The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

As always, it's great to see old friend visit.  It's an opportunity to catch up . . . and to take a romp around the western end of Aberdenshire to see what we can see . . . yaking all the way!

An Aberdeenshire Road in July . . . a bit of a chilly day with the sun sharing the sky with threatening clouds.

 

The countryside here is very dreamlike . .  the clouds being pushed and rolled up in the face of an approaching storm front.

 

As is always the case when driving around the small roads and farm lanes of Aberdeenshire, there is inevitably a sign point to a castle.

 

Today it was out good luck to 'discover' Craigievar Castle - the family home of the Forbes clan for 350 years (acquired in 1610).

 

Craigievar Castle is said to be one of the finest examples of the 'tower' types of castles still remaining in Scotland.  We did not take to tour . . . .

 

Lovely scene.

 

My scouser friend enjoyed it, but said it was "not really a castle by British standards" but only a "keep."  He may have a point.

 

The grounds were beautiful too . . . with gates, paths and hidden gardens.

 

Peeking into the castle gardeners cottage.

 

Craigievar Castle stands on a hill, of course, and has a commanding view of the shire.

 

Sometimes you spot something interesting from the road and pull over to investigate.  As it turned out, this is the early 19th century Ladymill Farm, a candidate for official listing.

 

With the sunlight coming and going, I had to work fast to get these shots of the charming old farm buildings.

 

I indulged my fascination with old doors and . . . .

 

. . . and windows.

 

This may have been my favorite photo of the day.  Scrumptious.

 

Of course, Ladymill was a mill . . . and a few of the old machine parts were scattered here and there.

 

I took a walk around the back of Ladymill and was greeted with this vision from a dream: the perfect countryside scene . .  light dancing across the fields of green.  Extraordinary beauty.

 

We left Ladymill just ahead of a downpour . . . .and went looking for a place to eat.

 

There is so much to photograph in Aberdeenshire.

 

We stopped at several roadside hotels and tea houses but for some unknown reason they all had signs posted saying "Closed on Tuesday."  Why?  We followed a small road for a few miles to "Leith Hall and Tea Room."  We arrived in a driving rain only to discover it was closed too.  Leith Hall was a private estate built in 1650.  Leith Hall is said to be haunted by a ghost:  "The hall is reportedly haunted,^[3][7] and has been subject to an investigation by Most Haunted. This ghost is believed to be Laird John Leith III who was killed on Christmas Day in 1763 in Aberdeen at Archie Campbell's Tavern in the Castlegate during a drunken brawl in which he was shot in the head, after he reacted angrily to a fellow diner who accused him of adulterating the grain sold from Leith Hall.^[3][7] The ghost of John is said to appear in great pain with a dirty white bandage over his head and covering his eyes, wearing dark green trousers and a shirt.^[3] In 1968, one guest awoke during the night to see John in highland dress, his head covered in bloody bandages, standing at the foot of the bed.^[3] Other apparitions have also been sighted. Several writers who've stayed at the manor have reported seeing paranormal phenomenon. Elizabeth Byrd wrote about her experiences in her book A Strange and Seeing Time and describes the time that she rented the East Wing of Leith Hall with her husband in 1986.^[3] Alanna Knight has also written about her ghostly encounters at Leith Hall."

 

If you look closely through the trees, sometimes you can see an old castle ruin.  Aberdeenshire!  This is Corse Castle, c. 1581.  We finally decided to drive to the proper town of Huntly where I knew there would be an open restaurant.  We did, and it was.

 

After a fine greasy spoon lunch in a cafe nest to the Huntly Police Station, we consulted the GPS for the nearest distillery . . .  it would be a shame for my friend to visit Scotland without going to a distillery.  Our luck was good:  the GlenDonronach Distillery was nearby.  Being too late for the tour and tasting (it closed at 4:15pm!!), we instead took the very helpful gift shop lady's suggestion and bought a mini-bottle of their 21 Year Old Parliament . . . and WOW!  Delicious . . . and I do not drink whiskey! My friend IS a whiskey drinker and proclaimed it a 97 out of 100.  "Matured in a combination of the finest Oroso and Pedro Ximenez sherry casks for a minimum of 21 years, the 'Parliament' continues the great GlenDronach tradition of offering fruit-laden intensity in its single malts.  Bottled at 48%, the 'Parliament' is non chill filtered and of natural color.  Highly recommended, even if you do drink whiskey!

