We weren’t really intending to drive down the Glen Etive road on Saturday morning. Our stay at the Glencoe Mountain Resort was over, and it was time to head south for the last of our Scottish bases at Loch Lomond. But as we rolled down the long single track line of tarmac to the nerve jangling A82, I turned left instead of right. I’m sure the Glencoe area has an invisible tractor beam designed to pull unsuspecting togs towards it, no matter how firm their intentions to set off in the opposite direction may be. And although it may be one of the most often taken views in Britain, it seemed rude not to stand before the waterfall at the Buachaille. Ali had never seen it before, and so despite having no intentions to share any more shots of it unless conditions were particularly compelling, I wanted to share it with her. I’d take a shot or two of course - just to see if I’d learned anything since my last homage to this spot in the winter of 2018.
Except that the small parking area by the waterfall was full. And because turning a six metre van around on the Glen Etive road isn’t exactly straightforward, we carried on down the narrow asphalt ribbon towards the loch. I’d been along this road twice before, and hadn’t forgotten just how stunning it is, the River Etive charged with a glut of recent heavy rains, bludgeoning its way down the slope, all whirlpools and eddies and fury as it went. The road, only a few miles long, takes time to negotiate, and although there are plenty of laybys along its route, some of them had been turned into impromptu car parks. In the glen of countless possibilities, maybe we’d find somewhere more sensible to pull up and get a shot. By the time we did, we’d arrived at a likely looking scene. With almost no signal whatsoever, I checked a very fuzzy looking map on my phone, on which the GPS still seemed to be just about working well enough to tell me I was by a location I’d earmarked before coming to Scotland, more in hope of visiting than expectation. It seemed I’d somehow fluked a parking spot by what is described on the map as the “Skyfall Waterfall,” a nod to the James Bond estate that is supposedly fictional - although who really knows?
On arrival, it was busy enough here, with a number of phone snappers and one camera wielding tog wandering about the rocks beside the fall, but within minutes, they’d all mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps Blofeld had arrived, rounded them all up and thrown them into his portable shark tank a hundred yards downriver, but wherever they had vanished to, suddenly the space was ours alone. But the fall was somehow made smaller by our viewing gallery that towered above it, and I wondered how best to capture the huge volumes of water pouring over its ledges. For a while I blundered away with the camera inconclusively, ever conscious that the best view might well lie on the opposite side. Then I joined Ali, who was having a far more peaceful time, sitting on a rock and just watching as the river raced past our feet. For a while we simply sat there, trance-like, happy that the car park up by the Buachaille had been full and the fates had sent us here instead.
On a dedicated photography trip I’d take my time and absorb it all before getting the camera out of the bag, but in moments like this I’m forced to think more quickly, no doubt missing all manner of opportunities in pursuit of a small number of quickly composed views. But one thing seemed pretty clear to me - I needed to try a shot from the opposite side of the river, close to the water. As close as I dared in fact. Because while the sight and sound of the fall was imposing enough, I wanted to be intimidated by it - to feel a sense of threat by bringing the camera as low to the basin as possible. And at the edge of an expanse of flat smooth rock lay a lower platform, negotiable with care and just about large enough upon which to set up the tripod and perch behind it. Not that I could look into the viewfinder without risking an unwanted bath. A good job I brought the camera with the flip out screen then.
Thank goodness the rains had finally left, because it would have been treacherous in the wet. No doubt 007 would have been straight into the water here, with Odd Job’s hands wrapped about his neck and Jaws nibbling at his ankles, but with no arch villain and henchmen to hold me back, I raced through a handful of exposures with a grin on my face. Our Scotland trip, now approaching its final days, had been a triumphant adventure, although not so much from a photography point of view. But here, by this lonely waterfall along one of the most beautiful roads I’ve ever driven, I’d come away with a shot that had entered me into the happy zone.
We carried on down the slope, eventually finding a space just about wide enough to turn around in. Back at the top there was room in the car park, so we stopped and looked at the Buachaille. And although it still pulls me in with the unseen tractor beam that Blofeld has had installed deep in the mountain, my shots looked pretty much like all the other ones I’ve taken of that famous view - I won’t be sharing any this time. Especially when Skyfall has so much more to offer than first meets the eye.
