Image Details
Usually when photographing Loch Tollaidh I would be looking east so that the mountains of 'The Great Wilderness' make a dramatic background for the composition. Not in this case however; I chose to shoot directly into the sun because I found the foreground peninsula with it's snow covered rowing boats made an attractive composition.
There was a strong glare from the snow and the loch which made it difficult to see detail, and it gave me some concerns about the correct exposure for the slow film I was using. This particular shot was in fact the start of a sequence of different views of Loch Tollaidh taken that day, none of which used the mountains of 'The Great Wilderness' as a backdrop. The other views will appear on this website at a later date.
Due to the glare I didn't notice that on the far side of Loch Tollaidh there were four deer walking through the snow. You can just about make them out on the larger image displayed on this website, they are at the top centre of the picture just below the dark rocks. The warmer winters we now experience in the Scottish West Highlands make such scenes less common now, much to my regret.
North-west Highland Place Names
The landscape of the North-west Highlands and the Gaelic language are intimately connected. Other languages have contributed to the richness of our place names, notably Norse, but the North-west Highlands have for centuries been a Gaelic landscape. In listing the meanings of place names I have relied on authoritative sources wherever possible. For further information about sources please refer to North-west Highland Place Names in the main menu.
Loch Tollaidh; Gaelic; ‘loch at the place of the holes’, there are also Tollie Farm, Tollie Bay, Tollie Rock, and Tollie Burn.
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