 

After the distillery we headed back home to Aberdeen.  We spotted a grand church up on a hillside and went up a farm lane to take a look.

 

A beautiful road and church.  St Margaret's Episcopal Church was built in the mid 19th century by architect William Ramage.

 

The church had some fine old gravestones.

 

Wonderful patterned symbol.

 

There were some broken stones in the cemetery that had had the pieces sweetly leaned against each other.

 

I couldn't tell if these stones had been vandalized or broken by falling tree limbs.

 

The view from the cemetery.

 

It had been a wonderful day of just driving around talking in the car . . . through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

 

Aberdeenshire.

I have been a very frustrated 'Car Guy' in Scotland!  Even though I have a pretty nice high performance street car (a Juke NISMO), I do not have any other car related involvements . . . like I am used to.   So . . . I applied, and was accepted as a Volunteer at the Grampian Transport Museum in Alford, Scotland (20 miles from my home in Aberdeen).  I'm Happy now. I participated, as a Marshal, at my first GTM event last week-end.

 

The Grampian Transport Museum hosted a very unusual event, and first of its kind: a car show and display for cars that have fewer than 500 of the particular model actually registered for operation in the UK.  Very cool idea.

 

The museum has a listing from the UK MOT that shows how many of every model ever made are currently registered and approved for road use.  Although there may have been many hundreds of thousands of these Singers made in 1958, there are less that 10 currently operational.  I love the grill!

 

There are very few of these old Saabs still on the road, but the proud owner was able to share his treasure with other enthusiasts of rare, but once plentiful, cars.

 

Records showed only five of these are registered in the UK.

 

A rare, and perfect, NSU Prinz.  Some cars were collector cars in their own rights . . . perfectly restored to original condition.

 

Another car show ready NSU.

 

Once ubiquitous, the Anglia is now a rarely seen car on the streets of the UK.

 

I am not sure what this van is . . . a Hillman?

 

There were only a few expensive exotic collector cars there, like this Morgan . . . and . . .

 

. . . and this wacky Marcos.

 

The collection of cars was extremely varied.

 

I was a Marshal at the 'Car Rides':  people took turns taking a couple laps as a passenger in various cars, including this Ferrari.  When people got out they had a huge smile on their faces!  "Now I can say I rode in a Ferrari."  Cool idea.

 

This car won the trophy for the rarest car in the UK!  Although there may have been a million Austin Allegros manufactured, this is THE ONLY ONE (2-door) still registered for road use in the UK!  Amazing!

 

The pride and joy of their owners.  Rare car owners toil in anonymity, no one knowing of their singular obsession with keeping their Loved One running and on the road.  Most participants said they had never met other car enthusiasts with their same passion. abut 135 rare cars were represented.

 

The beloved cars took parade laps around the museum's test track.  I had a wonderful day . . . and ended up staying late to talk American cars and drag racing with a nice family of American car buffs.

I ordered the 1.6 Fuji extension tube for my X-Ti and it came yesterday  Using the excellent Fuji 56 f1.2 lens I went out in the yard late in the day.  Hand-held, low light macro photography is not easy and necessitates a very shallow depth of field approach.

 

 

I'm happy I ordered that extension tube.  Macro photography can be very rewarding.

It was just too nice out to stay inside.  The light was magnificent, the bumble bees were workingb the rhodies in my back yard.

 

Pink flower light and shadow.

 

Small worlds of beauty.

 

Perfect light for flower photography.  I had grabbed the small Fuji X-E1 and pancake (27mm) lens when I went out the door.

 

So much of the natural world was bursting out in bright colors.

