Everybody has expectations and when we go on our photography holidays, those expectations often get out of control. There are few things that challenge expectations as much as a winter holiday in the Highlands though. For instance, last year we had some of the most stunning Winter conditions in January. There was snow on the hills for the whole month and toward the end, it was like all your winter fantasies come true. However, I’m sitting here now looking out on what could well be an early spring day. Actually, there’s normally more snow than this on the hills even in late May. To arrive here for a week’s holiday based on last year’s expectations could be a serious letdown. And yet on two days in a row, I’ve had some of the best conditions I’ve seen in the area. The first was caused by a drop in temperature from 7 degrees to -3 in the space of a few hours overnight causing a stunning hoar frost and the second was an almost temperature inversion that gave incredible hanging mists. If you’d gone up to Rannoch Moor you’d have missed it all though and just spent the day hanging around in the low cloud. In other words, making the most of what you’ve got combined with a little bit of local knowledge can change disaster into opportunity. Don’t try to force your experiences to match your vision of what should have been.

On another note, Phil Malpas and Clive Mitchell are up in Glencoe doing a workshop and they demonstrated the benefit of scouting areas where possible by discovering that the lower Orchy River is now a desolate wasteland of deforestation and the old bridge over the river with classic views of the falls has been replaced by a high sided logging monstrosity blocking any views. If the day is a true write off, spend your time checking whether your ‘tick list’ is still what you think it is.

The weather has turned out nice again outside so I’ll be off to keep up with my restarted #365 project.

Click here to download issue 174 (high quality, 92Mb)

Click here to download issue 174 (smaller download, 60Mb)