Taken on my old film-based medium format Pentax 67II at the short end of the 55-100 zoom with a 3-stop ND polariser and a 0.6ND medium graduated filter to balance the exposure while sitting cross-legged on the stony freshwater beach at the edge of Loch Maree in the heart of the Torridon mountains. It had been raining heavily for the best part of a week, and today was no exception.
Usually, the little tree is firmly planted on the foreshore, and the exposed roots of the nearby oak tree, similarly earthbound, sprawl out over the freshwater beach. Typically, there is an irritatingly obvious and highly distracting horizon line on the far side of the loch, with a mountain backdrop that inconveniently cuts directly through the twigs and branches of the wee loch-side tree, but on this day, it was anything but normal.
As I sat beneath a heavy-duty golfing umbrella in a torrential deluge, rain drumming down on the stretched canopy of the brolly, the aforementioned visible horizon had been obliterated. This left the marooned tree and its associated sinister, sprawling, creepy, waterlogged roots looking like a nightmarish scene from John Wyndham’s “Day of the Triffids,” the stage reduced to its most basic elements and a featureless white backdrop. To this day, I am still undecided whether the black-and-white or colour version works best.