 

Sine I had spent the entire day inside ironing clothes! There was still a little last minute sunshine left in the day.  Fortunately, there is an award winning park right round the corner, Johnston Gardens, with the trees showing a wisp of new budding leaves.

 

The light came into the park at a steep angle.

 

This the light that photographers love: magic light, golden light, golden hour light.

 

Many bushes and trees were in new bloom or colorful bud.  Mmmmm.

 

It didn't matter which way I shot the park, it was just as beautiful.

 

The sharp golden light illuminated the tangle of limbs and branches of the flowering bushes near the blue Japanese bridge.

 

There were ducks feeding on the pond as the sun slowly set.

 

Flowering plants were in all stages of budation and flowing.

 

Hard woody buds.

 

My camera started flashing a red battery image.  In my haste I left the house without checking the battery. I had to move fast now.

 

I started shooting flowers just to record their beauty.

 

I decided to come back the next day to savor the color and beauty . . . .

 

. . . but Scotland would not cooperate!  A sleet and snow storm arrived the following day!

 

I had a week of vacation in February 2015 so I decided to take a couple of days and drive the two hours north to the mythical village of Findhorn, on the Moray coast.  I say mythical because during the high times of the 1960's hippie days (daze?), stories from and about 'Findhorn' (actually the Findhorn Foundation, one of the first intentional communities . . . essentially a commune) played large in the mythopoetics of the counter culture.  Tales of giant vegetables, communing with extra terrestrials, and telepathy were often associated with 'Findhorn.'  But Findhorn is also a quaint village and one-time major sea port.  I stayed in the 287 year old Crown and Anchor Inn.  Lovely.

 

I was very lucky with the weather . . . well, the light , anyway.  The temperature was around 36f (3c) in the daytime and 32f (0c) at night.  Good fro February.  Findhorn village was a treat to photograph.

 

Years of salty wind has weathered the town.

 

I scouted the town for lighting conditions before I brought my camera out (Fuji X-T1 with 56mm f1.2 lens).

 

The colors and textures of the aging surfaces were beautiful.  I enjoyed this door with the home-made vent holes.

 

I took a walk out on the 300 year old quay to get a look at Findhorn.

 

Time, weather, sea water, and an invisible hand . . . .

 

I have no idea how old these quay stanchions are . . . hundreds of years?

 

Too much color and texture.

 

The village of Findhorn has a lot of Old World charm.

 

Lovely old stone buildings with slate roofs.

 

I enjoyed walking around in the quiet streets and lanes, looking for color and pattern.

 

The house next to the Crown & Anchor Inn was lovely.

 

Although it was late Winter, everything was trimmed in Findhorn Village and waiting for Spring.

 

In these far northern latitudes it seems like every hour is the golden hour for photography.

 

You could make a fine arts book on these small Scottish coastal village houses.  Such a warm and lovely feeling.

 

The austere rough stone masonry has a beauty all its own.  I like it . . . it is so organic.

 

Nice color at this artist's house.

 

The main avenue in Findhorn makes a loop . . . and comes back around to this church.

 

Along the end, and behind the town of Findhorn is the North Sea.

 

I wasn't the only person out along the sea coast . . . but this man was a bird watcher . . . he had strong binoculars only.

 

I went to the beach several times, once along this foot path.

 

The sun came and went all day long.  The beach access though the dunes.

 

Very handy.

 

The inviting North Sea.

 

The wind was so strong it blew the sand from around any pilings around. . .

 

FINDHORN FOUNDATION - the place hippie dreams are made of.Although Findhorn village was sweet and quaint, I had come to pay my respects, and to personally see for myself, the famous Findhorn community, or commune as we hippies thought of it in the late 1960s, now known as the  Findhorn Foundation.

 

I thought it funny how few expectations I had about Findhorn  before coming here.  I only knew of the stories of a community in Scotland that had people who could communicate with the nature spirits . . . who rewarded them with giant vegetables that grew out of unfertile, rocky soil.

 

This could be anywhere in Jackson or Josephine counties in Oregon . . . hippie architectural chic.

