2014 Review: Scotland

Since August 2013 we have lived in Scotland and 2014 was the first full year of living north of the border.  The year began with a day trip to photograph the snowy Highlands - Rannoch Moor, Glen Coe, Glen Etive.  

Of course most the images from Scotland in 2014 have been taken nearer to home in East Lothian and the Belhaven Bay bridge is one of my favourite subjects as it is a short 5-minute walk from our house.  This image is of the bridge under the moonlight.

The East Lothian coast is a mixture of wide sandy beaches and rocky shoreline.  The beach at Yellowcraig is typical of this stretch of coastline.

Cove Harbour is just a few miles south east of Dunbar and is a quaint fishing village that you can almost step back in time.

A bit further along the coast from Cove is the old abandoned church of St Helen's.  Perched on the top of the cliffs this ruined church, with its upturned grave markers, is a eerie place to visit, even on a sunny day.

Bass Rock dominates the East Lothian coastline and this image was taken from the harbour at North Berwick before the Gannets returned for the breeding season.

Tantallon Castle is just on coast near Seacliffe and just east of North Berwick.  The old fortress stronghold of the Clan Douglas is still an impressive sight.

Sunrise and sunset are two of my favourite times of day and we get plenty of spectacular light to photograph in this part of the world.  The shot below is one of the many sunrises I've captured at Barns Ness.

While the Sunsets at Belhaven Bay don't get much better than this -

A trip up to Falkirk in May to see the Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel provided plenty of photographic fodder.

In June we went on a landing trip out to Bass Rock which was run by the Scottish Seabird Centre.

Being surrounded by 150000 Gannets is certainly one the highlights of 2014 and is captured in this VIDEO.

July saw us head out to the Outer Hebrides for a long weekend in a new part of Scotland for us.  Lewis and Harris were as spectacular as the tourist brochures depict, with azure seas and white sandy beaches.

And ancient sites, such as the Calanais Standing Stones

We then returned to the Isle of Skye

Living just 30 miles from Edinburgh means we visit the capital of Scotland on a regular basis.  We decided to explore some of the areas around Arthur's Seat, Stockbridge and the Water of Leith.  We also visited the HMY Britannia in Leith Harbour, the International Mela and, of course, the Edinburgh Festival.

We also visited Fife for the first time in near 30 years.  We can see the Fife coast on the otherside of the Firth of Forth from our home in Dunbar so we decided to go on the 100-mile journey via the Forth Road Bridge to visit Anstruther and Pittenweem

As well as sea birds there are other wildlife in the waters off the East Lothian coast.  In the summer we were having a BBQ on the beach at Belhaven when we spotted a pod of dolphins off the beach. They stayed around for nearly an hour regularly leaping out of the water.

The best thing about living and photographing the East Lothian coast are the ever changing colours.  No matter how many times you photograph a scene it is never the same twice.  The next two images were taken at White Sands (top) and Seacliffe (bottom).

The final shot for this review is a sunburst over Edinburgh Castle.

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