More Glencoe Ice
On remembering a seminal trip
2010 was my fourth visit to Glencoe - or rather to be more precise to the old Kingshouse Hotel on Rannoch Moor. This particular trip was memorable because a small group of very strong photographers ended up staying at the hotel for a week and we all got some wonderful winter conditions. As well as Dave Tolcher and myself, the group included David Ward, Phil Malpas and Joe Cornish.
There were no workshop or teaching pressures, it was just time for each photographer to spend their time how they liked and to devote time to personal work. Long days out in the cold were punctuated by banter and pleasurable evening recreational activities including numerous rounds of pool in the bar and of course the ritualistic sharing of recent work as transparencies displayed on a light box as the group huddled round to view and critique. Quite an audience! No pressure!
By Monday the conditions had started to turn very cold indeed and there was plenty of ice and snow around. The trip was particularly memorable for a 24-hour stretch from Wednesday morning to Thursday morning.
Although Tuesday was cloudy, the forecast for dawn on Wednesday was perfect for the potential of a pink picture of Buachaille Etive Mòr, the amazing pyramid-shaped mountain. I had made an image on the Sunday morning when the mountain didn’t light and it was memorable for my TK freezing up due to having got the camera wet during an earlier session and I had to run back to the hotel to pick up my replacement (I had two second-hand TKs at the time; shortly after this I traded in both for a new TK). This particular morning was very frustrating: I was cold, my backup TK was giving me gyp too and I had left my Linhof viewfinder behind on the trip so was struggling to visualise images. I tried to repeat the Sunday composition but the configuration of ice had changed and it no longer worked - so eventually I set up the alternative image. I hated it at the time and didn’t even blog it but in retrospect it was a classic case of transference from the pain of the session - the image is fine for what it is. How often are we going to see these conditions given global warming?
The main image was made later that day and was the most significant image I had made in some time. Dave and I headed into Etive to work the iced-up river. I had been looking for abstracted shapes and had made an image with triangle shaped ice patterns but then this image occurred to me and I set up. It was twice lifesize and I used my experience of setting up a similar close-up image at Skipwith a couple of weeks before to make this one - before that I would not have managed it. This waterfall of ice picture was hugely influential on my later photography - its abstract vision and the craft of making close-ups. A lot of my Mulgrave project was similarly around twice lifesize.
The hotel was emptying with a thaw and higher winds forecast for Friday, and breakfast the following morning was fun not just for the chat and banter. There was an Austrian snowboarder who had been staying in the hotel and as we ate breakfast (set up in the lounge this time given that so few were staying there) he tried to exit the hotel in his M series BMW. His car did not have four-wheel drive and every time he drove along the drive to the gates and up the slight hill, the car ground to a halt and started to slide back down the drive.
This happened several times and eventually David Ward decided to head out in his Land Rover with a tow rope to offer help. He must have frightened him enough to create the required momentum because as David approached he managed to get up enough speed to get over the hill by heading out in reverse! It was after that entertaining breakfast that Joe and I headed up to the ‘study’ in Glencoe - my first visit and a memorable time even though conditions were changing fast and I didn’t make an image I liked. A very memorable trip indeed.
