That Lucky Snap - 1

I spend very enjoyable time looking back through the various photo libraries on my computer, partly because the pictures remind me of places and people and moments in my life but also because, just once in a while, I come across a picture which is special.

There was a time, back in the precambrian of my youth, when one thought twice about taking more than one picture of a subject - each roll of film of 24 or 36 exposures cost money to print - but these days, if what I'm looking at seems promising, I fire away with a digital camera which has a good 'burst' speed: on occasion I have taken dozens of pictures of a subject, just to be certain that one will be OK.

Forgive me, I have posted this picture before - here - but I didn't write about it. In my view, this picture is different. It was taken to the east of Mingary Castle, Ardnamurchan, along a section of beach which few people visit, so it is good for spotting otters. It was a pig of a day, of steady, relentless and, even by Scottish standards, very wet rain. The mist covered the view - and then suddenly it began to lift and just a faint hint of sunshine broke through. It was so unexciting I took just one picture, and it came out far, far better than I could have hoped.

Somehow it encapsulates the trials and glories of photography on the west Scottish coast, the rain, the slippery rocks, the knowledge that there is a terrific view out there if only one could see it, the subdued yet warm colours, the flat grey calm of a sea which is usually fierce. It's a world in which, to capture a good picture, one often needs persistence and patience.

I'm very pleased with it yet.... the picture lacks something. I would have liked to have had some life in it. To have been perfect it would have had an otter just visible off the rocks in the mid-distance. But then, life is rarely perfect.