Cornwall

The Cornish coastline is a rugged, beautiful place, well loved by generations of artists for the quality of light to be found there. As photographers, we can ask for nothing better than spectacular scenery with good light. I hope I have managed to do it at least some small justice.
The coastal path north and west of Padstow may be a long trek with steep sections but it's well worth the effort. If you aren't able to go for yourself, I hope these two photos will give you some flavour of it.

Glen Garry

Just short of the far end of the glen the river forms a pool, and this shot, taken early on a breathless morning, brings back happy memories for me. I'm sure it could be a bleak place in the winter but on this spring morning it had a beautiful serenity about it.
Coincidentally, I was reading James Herbert's book "Portent" at the time, and as I settled down for the night I happened to read the chapter where the main characters travel to Scotland to look for a mystic man living in a run down cottage in the very area where I was. The old cottage pictured was only a hundred yards or so away from me, and could easily have been the actual place James Herbert had in mind! Spooky!

Loch Quoich, Scotland

Many of you will never even have heard of Loch Quoich, much less know how to pronounce it. I hadn't, and no, I'm still not entirely sure of the correct pronunciation! I knew, however, that I wanted to travel up Glen Garry in my quest for some good red deer photographs. The scenery I found, combined with my luck with the weather on this one fine morning, took my breath away.

I found myself stopping at almost every passing place on the single track road to grab another stunning scene. Fortunately traffic is scarce and this is usually possible without causing inconvenience to others.

This final image from Loch Quoich, with the Caledonian Pine in the foreground, is my personal favourite. It fascinates me because of the entirely natural optical illusion that you are looking up to the tree with the sky behind it when, in fact, you are looking down at the tree with the sky reflected in the water of the loch.

Lac du Gaube, French Pyrenees

To reach this lake you can either hike up into the mountains or you can take advantage of the chairlift used for skiing in the winter. We didn't have time to walk so took the lazy option. It's just as well we did because we arrived at the lake just in time to catch the last of the sunlight on the water before the shadows of the surrounding mountains covered it.