Northton Salt Flats, Isle of Harris.From the air, salt flats or marshes are wonderful mosaics of land and water. Small rivers, creeks and pools surround grassy knolls or islands. Imagine a water filled maze and you are nearly there. True salt flats are relatively rare in Scotland due to the rugged nature of the coastline, so to find such a curious collection in not only one but two locations on the Isle of Harris is an opportunity not to be missed.
Yesterday was a rest day, and it was a well-earned day of editing images, snoozing, listening to the radio and a proper sit-down meal in the café. But today it’s back at it for a trip down to the Northton salt flats followed by a mooch at Bagh Steinigidh and another attempt at the sunset shot down at Nisabost.
“Little did I prepare myself for meeting the ladies of the road”
It’s been nine days since I left home on this adventure, and today it finally rained for the first time. Having planned for at least 50% of my days to be rained off, to find myself halfway through my trip with no rain, either meant that was it for the rest of my trip (get the waterproofs out) or I was wrong. Seems it is the latter, as it rained for a total of three minutes whilst driving along the road south to Northton. It didn’t rain again for the next week, but it did snow if that makes you feel better. Rather than cram Mr T into a narrow rocky layby off the single-track road I opted to park at the visitors centre in the village of Northton. This meant a roughly half mile walk back up the road to get onto the flats. “Not a problem” I thought whilst parking up and getting my rucksack out, but little did I prepare myself for meeting the ladies of the road. Not what you are thinking, more 1 tonne beasts with horns. If, like me, you live in Bolton, you may still be thinking…. Ok wait, Highland Coos!
I love Coos, especially highland ginger ones, but from a distance primarily. These ladies were on my piece of road and stood between me and the flats. Nothing for it but walk on by head held high and be ready to run. “Nothing to see here, just a mild-mannered photographer on his way”. I’m still not sure if there were girls or boys. I convinced myself ladies so I had the bottle to walk in between them. As I mentioned earlier there had been a brief spell of rain, but generally it was a bit cloudy and miserable at 9am, so I had an opportunity to explore the salt flats and find the best compositions whilst waiting for the light to improve. Also, there was a solitary black hairy coo right in my line of sight.
Getting from island to island in the flats was a case of taking a run up and leaping across the watery lanes. Great fun, but not so easy with camera and backpack so I grabbed a few essentials and left my pack on the largest of the islands. You may be able to see in the phone picture above a white plastic bag to the right about 50 feet in the distance. It was all I could see and a massive distraction, so it had to go. I left my gear on an island and island hopped my way over to the bag and pulled it back to the side of the road out of shot. “I’ll pick you up later”. Unfortunately, this disturbed the Coo near the bag and she/he decided to wade into the salt marshes and stand on one of the islands smack bang in my line of view. It was a bit dull, but the clouds were giving a bit of drama, so I went black and white and made a model out of my Coo.
I spent the next hour or so Island hopping, finding different compositions. Places like this are amazing, and the whole view can change just by dropping your camera height a matter of inches. Finding separation between islands and great reflections was the challenge, without getting my feet wet. I had prodded the sandy bottom of one of the channels and I feared any incursion would be knee deep in sandy mud in seconds. I would quickly be minus 1 welly. Slowly the clouds began to clear from behind me and I was able to grab some great shots dotted around the marshes. With Ceapabhal in the background what more could I ask for? No more chattering, here they are.
Snaking off into the distance
Ceapabhal reflections
Island hoppers
No Coos on the way back so I was able to get back to Mr T and head over to a great spot next to Bagh Steinigidh I had spotted on the way down for breakfast and a coffee.
Breakfast at Bagh Steinigidh
Bagh Steinigidh is a small beach at the side of the road with a small grassy parking space. This morning I had it to myself as usual, so threw the door open and enjoyed my breakfast watching the waves on the beach. Bagh Steinigidh has some great rock formations and normally gets some fantastic waves. The only problem was this endless mild sunny weather meant waves were, erm not very big? Never mind, I’m here and the location is stunning. Tide on its way in so lots to see. This is my kind of location, clean sandy beaches, dark black volcanic rocks, and the tide pushing waves in and out crashing over the rocks. I dropped in a neutral density filter so I could set my shutter speed to 1/3 of a second in the bright sunlight. This is a great speed to capture movement in the water whilst maintaining contrast and capturing splashes. All I had to do was find my compositions, try and keep the tripod out of the waves and keep my feet dry. With the islands and the mountains of Harris across the bay, this was going to be a great hour or so.
