having to traverse, that never seem quite plausible when reading about them. Yet there they were.
	Black Cuillin panorama (203 KB). Near Drynoch, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. See note about viewing panoramas. This is what the Cuillin looked like when we reached our closest approach. Check out the large peak toward the right edge--Skye would seem to have a graffiti problem with delinquent giants. Or maybe giant delinquents.
	Red Cuillin (92 KB). Somewhere on the A863, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. There are apparently two Cuillins--the Red Cuillin, ordinary granite mountains, and the "true" or Black Cuillin, made of something called gabbro. In any case, the contrast is striking, with them sitting right beside each other. The Red Cuillin look like they've had chocolate sauce poured on top.
	Another sunset (56 KB). Near Uig, Skye, Scotland; 6 Aug 2001. Again looking toward Lewis and Harris from the west coast of the Trotternish. This is during the last few minutes of sunset.
	Dun Carloway (108 KB). Carloway, Lewis, Scotland; 7 Aug 2001. Brochs are cylindrical dwellings, made of drystone, standing about 40' tall. The outside is a double wall, with voids and stairs between. They were built mostly between 100BC and 100AD. This one, Dun Carloway, is one of the best preserved ones still in existence. In this picture, I am outside, looking at the front door. The front wall only survives to the height of the door lintel, but the back wall rises to about 20' high. You can see the wall rising as it sweeps around to the back, and also see the double-wall construction (mostly by seeing the black void between the two walls). At least I hope you can; the lighting conditions weren't the greatest.
	Mind your navel (102 KB). Carloway, Lewis, Scotland; 7 Aug 2001. The door into the broch is only about 3.5 ft high; you really have to crouch to get in. Inside the broch, there is just an open space, with three more tiny doors leading into the void between the outer and inner walls. These doors are really small. I had to do a sort of chicken-walk to get through one of them. This is Mike standing in the void between the walls, behind the tallest of the three interior doors.
	Calanais overview (97 KB). Calanais, Lewis, Scotland; 8 Aug 2001. Calanais Stone Circle is an enormous cross, with a circle at the center. This is an overview of most of the site (although one leg of the cross continues quite some distance further), to give you an idea of its size. It probably was built around 3000BC, which makes it yet another contemporary of the Pyramids.
	Central circle at Calanais (94 KB). Calanais, Lewis, Scotland; 8 Aug 2001. This is the central, and probably original, circle at Calanais; the rest of the cross shape was probably added later. The central stones are quite a bit bigger than the others.
	Sunbeam in smoke (45 KB). Arnol Blackhouse Museum, Lewis, Scotland; 8 Aug 2001. This is in a blackhouse, a long thin drystone house with a thick thatched roof--and no chimney. They burned peat in a central fire in the middle of the floor. When we went in, it was obvious why they were called blackhouses; everything was encrusted with soot. The smoke curled visibly in the air. We stopped to boggle at the "No Smoking" sign just outside...
	Rainbow at Seilebost Sands (74 KB). Seilebost Sands, Harris, Scotland; 8 Aug 2001. Harris has rolling mountains strewn with boulders. But it also has the majority of the Sands, amazing Caribbean-style beaches complete with turquoise water. The beach isn't just a narrow strip along the ocean frontage; it extends deep inland. Imagine a V-shaped ocean inlet, but floor it with sand instead of ocean. When the tide is out, you have three or four miles of sand; when it comes in, you have about six inches of ocean on top of it. Our first trip out to see the Sands was accompanied by intermittent rain squalls, but they had an unexpected bonus--rainbows. You can almost see the secondary outer ring of this one, about halfway across the photo to the left of the main ring.
	Rainbow (23 KB). Seilebost Sands, Harris, Scotland; 8 Aug 2001. For once in its life, my camera cooperated and focussed on sky, which it normally refuses to do.
	Luskentyre Sands (101 KB). Luskentyre Sands, Harris, Scotland; 9 Aug 2001. Luskentyre is another of the amazing Sands. The tide is in; we're standing at the back of the V, looking out across the six-inch-deep ocean toward the actual beach part of the Sands. You can see it way off in the distance; it's about three miles from where we are, just before the dark blue bit that is the actual ocean. I love the colour layering.
	Waves (135 KB). Luskentyre Sands, Harris, Scotland; 9 Aug 2001. Colour and texture--these are a few of my favourite things...
	Colours (98 KB). Luskentyre Sands, Harris, Scotland; 9 Aug 2001. Layers of colour at Luskentyre Sands.
	Sands panorama (418 KB). Luskentyre Sands, Harris, Scotland; 9 Aug 2001. See note about viewing panoramas. You can see the water-covered sands at the right edge, behind the spit of sand; that's all uncovered beach when the tide is out. Notice the obscenely turquoise water. Also notice the mountains in the background--do they look like Mount Desert Island minus trees or what? Sometimes it was so desolate, rock-covered, and plantless that we wondered whether we'd taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up on the moon.
	Tomb cover (126 KB). Rodel, Harris, Scotland; 9 Aug 2001. A tomb cover for a MacLeod, circa 1550, at St Clement's Church in Rodel on Harris. I like the crusader look of him. Also notice how his left hand is gripping a dirk.
	Saltings (128 KB). Leverburgh, Harris, Scotland; 9 Aug 2001. The sea salt permeates these strange chunks of ground. The sheep know this and come nibble on it. Just one more surreal thing about Harris.
	Grass tufts (155 KB). Horgabost, Harris, Scotland; 9 Aug 2001. At the edge of the beach near the Clan McLeod Standing Stone.

^* Note about viewing panoramas: I recommend opening panoramas full-size in whatever your viewer is, then scrolling slowly to the other end. This creates the sense of standing there and turning your head.