Day 6

Day 6 — Northern Skye

The spectacular landscapes of northern Skye rise in soft, grassy slopes that drop off in sheer cliffs, and rock formations that spike and curl. The setting is perfect for a lesson in landscape photography. Set off on foot into this magical place, rich with legend and intrigue. (B,L,D)

This was a very special day.

Our day began with a group decision to revisit Eilean Donan again before crossing the bridge to Skye to photograph this wonderful castle again in better light.  My photography lesson for the day was actually not about taking the photo.  It was about the editing of the photo later.  Here is one of the photos that I took this morning and also a second photo that it the same photo with a bit of editing.  Mary says that Neil always begins by taking the shadows all the way down and the highlights all the way up and then working from there. I edited this photo in iPhoto.

After the Eilean Donan shoot we headed across the bridge to the Isle of Skye.  Of course, being a photography group, we had to photograph it before we could cross:

Isle of Skye was absolutely amazing!

Here is the light house that we shot in the afternoon and a photo of Mary as she photographed the lighthouse.

The end of the travels for the day found us the Skye Museum of Island Life.  It is a group of seven thatched cottages that depict typical crofter's homes in earlier times.

Note in the below how they manage to hold the thatch of the roof down with what looks like chicken wire and heavy stones.

One of the most interesting  (to me) pieces of information in the small museum on the grounds was the fact that so many of the highlanders who had lived on Skye immigrated to North Carolina because of the clearances.  I can not remember the number, but it was thousands of highlanders in the time period.  Flora McDonald's family actually moved there before the Revolutionary War.  Her husband was captured during the Revolution and they moved back to Skye after the Revolution.



The group sat in the car to patiently wait for me while I trekked up the hill to see the grave of Flora McDonald:

Another very interesting item in the cemetery is shown below:

We ended with dinner in our hotel and a photo shoot in front of the hotel at sunset.  The subject was called a folly, but that was an inaccurate term for the stone structure.  This small tower had been used during the clearances as a symbol of who was "boss" and was also used to watch to make sure that no one from the small crofting community "cheated" and fished the waters below.  The restaurant had an excellent explanation that I will try to add later.

Here are my photos from the sunset time after dinner and a photo of our hotel: