ANOTHER VIEW OF THE FAIRY GLEN

SEPTEMBER 14, 2025

                                     The proverbial lone tree in the magical landscape of the Fairy Glen.

Another journey back into the archives this week, now that I have finally finished getting those archives back into some kind of shape after my most recent hard drive debacle. Everything finally seems OK, but my confidence level is far less than it used to be. But for now, I can look at my archives and find something worth working on instead of worrying that I won’t find anything at all.

This image is from the Isle of Skye from our visit in 2024. The Fairy Glen is a pretty magical place on the island, even if the purported magic is more a product of tourism hype than anything else. It is a small area with very accessible hiking trails that contains a lot of the same scenery that is found in the wilder parts of the Isle of Skye. This of course makes it a very popular spot, but if you plan your visit to avoid the crowds it can be a beautiful place to spend more than a few hours. While there are some spots that we couldn’t get to because of our age and our intelligence, there was more than enough to do and see that was within our capabilities.

                                                                 The original snapshot, complete with a very boring sky and a horrid fence across the foreground.

This image is all about the picturesque lone trees that are a feature of this landscape. My object was to highlight this one particular tree as much as possible.  I used just a few minutes of time and just a few of the tools available in Lightroom (or any other post-processing software) to bring out the subject of the photograph.

The first and most important tool was to crop the photograph to place more emphasis on my subject. A square crop was not required, but it’s one that I am very comfortable with. This crop accomplished two things. It eliminated the bright sky, which is the bane of most woodland images since your eyes are drawn there despite it not being the subject the photographer is interested in showing the viewer - especially a flat boring sky like this one. While I liked the leading line of the foreground stream, I didn’t particularly want to spend the time to eliminate the annoying fence lines cutting through the foreground. So out they went.

                                     I feel the square crop gets to the point very quickly.

                                     Raising the overall exposure allows for more detail in the landscape.

The second move was to increase the contrast by lowering the blacks and raising the whites. This is hard to show at this small magnifications, but I also raised the exposure which clearly had a major impact on the image. 

                                     Using some of Lightroom's tools like Dehaze and Texture brought out more detail in both the background and the foreground, while deepening the exposure again. One step forward, one step back.

                                      The final image. I have used selection brushes on the tree to brighten it's exposure. The I flipped the selection to darken the surroundings. The result is a hopefully subtle emphasis on my tree without the viewer realizing what I have done. If you flip back to the original snapshot you can decide for yourself how I did - or even if the whole effort was worth a damn. I had fun in any case.