​A collection of images taken in each month of 2022 that portray the varying landscape of this unspoilt part of the north-west coast of Scotland

Read the story behind them in my blog titled “A Year of Recovery”

Grey Awakening
Gobshealach, Kentra Bay, Ardnamurchan

In early June, sea pinks cover the salt marshes around the edge of Kentra Bay. It is a sight that I try to photograph each year. The night before I took this image, the skies were clear, and the forecast promised conditions for a lovely sunrise. I set the alarm for 3:30 am with great anticipation of pink skies to match the pink flowers, but instead woke to a sky that was filling with cloud. Nonetheless, I got up and took a walk out on to the salt marsh while still hopeful of that pink sunrise. It wasn’t to be. Cloud continued to thicken, but as the sun rose, enough soft light filtered through the clouds to provide a grey backdrop the complimented the pinks perfectly.

Nature’s Realm
​Gobshealach, Kentra Bay, Ardnamurchan

Kentra Bay is a place I like to walk out onto at low tide. Almost the whole bay empties on the few days either side of each of the month’s two spring tides. When it does so, you can walk for miles on the vast expanse of sand that gets uncovered by the tide recedes. All sorts of shapes get revealed, from thousands up thousands of worm casts and ridges of sand, as well as meandering streams and in this instance, patches of seaweed that cling on to remnants of human activity, such as discarded fish crates that become covered as nature reclaims its rightful space. If you wander far enough, you can find remnants of tractors and trailers that have suffered the same fate.

Day's End, Land's End
​Ardnamurchan Lighthouse, Ardnamurchan

This is shot taken at the end of the second longest day of 2022, a little after ten o’clock in the evening when the Sun was still above the horizon and able to cast some final rays of warm golden light onto the western side of Ardnamurchan Lighthouse. It is a great time of the year to be there, on the most westerly point of the British mainland, to sit and watch the day come to an end.

North Coast Sunrise
​Ardnamurchan Point, Ardnamurchan

This photograph was taken a little over 6 hours after the one above, this time facing north-east, rather than north-west. The Sun had completed its midsummer night journey, rising above the horizon at around half-past four in the morning. When doing so, it was far enough around to the north-east to cast so soft morning light on the black volcanic rock that makes up much of the northern coastline of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula.

Among the Dunes
​Sanna, Ardnamurchan

For some reason, I am drawn to white croft houses that sit in isolation in the vastness of the landscape we have here on the Peninsula. While walking through the sand dunes at Sanna, the chimney pots on this particular house caught my eye and, as I gained some height a little bit more of its roof and frontage was revealed to me. As I stood in the dunes and looked at it, a break in the clouds, on what was a squally afternoon, allowed some light to illuminate its surroundings.

The Return II
​Sanna, Ardnamurchan

This image was taken on a late June day of storm clouds and squalls when I spent the afternoon in my van in the car park at Sanna hoping that the forecast was right about there being a couple of hours break in the weather at some point in the early evening. Thankfully it was right. The rain stopped and the clouds cleared, so I decided to leave the van and head down to the beach to see what I could find. However, it wasn’t long before the storm clouds and squalls returned, but I did manage to capture a fleeting sliver of light falling on the waves as they ebbed and flowed onto the beach.

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