 

Findhorn community was a trailer park (caravan park in the UK) before it was an intentional community and ecovillage.  There are still some wonderful old trailer homes dotted around the property.  This one has the requisite gnome and Beatles homage display. I'm glad there are trailer homes here . .  if one is a renunciant, living a spiritual life, it doesn't really matter what you live in . . . and better to recycle than to cut trees or use other energy sources to construct a house . . .

 

On the other hand, there were clusters of these rather Scandinavian eco-condos around the property as well.  This is a part of the Findhorn Ecovillage, I think.  I didn't get a map at the visitors center.

 

It was a beautiful morning . . . the earliest signs of impending Spring were everywhere.

 

There were plenty of unconventional structures everywhere . . . .

 

It was nice to see that there is another spiritual traveller on this planet who will return again because of attachments to fast and cool cars.  Yes, this is a 1953 MG-TD.  Findhorn is NOT a monastery.

 

There are many interesting things to look at around Findhorn.  The old sits beside the new and the funky beside the modern.

 

The '60s counter culture aesthetic abound.

 

The Findhorn Foundation runs a program of spiritual and therapeutic workshops throughout the year.  I am assuming these come from a sensitivity training workshop, but I am at a loss as to how the therapist/facilitator uses them.  Very photographically interesting, however.

 

This is the current Findhorn Foundation program as of April 1, 2015.

 

I hoped these were where they were as a result of a Graffiti and The Self workshop.

 

Workshop activity or resident youth protestation, or both?

 

I'm glad I had my camera with me . . .

 

I am in the habit as seeing human artifacts as just that: the work of an individual person on a particular day and time.  I have this feel about almost everything I see and touch that is of human origin.

 

The sales office trailer home for the new, yet to be started, condominium project - £78,000.oo for a one bedroom flat.

 

Time and weather.

 

A good place for  old friends to meet and shoot the spiritual breeze . . . some time ago.  How about fixing this one up . . .

 

I decided to see if I could find my way from the Ecovillage through the dunes and on to the North Sea.  There must be a path.

 

Indeed, there was a beautiful path though an extraordinary wood.

 

The woods are managed, not wild.

 

A quiet wood.

 

If you erect a wind power generating tower near a hippie commune you have to expect the graffiti is going to be cosmic.

 

The wooded path led me through the dunes.

 

The Scots are great about providing well marked trails through nature . . . nature walks everywhere.

 

Down to the beach . . . again.

 

The dunes were sandy, but the beach was a stretch of small pebbles for five miles all the way to Burghead.

 

A stones' throw from the spiritual community were these WWII bunkers that had been eroded into the sea . . . I guess there might be a silver lining to this sea level rise . . . .

 

WWII bunker . . .

 

BurgheadI spent a good part of each day exploring the other seaside villages in the area.  This is Burghead . . . a village built on a small peninsula.  The town is surrounded on three sides by the North Sea.

 

Fishermen's houses in Burghead . . . a very windswept and austere town.

 

Burghead harbour looking west from up on the promontory park at the end of the town.

 

The views from the Burghead Visitors Center looking east were scrumptious.  I could barely stand up or hold the camera steady in the 80-90kph wind!.

 

The Burghead Visitors Center marks the end of the peninsula . . . along with a monument marking the site of an ancient Pictish fort dating back thousands of years.  In fact, Burghead is believed to be the city Castra Alata in Ptolemy's early geography of the British Isles.

 

Not much is left of the Pictish fort as a result of the harbour construction in the 19th century.  The ocean views here were fantastic. The wind was incredible!

 

These homes were situated out on the unsheltered tip of the Burghead peninsula. 

 

Every house in Burghead has this view of Findhorn Bay.

 

I drove through the little sea port town of Hopeman on my way to Lossiemouth.  I loved the place names in Moray.

 

Although most of the coast is rocky, there are are also beautiful beaches around Hopeman.

 

The sea and beaches here were beautiful, but there were many low flying jet planes near Findhorn and Lossiemouth, both of which have major British Airforce bases nearby.

 

The road into Lossiemouth passed yet another golf course.  Yes, Scotland is the home of golf and you see golf courses everywhere you go.  I tried to go to that lighthouse you can see in the background but failed to find the access road!  I was disappointed.

