Night Time Adventures at the Coast

With changeable weather the photography in Banffshire was not easy, but I persevered throughout the holiday, visiting Bow Fiddle at all hours and spending time climbing down to Quineland and the rocky beach at Portknockie. On the second last night I went for a night shot of Bow Fiddle. Tripod, mirror lockup, bulb exposure, and torch to play on the rock and light my way home. All set for the picture in my mind of the rock on a misty calm sea (through a long exposure) with star trails above. Wrong. It was cloudy, darkness fell quickly, I misjudged the exposure very badly. Time to go back, except it was pitch dark by this time, I was cold and my torch would only let me see the grassy slope of the cliff behind me. In the dark, even with a torch, a grassy path looks exactly like a grassy slope. And a shallow slope looks awfully lie a steep slope. I hadn't expected that, but OK , going up should be the answer. With the waves crashing at my back and the slope in front of me off I set. The grass got longer, the ground boggier and my heart was starting to race. I felt really stupid and could see myself having to sit till dawn or call for help - far too embarrassing to do either. On I went, climbing a little in places until finally, my foot hit a firmer bit of ground and I could see it was the path. My second scary time of the holiday. It does you good to have wee adventures though :-)

On my way home, walking through the quaint streets of the old town , I decided to salvage the evening and get some shots by street light. Setting up my tripod I didn't reckon on Highland Living. Almost immediately as I set up, an old lady, dressed very smartly and clutching a bible (no doubt to ward off heathen southerners) came beetling up to me - "Can I ask what your doing?". So I explained that the streets were very different from my home town and I thought there could be a nice photograph of the gable ends. "Hmm, one of these gable ends is mine!" she said pointedly. "Oh I'm sorry, I do hope you don't mind", I said, "I'm an amateur photographer and I think this town is beautiful". "Hmm", she replied, "Are you a church goer!". What to say… I reckoned the truth was probably best, I suspected she would see through any lies, "Not very often I'm afraid, just now and then" (mainly then I thought). "And what do you want to take a photograph for? Do you enjoy it?" (dripping scorn). "Yes" I replied trying to look as simple as she obviously thought I was. "Well, so long as you enjoy it", and off she went. I had been scrutinised, deemed as a an ungodly simpleton and she was probably away off to type up her report on me for the towns next municipal meeting.

So I continued to set up and reckoned I needed a 4 minute exposure of the deserted street. 2 minutes into it, along came an older man, looking at the tripod and camera, looking at me… "I won't ask" he said. I figured this was exactly the sort of glib attitude that would have had the old lady crossing herself. I decided I like this one. "you can if you want, I'll only tell you" I said. But he didn't break stride and strode past calling "I'm off to the harbour, I'll ask if you're here when I come back". He returned about a minute later with a "Well?". So I told him about the shot, told him about competition photography and showed him what the results were like. In return he told me he had live there for 60 years and gave me the history of Portknockie. These are the people that are a joy to meet when you are out taking pictures. In the end the shot wasn't great (too many distractions I think) but it was an amusing end to my night shoot.