After Sunday lunch Lola and I headed up to loch Ardinning for a nice long walk along the loch, across Muirhouse Muir and along the Craigmaddie burn. In my bag I had spanking new natural density graduates that I hoped to give a test drive with a bright sky contrasting with the Campsies and Drumgoyne. Unfortunately, the clouds were very dark and grey so this plan fell through at the first hurdle.
We wandered past the loch, full to the brim with water, but empty in respect of water fowl. The swans, geese and ducks that usually litter the surface must be at neighboring Mugdock Loch hoping for bread from the hordes of Sunday afternoon visitors. At the turning point of the circular walk through this little nature reserve, we crossed the fence and ventered out onto the moor. Lola was in her element, roaming through the wet grass and black mud chasing imaginary rabbits and mice.
As usual, the view back across the loch towards Drumgoyne provided a wonderful vista, but not spectecular enough to set my tripod up. I took a shot handheld which turned out very well considering I had pushed the ISO up to 800 and slowed the shutter speed down to 1/40 to get a resonable aperture and consequently, a resonably large depth of field. We continued our walk uphill towards the tree line along the old dyke.
It has actually been a very long time since I had been to this part of the moor. I looked for the famous dead tree of one of my most successful shots: lonely tree on the moor. It was sad to see that only a little stump was left standing, so a repeat of the one taken on black and white film using my digital SLR was gone with the wind.
We had to backtrack and follow the main walking route, as the stepping stones halfway along the dyke were not even visible due to the swollen stream. We reached Craigmaddie burn and saw two photographers at the first waterfall. It turned out to be a pro giving a lesson in the field on how to shoot a waterfall with milky white water. I was surprised where they were. The first waterfall is not the best as there is a big pine laying across the pool in front of the waterfall and spoiling the shot.
Lola and I wandered up to the second waterfall which, although a little smaller, is much nicer. The weather was not good, but I am pleased at how the couple of shots have come out. No price winners though. Lola was getting impatient and started to run around the tripod, so we packed up and continued our walk to the cairn and then back to the Loch. Rain started to fall, so the camera was safely in the rucksack. We got back to the car just in time before the rain started to lass down horizontally. Happily homewards to a hot shower and a hot tea.