Albertdebruijn.com

Archive for the ‘UK’ Category

In the spirit of Halloween, here is a spooky castle to put you in the right mood.

It is a scary place and if you listen carefully, you can hear the clanging of chains and lost souls crying out in sorrowful moans. A cold shiver runs up your spine. Would you dare stay overnight here?

Well you can, this is Brodie Castle in Scotland. No it is not haunted (that I know of) and is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and you can stay overnight here (look it up).

I was here during the day in mid-summer so no fear of ghosts or anything more spooky other than those clouds. An HDR treatment and a B&W conversion completed the look.

Happy Halloween everyone.

Hide Sites

When you drive around Scotland you will find these old stone bridges everywhere, literally. You don’t even have to get off the beaten track, just drive around the Scottish highlands and you can’t miss them.

Personally, I love them, it gives the Scottish countryside a well defined “look”, something that distinguishes it from other countries and landscapes.

Here is one shot a few years ago, I’m sure I would not be able to find this particular one again, but I would be able to find many others. As you can see the weather was not very cooperative, it rained, but then again, it does that often in Scotland.

Hide Sites

This is my most favorite castle, ever. It is the Eilean Donan Castle on Scotland’s North West coast. It also happens to be the most photographed castle in Scotland, probably because it is such an iconic representation of most people imagine Scottish castles must look like.

The location is spectacular. It is built on a little island (Donan’s island, hence the name) which is connected to the mainland by that stone bridge you see. The body of water is Loch Duich, which is open to the sea. This means the water you see around the Castle rises and drops with the tide.

Just a little further on lies a town with the wonderful name of “Kyle of Lochalsh”. The name just rolls off the tongue beautifully when pronounced in a proper Scottish brogue. The Kyle of Lochalsh is of course the place you go when you want to go to the Isle of Skye.

This photo was taken a few years ago when I visited and it had just rained, as it does a lot in Scotland.

That mountain you see behind the castle is the unpronounceable Sgurr Mhic Bharraich and behind that is the Saddle, one of the more famous maintains of the Scottish Highlands and a popular hiking destination.

Hide Sites

On our trip through Scotland, we stayed a night at the Achray House Hotel along the North Eastern shore of Loch Earn in Scotland. What a treat! Achray House is a boutique hotel offering a rejuvenating stay to people who want to get away from it all. It’s not a big hotel which is a good thing as the level of service goes up and the owners, Jane and Alan Gibson, have time to meet with you personally. They offer comfortable and spacious rooms (I had the room with that window you can see way on the left of this shot), many of the room have views of the Loch. Too bad we could only stay for one night as the area offers many beautiful sights. I understand that no less than 35 golf courses can be found in the vicinity!

Their dining experience is also top class and we enjoyed some of the local offerings for dinner (I had lamb and my son had venison). After dinner, the owner, Alan and I had a taste of some 6 different single malt Scottish Whiskys as a night cap. What else does one do when in Scotland?!

By the way, to make sure I did not insult the Scottish, I made sure I could spell the word “Whisky” correctly. In looking this up, I found out that the Irish spell it Whiskey while the Scottish spell it Whisky. However, it seems that the jury is still out on how the plural is spelt. Whiskies, Whiskys and Whiskeys are all acceptable it seems. Anyway, I digress . . .

Achray House also offer a fine traditional cooked Scottish breakfast, which is included by the way, personally prepared by Alan. Again, it was delicious and made sure we were well nourished for the day ahead.

Early Morning on Loch Earn

The views of the Loch are simply breathtaking and I got up early the next morning to get some shots of the low hanging clouds clearing the surrounding hills. This view is from the jetty right in front of the hotel. I’ve been to Scotland many times and it is views like this that always stay with me.

Hide Sites

Along road B976 in Aberdeenshire, in the Scottish highlands, lies this beautiful valley. I don’t know its name (or even if it has one), but towards the end of summer, the heather turns purple, covering the hills in a stunning blanket of color. I was probably there about 3 weeks too soon, but, as you can see in this picture, there was already some purple around.

I find this place hauntingly beautiful. It is so different from other beautiful places such as mountains or forests. This is . . well . . . .  just different, but beautiful never the less. To me it represents one of the classic “views” of Scotland, rolling hills, no trees, heather . . . . and usually, rain. On this day, we had glorious weather however. Blue skies filled with white fluffy clouds, warm, sunshine . . . just perfect.

It was a favorite picnic place of my parents, both of whom have now passed away and whose ashes lie scattered in this beautiful valley . . . They are together again, for all eternity. . .

Hide Sites

This is Taymouth Castle in Scotland. It stands at the eastern end of Loch Tay, just outside the village of Kenmore.

