I spent a fair bit of time with my camera when I was up north a couple of weeks ago visiting Sarah and family, and as there were some requests to see what I took, i thought I’d share a few with you.  There were really 2 parts to the trip, camera wise, so I thought I’d split the post in two so there’s not too many photos in one post, leaving you with an urge to dose off ;o)

The trip north was punctuated by a large amount of rain and snow between Stirling and Aviemore, but as I ot north of Aviemore the clouds cleared and the sun came out.  This is a wee church which appears quite randomly at the bottom of the hill on a pretty sharp bend on the road between Grantown on Spey and Forres.  I was fascinated by the viaduct in the background, and the large house with American style stable buildings between it and the church.  It was to be the first of many random stops I made with the camera!

On the Saturday we headed along the coast a wee bit to Roseisle forest park and beach, which is between Findhorn and Burghead.  It’s also between a couple of other noteable places, but I’ll leave them until later!

I was playing about with these posts in the water, trying to get them to point towards the north side of the Cromarty Firth, but unfortunately the clouds rather blended in with the snow topped mountains over there!

There were some questions of a beachy nature…

And this random toddler that didn’t quite know what to make of the black thing pointed at her.  But not scared enough to stop her from following us home:

Now remember the other 2 places I mentioned?  Yep, that would be Kinloss and Lossiemouth, so it’s left some interesting structures on the beach from wars gone by – it was a bit like being on the beach in Normandy!

While I was walking back through the forest I had a wee bit of a play with something I’d wanted to try for ages.  If you move your camera while taking a shot, you can get some rather impressionistic effects.  I want to find more trees to try it with now!

Next we headed along to Findhorn for lunch.  The taxis round there look a little different…

Looking from the beach at the north end of Findhorn towards the Black Isle and Cromarty Firth

Back at home that toddler showed up again.  This was at her regular speed:

But occasionally she would stop to show off her ballet skills:

Next week I’ll show you my journey south again.