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Panorama

December 12, 2024

Glasgow

The Cloisters, University of Glasgow, Glasgow

On the Road from Glasgow to Glencoe

Glencoe

Looking Over the Top of the Hidden Valley, Glencoe

Looking Back From the Top of the Hidden Valley, Glencoe

Loch Leven, Glencoe

The Beaches Between Arisaig and Mallaig

The Beaches Between Arisaig and Mallaig - Photo by Matt

Quiraing, Isle of Skye

Quiraing, Isle of Skye

Quiraing, Isle of Skye

Quiraing, Isle of Skye

Quiraing, Isle of Skye

Quiraing, Isle of Skye

The Storr, Isle of Skye

North Coast on the Isle of Skye - Photo by Matt

Waternish, Isle of Skye

Idrigil, Isle of Skye

Fairy Glen, Isle of Skye

Fairy Glen, Isle of Skye

Fairy Glen, Isle of Skye - Photo by Matt

View from Fairy Glen, Isle of Skye

Eilean Donan Castle, Between Skye and Kincraig

Donna Wilson Exhibit, Victoria and Albert Museum, Dundee

The Kitchen, The Georgian House, Edinburgh

Edinburgh - Photo by Matt

Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh

National Monument of Scotland, Edinburgh

Edinburgh - Photo by Matt

Edinburgh

Being able to travel is a gift. Near or far, going somewhere you’ve never been is such a treat. You’re out of your routine. Your bed is different. The food is different. Everything you’re seeing, smelling, thinking and feeling is different. It rewires your brain. You form new associations and new ways of looking at things, the world, your home, yourself. It’s a gift.

I turned 50 this year. This trip to Scotland was a literal gift as well as a figurative one. It was the trip of all trips. There was so much newness for all of my senses that my brain had a hard time keeping up. There were times that I just needed to sit, to be quiet. I needed to process a lot of things after the fact because I couldn’t do it in real time. Even as I sit here writing this three months later, I can see that I’m still processing everything I took in.

Part of processing a trip after you get some distance is going through the photographs. In the moment, I was snapping my camera and my phone at every opportunity. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever be in Scotland again and I wanted to take as much of it home with me as I could. There are approximately 1000 photos left after editing out the garbage and I still don’t think I took enough. Patterns started to emerge as I looked through the images. I took more photos of my feet than I thought I did. Matt took a lot of photos of me taking photos. There are lots of selfies of Matt and I together. There are photos of food. Photos of light fixtures (I have a thing for light fixtures). But I think the thing that stands out above everything else is that Scotland is the home of the panoramic photo. There is so much horizontal beauty to be seen, not that there isn’t vertical beauty too, but the horizontal just kept taking over and I collected more panoramic shots on this trip than all of my other panoramic photos combined.

Scotland, you are a beautiful wonder.