on the road again

Thinking about my last entry...Why roads? The visual, of course, lines which draw the eye and entice it to follow. An abrupt linear counterpoint to the chaos that is landscape. The draw is not unlike, I suppose, that which attracts people to travel the road itself. A journey, the mystery of where it may lead, of what may lie round the next bend.

just out of Feolin Ferry, Jura

a Skye Road

the road to Bunnahabhain, Islay

Kildalton, Islay

Vatersay, one of the Outer Hebridean islands of Scotland

along Loch Harport, Skye

The last is a photo from the east coast of Harris, another of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. A landscape with a peculiarly attractive desolation. Apparently it was a proxy for the planet Jupiter in Kubrick's film "2001: a Space Odyssey". Maybe that's why I find Harris so appealing - the film is one of my alltime favourites. I remember seeing it with my dad when it was first released, one of the first wide screen epic films. And here I find myself travelling with my father again, on a journey through the same landscape. Full circle, another line.

red phonebooths

With the advent of wireless communication and ensuing prevalence of cell phones in the world, I suspect the phonebooth is on the road to oblivion. I love the image of the red phonebooth. Not only do they appeal to me visually, but they also seem to me to be heavily laden with story. History and culture nestle deep in the crackled paint of their exterior, lives lived and shared over thin copper wires. In rural Scotland one can find them on the most unlikely of street corners.

I got thinking about all this after reading a post on Armin Grewe's www.islayblog.com that indicated Google Streetview had come to the Scottish island of Islay, and that one of the views he found interesting was along the road featuring the red phonebooth near Carnduncan. I thought it would be fun to show a few of the photographs I've taken of these icons, including this one near Carnduncan...

...on Skye, near Carbost, just down the road from the Talisker distillery.

...on Barra, one of the southernmost of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.