Castle in the air
Edinburgh Castle and The Hub spire surrounded by haar - ED001
This simple shot has a complicated story and took me several years to capture. When the weather conditions are “right” on the east coast of Scotland a wave of cloud will sweep in from the North Sea at ground level, and swallow everything. If you get the timing right, and get high enough, you can catch beautiful scenes where the highest points in the city are visible above these “haar” clouds.
I’ve attempted this many, many times with varying success, but on this occasion I saw it happening from where I was taking images of sunset behind the city 10 miles away. I drove into Edinburgh, descending into the thick haar and walked up Arthur’s Seat, our inner city mountain. At first I thought it was going to be like many other attempts when the cloud was all the way up to the summit, but about 2/3rds of the way up the cloud grew thinner and then suddenly I was in clear air.
The haar was flowing in waves below me, undulating and sweeping westwards, but the city centre had mostly been engulfed. Edinburgh Castle and the spire of what is now called The Hub were the only visible buildings, and not for long. A minute later they too had disappeared and I was left staring down at a sea of cloud with the beautifully clear twilight sky above it.
I think what makes this shot is the castle lights, which only come on after sunset, and the balance there was with the light in the sky, and the faintly glowing clouds from street and building lights underneath the waves. I’m still trying to perfect this shot - I’ll keep hunting for it in the haar.
Nikon D4 and a 200-500mm lens - taken in 2018.
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