North Scotland on Kodak Ultramax 400 – Part Two

The well know geological icon that is the Duncansby Stacks. 1/500s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.

Check out part one by clicking here.

With one day left before we headed back home it was my time to drive the troops around in the Hyundai i20 hire car. While it’s no Porsche it still had a bit of zip and there was fun to be had pushing it around the bends. It also seemed to return a healthy 50mpg no matter how you drove it which was of great relief to our wallets. We only needed to fill up once on the entire trip. Being the driver was not necessarily ideal on this day, considering we were visiting a whisky distillery, but I was happy to delay drinking my samples for my first opportunity of driving around the north coast of Scotland.

The Gang on the beach. The light leak works perfectly here. 1/8000s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.

Brave Swimmers take the cold plunge into the North Sea at Dunnet Beach. 1/1000s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.

Whilst I can’t endorse clambering around on sand dunes, it is good fun. 1/1250s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.

Today’s agenda meant we headed East instead of West. Coming up here, it’s almost obligatory to visit John O’Groats at some point on your trip, but first we headed towards the actual most northern point on the British mainland - Dunnet Head. Though like the day prior we stopped off at the nearby beach first. Unsurprisingly called Dunnet Beach. A vast open expanse of sand, you could see this being a really lovely place to be, and perhaps even swim, on a rare hot summer’s day. Though to my surprise (and in all honesty horror) a small group of elderly women were heading into the sea with nothing but bathing suits. Today was not a warm day, and the water was certainly cold, but perhaps the leathery hide of the aged protects them from the elements. Or perhaps they’ve long lost all sense of feeling. I was more than happy to stick to walking.

Peat washing out into the beach creates an infinite array of patterns. Sadly this image was particularly affected by the airport scanner. 1/2000s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.

Our hire care, the peppy Hyundai i20. 1/8000s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.

Alex J stands on the cliffs of Dunnet Head. 1/1000s 85mm F4.0 with polariser.

Then came Dunnet Head, with its large lighthouse heading up the RSPB reserve. And it is an RSPB reserve for good reason, this ranks as one of the best places I’ve ever been to if you want to get up close with the fulmars taking off and landing on the sea cliffs. I decided to have a go at shooting birds in flight on film, something I hadn’t attempted before. It wasn’t that successful, and I was loathe to waste too much film on it as there was a lot left to shoot today. I took three frames and one of them happened to be in focus. I’ll take that as a win. Thankfully there was no flying from Alex J when I photographed him standing at the top of the cliffs.

Looking lower down you can see the numerous nesting fulmars. 1/125s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.

With three attempts of capturing them in flight, I managed to get this one in focus. Ironically this was the one shot I thought was out of focus at the time of shooting. 1/1000s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.

The lighthouse complex at Dunnet Head is much bigger than the other ones we visited over the weekend. 1/8000s 35mm F2.5 with polariser.

Now it really was time for John O’Groats, and while we were thwarted from buying ice cream as the shop was closed, we did have a lovely millionaires shortbread and luxurious hot chocolate from 8 Doors Distillery that had only opened last year. All fuelled up with sugar, we quickly marched off to have a good look at Duncansby Stacks. We didn’t have long though as we soon needed to drive off down to Wick for the distillery tour at Old Pulteney.

The obligatory pose with the sign at John O’Groats. 1/8000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Followed by a huge sugar rush. 1/100s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

The two lighthouses of Duncansby (foreground) and the Pentland Skerries (background). 1/1000s 95mm F4.0 with polariser.

In the years since I’d last been up, I’d come to appreciate whisky (though I am far from being any kind of connoisseur) and this was actually my first tour of any distillery. It was a fascinating experience, seeing the step-by-step process from malt to barrel. At this point I only had a few frames of film left, so I had to be careful in using them to show the widest selection of images. It was here that the roll ran out leaving me with nothing left for the Whalligoe Steps, Lybster Harbour or Camster Cairns. A pity but I’d done well to make the three rolls of film last over the weekend.

The highlight of the day was my first whisky distillery tour at Old Pulteney in Wick. 1/80s 35mm F1.4.

Hard at work. The mashing of the malt is one of the earliest steps in the whisky making process. The whole area smelled strongly of porridge. 1/400s 35mm F1.4.

The only slightly frustrating part was that it did appear that some of the images were impacted by the airport X-ray scanners. Luckily on the flight back from Inverness to Luton, the security man kindly offered to hand check the rolls of film. But it seems like once was enough to do a bit of damage. I had been hoping that as the film was less than ISO 800 and it had only been scanned once it would return unscathed. However, I have limited experience of this, and I will try and see if I can reprocess the scans of the negatives manually to see if I can get more accurate colours.

Vast vats hold the liquid during the fermentation process. 1/400s 35mm F1.4.

Then comes the important step of distilling to increase the alcohol content above what is naturally possible. 1/80s 35mm F1.4.

What a fantastic trip it had been though. Great to finally be up in North Scotland again and great to finally catch up with friends after the blight of the pandemic. Hopefully it won’t be four years until I go up again, but you never quite know what life will throw at you sometimes. I hope you’ve enjoyed these two blogs and if you have any questions or comments then please do leave them down below.

Once the whiskey is ready it needs to be poured into barrels. 1/80s 35mm F1.4.

And then it needs to be left stored in barrels for many years to take on its colour and flavour. It’s incredible to see just how many barrels are stored here and in the other warehouses. Certainly many more times than a lifetime’s worth. 1/40s 35mm F1.4.

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