 

Lossiemouth has been a settlement or town for over 1000 years.  It also has a fine, photogenic harbour.

 

The city fathers of Lossiemouth did a fine of developing the old warehouses along the quay into shops and restaurants.

 

Lossiemouth harbour is protected by mammoth sea walls.  The North Sea is a wild sea.

 

A wonderful old launch and it's reflection at rest in Lossiemouth Harbour.

 

A surreal Lossiemouth breakwater holding back the pulses of the North Sea.

 

Many beautiful scenes to see . . .

 

I stopped in at a picturesque 19th century hotel for a delicious double latte.

 

There was a nice beach just outside of Lossiemouth.

 

Lossiemouth beach access.

 

I hated to leave Lossiemouth and vowed to return one day to explore it more thoroughly.  But I had a few stops marked on the map to see before it got dark . . .and I didn't want to be out on the small roads on my way back to Aberdeen in the dark.

 

My next stop was the rural Birnie Kirk, founded in 1040, but burned and sacked many times. The structure you see here is still the original 12th century construction.

 

The old folk had no trouble accepting the fact that we would be bones one day . . . and our dearly departed would be bones too.  I've seen these skull and bones grave stones throughout Scotland.

 

Although it was a beautiful (but cold) day when I was there, the moss and lichen on these grave stones indicate a wetter climate.

 

Birnie Kirkegaard (that's 'churchyard' in Danish) was a beautiful place to contemplate my mortality.

 

Ironically, although it was mid-winter, the first signs of an approaching Spring I had seen this year were these snow drops blooming on the graves at Birnie Kirke.

 

I really enjoyed hustling my little boy-racer Juke NISMO around the twisty country lanes of Moray.  It is the perfect car for this purpose . . . it even has torque-vectored AWD for when the road gets slick.  Fun, fun, fun.

 

A perfect mid-February winter's day in Moray, Scotland.

 

The Amazing Spynie PalaceSometimes you get lucky.  While driving home to Aberdeen on a small shire road I spotted a sign that directed me up a drive to Spynie Palace.  I arrived at this gate house and parked.

 

I had no idea what to expect as I walked up the tree lined gravel road.  It was a perfect day.

 

I began to make out the shape of something though the trees . . . .

 

At last  . . .  I got a good glimpse of the palace tower.  Wow.

 

There it is.  Wow!  Spynie Palace, also known as Spynie Castle, was the fortified seat of the Bishops of Moray for about 500 years. The founding of the palace dates back to the late 12th Century.

 

Talk about serendipity! Spynie  Palace has a fabulous history . . . "Ruxby, an agent provocateur of Elizabeth I of England, who had tried to lead Mary, Queen of Scots, into a plot with English Roman Catholics, was imprisoned in Spynie Castle in 1566 for eighteen months.

 

The palace is surrounded by spectacular Scottish countryside.

 

The clear light, deep shadow, and color of sky and castle were perfectly coordinated for these wonderful photographs. 

 

I enjoyed walking around the tower thinking about what would make an interesting angle for a photograph.  I didn't have to think too much . . . . I'm glad I had my new polarizing filter with me to try out.

 

There was a visitors' center . . . closed except for the toilets (thank goodness!).

 

This was the only decorative element on the otherwise austere tower structure.

 

Spynie Palace was built in many phases over it's 900 year history.  The chapel (left) and other structures were under restoration by Historic Scotland, which I am a member.

 

Chapel and quarters.

 

Partially restored chapel and former main gate.

 

The Moray countryside in winter on a clear, cold day.

 

I took hundreds of great photos here . . . but, alas, I can only share a few of them here.  It was a magic afternoon in Scotland.

 

I'll be back in the summer to be able to go inside the tower.

 

I made a wrong turn, as if pulled by an inviable force, into a little village and suddenly stopped beside a dilapidated corrugated shed . . . my obsession!

 

I made it home before dark, and this big rain cloud . . . . Another memorable couple of days in Scotland.