- The steamship ‘Sir Walter Scott’ prepares to make sail on a fog bound Loch Katrine
Arriving early one morning, my plans to photograph some autumn colour at dawn amongst the woods and islands on Loch Katrine are derailed by heavy fog. Instead, I’m plunged bleary eyed and blinking into moody mists and shifting ghostly forms as the unexpected conditions demand a rapid rethink to the shoot.
Located some 30 miles north of Glasgow, Loch Katrine lies at the heart of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park and, thanks to a remarkable piece of Victorian engineering, is also the city’s main water supply. To help maintain purity, boats are generally not allowed on the loch. However, the SS Sir Walter Scott has been sailing here for over a hundred years and still ferries tourists around this gem of a spot.
As the steamship makes ready to sail, smoke rises gently into the mist and makes for a great first subject on this atmospheric day. Berthed against a backdrop of rocky crags and woodland tinged with autumn, all colour is muted by the fog. A diffuse and uncertain glow pervades the greyness of the scene as the fog naturally desaturates the colour and flattens the contrast. The lack of any obvious modern appliance and the foggy conditions contribute an air of antique and timeless still. Some of the pictures could have been captured any time and remind me of landscapes by the artist JMW Turner. Not that I’m interested as such in emulating a painting, but feel their influence in some of my choices later in Lightroom as I began to push and play with the subtle atmospherics of light and colour.
I’ve desaturated some of the colour to help emphasise this antique feel while boosting others a little to strengthen their appeal. Some extra punch to the awnings by increasing the saturation in the reds. Some strength to the bowlines and eventual skies by reducing the luminosity to deepen the blues. Lightening the yellows and oranges to pull out the autumn colour. I’ve also played around with contrasts, strengthening the blacks to better delineate the forms without hopefully overly affecting the subtle mid tone atmospherics created by the fog.
As with many of these adjustments in Lightroom, once you begin getting one shot into shape the others quickly follow even as conditions and light changes. And change they did as the day wore on and some strong sun began pushing through and shift the fog to reveal a landscape of startling clarity and contrast. But more of that later.
The fog hangs heavy over the still and mirror smooth lake
Like a scene from a painting by Turner, the ship emerges from the gloom
Islands loom mysteriously out from the mists
To shift and resolve out of the fog
Clearing to reveal a wooded island flecked with autumn colour
The sun breaks through to drive off the mists
Alistair Keddie