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In the village where I live there is a small caravan park down by the shore, busy in the summer but with few visitors in the winter. It is an attractive location for a caravan park, right next to the beach and with expansive views over Gruinard Bay to the mountains of Wester Ross and Sutherland.
Little of the beach is to be seen in this photo due to the tide and that which is exposed is covered in snow. It was the snow covered beach that attracted me to this scene. The main problem I had was framing the shot in such a way that my shadow would not intrude into the scene.
The sun was low in the sky behind me and it seemed that no matter where I went, even crouching down, my shadow intruded. Of course one can always sort out problems like that in Photoshop. However, it is more work and it is better to solve such problems naturally if at all possible. I eventually decided to use a naturally occurring shadow in the snow to hide my own.
All my shots are taken with the camera mounted on a tripod. One can reduce a shadow problem simply by setting the camera timer and moving away while the camera does its job. This still leaves a tripod shadow to deal with but this is less extensive and is usually retouched out fairly easily.
The house you see on the peninsula was the Laide fishing station but is now a private dwelling. The small jetty at the fishing station is still in use by the local community but the net poles over which the bag nets were draped for repair are long gone and the nearby ice house long disused. For those with an interest in the operation and history of the fishing station you can read "A History of Laide Fishing Station".
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.
Gruinard Bay; possibly from the Norse grunnfjörðr meaning shallow firth.
Laide; In Gaelic it is An Leathad meaning ‘a slope’.
Sutherland; From the Norse Suðerland, that is ‘South Land’. It may seem odd that the far north of Scotland should have a name which means ‘South Land’, but if you were on Viking raiding party from Norway it would have been an obvious name to choose.
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