Etive in Monochrome

On being lost to black and white in Glencoe

By early 2013 I was well and truly lost to black and white photography. By this stage I was developing my own sheet and roll film – playing with potions as the family termed it.

The colour Mulgrave work continued but on this early January trip to stay in the Kingshouse Hotel I was shooting almost exclusively 5×4 and 6×7 black and white film. The previous winter – I had stayed in Yorkshire – there had been major storms and a lot of trees that we had got to know well had fallen. Worse was to come in the next 12 months as plantation felling started in earnest. And a visit with my father down to the bottom in 2023 was a heartbreaking drive. But for now Etive was lovely and full of trees.

The first couple of days were wet but windless and both Dave and I shot a lot with technical cameras in the trees – both metal for once as he had swapped his Ebony for an Arca. The main image was typical of what I saw in those first few days.

The alternative image was shot on the Mamiya RZ67 when I had drenched the TK in a very wet area I had come to know as the Etive Mossery. The light in the next few days was to be sublime.