Autumn in Ardnamurchan and Moidart:
When better to make images and memories of colour and location, reflecting mood and meaning, than in the moments when I feared I could lose sight of it all and my mind was a whirlpool of distorted perceptions?
Where better to collect rich colours and memories than here, with the sights and scenes of its land and seashores and the details in its rocks, rivers and forests?
Volcanic beach at Swordle, looking out to Rhum, Muck and Eigg
Where better to gather contrasting hues and shapes of trees and leaves, bracken, ferns and lichen, than among its ancient oak woodlands and temperate rainforests?
Glenborrodale
Ancient Oaks reaching out over the River Moidart
Woodland near Strontian
Larch, Birch and Oak near Sàilean nan Cuileag
Where better to find the early morning sun rising over the mountain to reflect through bending reeds, than on its inland lochs beside abandoned crofts?
Glen Moidart
Where better to to see forms that catch the light, intensifying colour in reflections of clear or abstract detail, than in its sea-lochs and shorelines, its saltings and its rivers flowing fast and slow?
Reflections around Castle Tioram
Saltings at Sàilean nan Cuileag
River Shiel
What better time than now, a year later with my sight no longer at risk, to find that I can indeed remember with clarity and appreciation the locations, images and colours of Ardnamurchan and Moidart?
Curiously and perhaps paradoxically, I’ve also discovered that it is the two-dimensional photographs I remember best. I only have to think of those photographs without seeing them, to relive the whole experience of being there, the sense of composing order in the image out of the chaos of my sensory perceptions and even the whirlpools of raw emotion.
Whirlpools on the River Shiel
