Eilean Donan Castle

I never slept well last night as I was listening out for the phone call to say we were going out to photograph the aurora - we had been asked to leaves our phones switched on. There was an aurora last night, but it wasn’t strong enough to warrant going out in the middle of the night in the freezing cold to photograph it.

We were up very early to leave the house by 4.30am, as we had to get back to Neist Point to photograph the moonset. When we got there it was freezing cold with a bitter wind, so far we have been lucky enough not to have any wind. It was very difficult to get the moon lined up with the lighthouse, and we were constantly moving over the slightly muddy turf to find a better shot, a bit tricky in the dark although we did have head torches. In the end I did not really like the images I got and I thought it was not worth the early rise and cold wind, but you have to try these things and you can never predict with accuracy how it will work until you are there! However as we were leaving there was a lovely pink reflection in the sky from the sunrise, so I got some lovely shots of that.

We decided to go back to the cottage for breakfast but we kept stopping to see other things to photograph so by the time we got back we only had breakfast at midday. Guy made a full English and it went down well! It was deemed too sunny to bother going out in the middle of the day for more photographs so we did some editing of images, and then went out again at 3pm in the afternoon.

We went to Sligachan where we took some photos of the sun setting over the mountain from the icy river - see extra. The light was so contrasty we had to bracket our images and try to avoid too much sun flare.

From there we went to Eilean Donan Castle as it is lit up at night and we wanted some images of it lit up against the setting sun. However for some reason - budget cuts? - they have stopped lighting it at night, so we changed tack and shot it looking the other way with the pink reflected in the clouds from the sun setting in the other direction. This was taken after sunset yet the colours look lovely still.

It has been a good day but I am so tired from little sleep. The cold wind today was also not welcome! Guy is now cooking supper - steak and roasted vegetables - and after supper we will plan our day tomorrow but I fear it will be another very early start...

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