Waves retreat down the steep beach
Incoming waves fan out across the coarse sand
One in, one out
I’ve been asked before for tips on using neutral density filters and how I choose what speed and what filter to use. What speed really depends upon the effect you want. As you will see above, I was aiming to capture the movement of a single wave both incoming and retreating as they give very different patterns. Anywhere from 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 of a second will do this. Try them all and depending upon the speed of the wave you will find the right setting. Here I wanted 1/3 of a second. Once you have chosen your speed to aim for you need to think aperture depending upon light and composition. The above images range from f/8, f/11 and f/14 as I have rocks in the foreground and mountains in the distance. I wanted both in focus and these apertures give me the depth of field I need for these kinds of compositions. It was nice and sunny, so I set my ISO to the best at ISO64. Then it’s a case of looking at your light meter in the camera and this will give you the speed based upon the aperture and ISO to get the right exposure. I can’t remember what I had at the time but let’s say for example this could be around 1/160th of a second in this kind of light. So, f/11, ISO64 at 1/160th of a second would expose this scene correctly, but I would more or less freeze-frame the waves. What I want is 1/3rd of a second. I use Lee filters, and they have a handy app where you can drop in the current exposure and it will tell you which filter to use to get the desired speed change. In this example it told me to drop my 6 stop Little Stopper filter in and tweak my aperture slightly as if to get 1/200th of a second.
1/200th of a second exposure with a 6 stop filter will give you 1/3rd of a second. Once I had done this, I could tweak the aperture depending upon my composition. And the good thing about the Little Stopper, it is light enough to be able to refocus without having to keep taking the filter out. I hope that was helpful.
I needed to stock up on some provisions, so took a leisurely drive down to the Harris community shop at Leverburgh before doing another U-turn and heading back up to my favourite viewpoint near Horgabost for another glorious pano of the Luskentyre bay at high tide.
Early afternoon at Luskentyre
The forecast was good, and I was beginning to wonder if tonight was going to be my sunset night. The weather can change quickly here but my app was telling me it was all systems go. Sunset at 6:40pm so I had a few hours to kill back at camp downloading from my camera. The plan was to walk up to MacLeod´s Stone and grab a shot with the setting sun lighting the stone and the view out to Ceapabhal, followed by a beach level shot of the post sunset colours reflecting in the sea. That was the plan, so I had some tea and off I set.
“Thankfully I was fully clothed”
It’s a decent walk from the campsite to MacLeod´s Stone along Nisabost beach and then climbing up on the hill overlooking the bay. A great spot with 360 degree views of Ceapabhal, Taransay and Luskentyre. For this image my subject was to be Ceapabhal and my base camp at Talla na Mara in the distance.
Always a little too early
I’m always too early, and end up standing around for Ages waiting for the sun to set. It’s a habit of mine that sometimes pays off and sometimes results in complete boredom from Max. Today I was early again, so set about being a fool for half an hour. Interval timer on, I set the camera to take a series of shots a second apart and scooted off for my lap of the standing stone.
Thankfully I was fully clothed
Shortly afterwards a couple appeared from the direction of the beach. Had they seen me? Did I look like Eric Morecambe on speed? Was I going to get told off? Nope, they scooted by and I got ready for the big shot.
MacLeod´s Stone at sunset
Messing about over, the shot came at precisely 18:42. I had it! I finally got that sunset shot of Ceapabhal with no clouds and the glorious orange of sunset. Maybe my sun dance around the stone helped? Catching the sun to the far left of the image are the buildings at Talla na Mara where I was camped.
Right, pack up and leg it down to the beach for my next image.
“The soundtrack to Harris”
The tide was retreating fast by now, so I was able to keep chasing it out and find some pools left over to get some reflections. The light was just amazing, but it was absolutely freezing by now so I needed gloves back on. Ceapabhal was doing its little trick and sitting nicely on the horizon, so I went for a stretchy 2:1 panorama letting the edge of Taransay frame the image over on the right. My kind of minimalism that tells a story.
Ceapabhal sunset magic
Another great action-packed day on Harris, and I had managed to fit in three lush locations along the coast. I stood here on Nisabost for quite some time after taking this image. I wanted to savour every minute of this wonderful sunset and soak up the sounds, the atmosphere and the energy. The waves with their rhythmic tinnitus busting beats punctuated by the distant calls of oystercatchers once more. The soundtrack to Harris.
I wandered back to base camp in the dark, wearing the biggest of grins. A cold beer was waiting. Being back home, this image reminds me of how incredibly lucky I was during my visit to the Outer Hebrides, witnessing and enjoying such outstanding conditions and light. Another one of those images where I can feel, hear and smell the atmosphere every time I look at it. What memories!
Very lucky
Keywords:
Harris and Lewis,
Isle of Harris,
Isle of Lewis,
Landscape Photography,
Northton Salt Flats,
Outer Hebrides,
Scotland
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