AVOIDING LOCH NESS

NOVEMBER 15, 2024

This week I would like to recount my partial success in avoiding Loch Ness.  We left Inverness after a very nice three-day stay with our friends Amy and Bill. I had planned a drive all the way back to Glen Coe for them to see this incredible area while not allowing any dilly-dallying on the way to avoid having to participate in any absurd tourist activities surrounding Loch Ness. The long drive to Glen Coe and then beyond to Oban seemed to provide all of the insurance I needed to avoid spending time along Loch Ness. A planned return to Glen Coe also insured that we would get to see it even if our earlier visit one month before had ended in foggy and rainy disappointment. The weather Gods smiled upon us and we got to spend two visits to Glen Coe with very little rain.

                THE BEAUTY OF LOCH NESS IS USUALLY REFLECTED IN THE WATER.

I have always resisted silly tourist activities; Fran still has not gotten to go to the Trees of Mystery or the Oregon Vortex back home. I wanted to avoid a boat ride on Loch  Ness in pursuit of Nessie without having to act like an old fuddy-duddy, so I let our schedule dictate our time on the Loch. We embarked on our road trip and within a half an hour we lost our friends to an alternate route and didn’t see them for the rest of the day. Such are the hazards of suddenly traveling with another couple in two cars.

                ALONG THE CALEDONIAN CANAL AT FORT AUGUSTUS

Loch Ness is actually very beautiful if you can avoid Nessie. It takes up most of Scotland’s Great Rift which divides the Lowlands from the really empty Highlands. You don’t have to be a geologist to look at the map and realize that the loch runs along a giant fault line that runs from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. Loch Ness is so long, wide and deep that it almost seems like a Scottish Great Lake, except for the fact that there are very few people living along the Loch beyond Inverness at it’s Eastern End. In fact the entire South Shore of the loch is so remote that it warrants only a single-track road. The North Shore is not exactly teeming either. There was only one real town along the way, Fort Augustus, where Nineteenth Century industrialists crafted the Caledonian Canal to allow shipping beyond Loch Ness to the Atlantic. The Canal survives mostly as a way for pleasure boats to cruise beyond the Loch. It was fascinating to watch as the boats negotiated past the locks and rose several stories to continue on their way. And it was genuinely Scottish in that the boat owners were the people who were dragging their boats from the sides of the canal under the watchful eyes of the government bureaucrats who ran the operation. The rest of the settlement was devoted to making tourist dollars off of the spectacle, but I didn’t mind since it was sunny, we had a nice Pub lunch along the canal, and I got a good price on a lambswool scarf - all without mention of Nessie.

                TWO VIEWS AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CANAL. ABOVE YOU FEEL THE POWER OF THE LOCH, BELOW YOU REALIZE ITS EXPANSE.

IT TAKES A NINE-STITCH PANORAMA TO ENCOMPASS THE VIEW UP LOCH NESS

The photographic possibilities along the Loch shore depend on whether you want to focus on details of the Highland scenery or on the big picture. My tendency is to go for the more detailed shots, but there is something to be said for the grand scenic in such an overwhelming environment. Here are examples of these two approaches, both taken at the park right at the entrance of the canal. The first shows the power of Loch Ness, which appears almost ocean-like with real waves at the entrance of the canal.  The second image, taken from exactly the same spot, is a stitched panoramic composed of parts of nine different images that reveal the overwhelming expanse of Loch Ness. One could be forgiven if you mistook this for a standard view of the Columbia Gorge - the geology is pretty much the same.

                SINCE THERE ARE NO SETTLEMENTS, SHIPS PROVIDE THE SCALE ALONG THE SHORELINE

The photographic possibilities along the Loch Ness shore depend on whether you want to focus on details of the Highland scenery or on the big picture. My tendency is to go for the more detailed shots, but there is something to be said for the grand scenic in such an overwhelming environment. Here are examples of these two approaches, both taken at the park right at the entrance of the canal. The first shows the power of Loch Ness, which appears almost ocean-like with real waves at the entrance of the canal.  The second image, taken from exactly the same spot, is a stitched panoramic composed of parts of nine different images that reveal the overwhelming expanse of Loch Ness. One could be forgiven if you mistook this for a standard view of the Columbia Gorge - the geology is pretty much the same.

                                                                  DETAIL OF A CLIFFSIDE

As we drove down the South Shore there were more opportunities to concentrate on epic hillsides that then became small parts of wider stitched panoramas.  The cliffs and mountains that contained Loch Ness hinted at the immense depth of the water hiding the cliffs that continued below the waterline. The occasional boat no doubt spewing out Nessie tall-tales provided rare indications of scale since there were no hints of human settlement along the shore.

                A MAJOR HILL ALONG THE SHORE

                A PANORAMA REVEALS THAT THE HILL IS ONLY A MINOR PORTION OF THE MOUNTAIN RANGE SOUTH OF LOCH NESS (STAGE RIGHT)

                ANOTHER STITCHED PANORAMA

Most of these images required two areas of post-processing. As per usual, you must reduce the exposure of the skies, which are too bright to allow for an even exposure with the hillsides. These days you can do this very easily on the computer without resorting to gradient filters in the field. In fact recent advances in software technology allow you to pick out the sky without your linear gradient filter running over the mountain slopes. You just have to be careful to make sure that you AI assistant doesn’t mess up overlapping mountains ranges or confuse clouds with mountains. But that is why we are paid the big bucks, or at least should be. The other gradient you need to apply is to lighten the Loch waters to actually reveal the various levels of reflections encountered along the shoreline. Most people strive for the mirror reflection, but I actually feel that a nice ripple can add a lot to an image - my favorite from this set of images is the last one, where the wake from an unseen boat beautifully distorts the reflections on Loch Ness.

                                                                   WAVES DISTORT THE MIRROR. FAR LEFT OF THE PANORAMA ABOVE