This castle has some significance to me as I can trace my lineage back to the Campbells of Breadalbane, the Scottish clan that built this castle in the early 19th century. It seated the Campbell Earls and Marquises of Breadalbane for a while.

This heritage may sound strange coming from a guy with such a Dutch name, but my mother is Scottish so I can lay claim to being 50% Scottish. My mother’s grandmother was the illegal daughter of the daughter of the guy who owned this place . . . or something like that, it’s all very mysterious and the details have been lost over time – along with any formal claims to this place of course

If you look closely in this picture, you can see the castle is surrounded by a wire fence. When I was there (August 2010) it was empty and all restoration work on the place had stopped. Apparently, there was a plan to turn this castle into the first 6 or 7-star hotel in the UK, but work stopped in 2006 and the company restoring the place was declared insolvent in 2009. The future fate of this place is still unknown at time of writing.

When looking at this place, which is huge by the way when you are up close, it is hard to imagine what it must be like to own and run it. Mindboggling in fact and I can not even begin to guess at the cost. Anyway, it is good to get lost in dreams about being the “Lord of the Castle” and money “not being an object” – ha!

One good thing though, the grounds have been turned into a golf course which is open to the public. So, while I might not be able to ever live here, I’d like to go back one day and have game of golf . . . .

Hide Sites

Many people think this is the London Bridge, but it’s not. This is the Tower Bridge and is close to the Tower of London from where it gets its name.

The real London Bridge is the next bridge upstream and is quite ordinary as far as bridges go. It also never fell down despite the nursery rhyme.  There is a popular urban legend that, in 1968, Robert McCulloch, the purchaser of the old London Bridge that was later shipped to Lake Havasu City in Arizona, believed that he was in fact buying the Tower Bridge, the one in this picture. This legend was denied by McCulloch.

The story is however fascinating. McCulloch had previously purchased a large section of land along Lake Havasu and opened a chainsaw manufacturing plant there. This was in 1964. Within two years there were three plants with over 400 employees. This was the start of of what is now Lake Havasu City. McCulloch went in search of some unique attraction for his new city and ended up in London. The 1831 London Bridge was gradually sinking into the river Thames and the City of London decided that a new bridge would need to be built. Rather than demolish the existing bridge, they decided to put the historic landmark on the auction block.

The rest is history. McCulloch bid and won the auction. It took three years to complete the project. The bridge was dismantled block-by-block with each block sectioned and numbered. The blocks were shipped through the Panama Canal to Long Beach, California and then trucked 300 miles inland. It was opened in 1971. The opening was attended by the Lord Mayor of London.

Cool story huh? 

Hide Sites

Here is a non-HDR shot just for a change. THe courtyard of the famous Louvre Museum. The home of the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo statue.

This was taken on a Saturday night and the crowds were just amazing. I have shots taken closer, but (a) my wide angle lens (17mm on my full frame Canon 5D) was just not wide enough and (b) dispite the long exposures (which usually makes moving subject invisible), I could not get a clean shot. So I backed up and used the green hedge as a barrier to hide all the people.

So how did I do? This place is awesome, by day as well as by night.

I’ll admit to being somewhat mystified as to why someone would build such a modern structure here, in contrast with this magnificent old architectural gem of a building. I guess because of exactly that, the contrast. Also, it seems to grow on you after a while and eventually feels “it fits”. Anyway, it makes for some great photographic adventure as there is no limit to the compositions and mixtures of texture that can be shot in this courtyard.

Hide Sites

I just returned from a business trip in the UK. Thanks to awkward flight schedules and not being able to leave when I originally wanted to, I ended up having to spend a day in London. I know! Life can be tough, but someone has to do it, so I weathered the not to nice weather and set out to see what I could find.

This first shot of the Houses of Parliament was shot early in the evening. It was actually raining although you can’t tell from the picture. I was a little annoyed as the section just under Big Ben is totally obscured in scaffolding and did not lend itself to any nice shots from the bridge. Also a bit puzzling was the fact that there were no lights on the sections to the extreme left and right. This is why I chose THIS shot as the ones taken later have a bigger contrast between the lit up parts and the dark sections. Taken as three shots each 2 stops apart.

In this second one it is very clear that it was raining. I made sure I had my lens hood on as this helps prevent getting rain drops on the lens. I find that nothing is more frustrating than getting home and finding your pictures ruined by small droplets of water. Very hard to photoshop away, especially if there are multiple.

You can also see the scaffolding pretty clearly in this shot. A shame. I’ll just have to go back one day

This next shot is taken on Trafalgar Square. Mid-morning, but I had already been up for hours. I found it a bit challenging to get a good composition on Trafalgar Square, but settled on this view of the fountain.

This last one was a bit of an experiment. I just wanted a phone booth, but after playing with the bracketed shots, I really  liked how this came out. Pretty iconic shot.

Hide Sites