Glen Nevis 1

Glen Nevis has been described as the “prettiest glen in Scotland” and it’s a place I’ve often photographed, and never got the perfect encapsulation of how I react to it. This is the nearest I’ve got so far.

The road to the car park at the end of the drivable part of the glen is normally open on at least one side. This is the narrowest point, and the first time I drove down it in the 1970s I was actually worried as to whether the car would fit. Naturally, it did! I’ve seen camper vans in the car park, so it’s nowhere near as narrow a gap as I first thought.

Photographing it is another matter. I found only one position I could use, in a widening of the road just before the narrow part, which is intended as a passing place. I had to back up as close as I could to the edge, and fit a 50mm (wide angle) lens on my RZ67 to fit in all that I wanted to. The advantage of a camera with a waist level finder is that I did not have to be physically behind the camera to compose the photograph. Faced with similar problems with a view camera, photographers have been known to use mirrors to see the screen when they didn’t have space to get behind the camera.

I intend to try again sometime to see if I can improve on it. I suspect a green filter might help (coloured filter for black and white are explained elsewhere on the site).

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