One Glorious Evening in Uig: Frames 8,193 through 8,195

©National Geographic Society

A thousand years ago Vikings were playing chess here.  Pleasant to think that the Vikings could kick back after after a hard day of pillaging and have some quiet time. 

I was staying at the lovely little inn called Baile na Cille, situated just out of the frame to the left.  The inn is on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, the biggest of the hundreds of islands and skerries known as the Outer Hebridies of Scotland.  After dinner I went out on the lawn and saw this scene -- the vast Uig Bay.  

Amazingly, Uig Bay drains entirely at low tide, turning it into a stunning beach twice a day.  You can walk clear across if you like.  If you walked about a mile straight into the picture you would come to where the Vikings lost their chessmen in the dunes a thousand years ago.  Known now as the Lewis chessmen, the pieces lay buried until 1831, when Malcolm "Sprot" Macleod found them and then displayed them for awhile in his byre -- a cow barn, to you and me.  Most of the Lewis Chessmen are now in The British Museum.  (A side note:  That the Chessmen reside in London can reliably be counted on to raise the ire of locals.  Some will say that the set ought to be here in the isles where they belong, and I agree. )

On this evening, I was in no mood for ire.  How could I be amid this idyll?  I watched rabbits chase each other around their warrens.  The tide settled itself after coming in, creating a mirror-smooth surface on the bay.  A stone fence carved out a territory for gravestones, once part of a church yard.  Our clue is in the inn's name, Baile na Cille, with the word cille meaning church.

After the light was gone I went back inside and breathlessly told innkeeper Richard Gollin what I had just seen.  He humored me.  He lives there and sees the bay every day.

Now, I should probably recite the technical details of this picture, as photographers are wont to do.  If I did, the rundown would go something like this:  Nikon D3 with a Really Right Stuff L Plate on a Gitzo 1228 carbon fiber tripod with a Really Right Stuff BH-40 ball head,  PCL-1 panning clamp, and MPR-CL II rail so that I could center a 24mm Nikkor PC-E lens over the nodal point.  This, too, was to be a multi-frame panorama.

If you were able to follow all the preceding details, then you already know what I am talking about.  

If not, it hardly matters.

It's true.  All my cameras and tripods and ball heads have plenty of knobs I must adjust, and as good as the equipment is and as much as I rely on it as a photographer, none of it can make an evening glorious.  I'd love for equipment to create a thrilling sky like that I saw in Uig Bay that night -- or calm the waters or make rabbits jump in circles in a way that made my heart glad.

So rather than trying further to explain what is best seen, I suggest relishing the history of the Lewis Chessmen and if you get a chance, go stay at Baile na Cille out at the end of the road in Timsgarry on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis.  Look it up here:  http://www.bailenacille.com/

Tell Richard I sent you.

Jim

Tomorrow: Mangersta on the ragged shore

You can see pictures from the article and more on the National Geographic web site, here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/hebrides/richardson-photography

Posted via email from jimrichardson's posterous

Comments

[Don]

wonderful series Jim, I love reading it.

[Espen]

Jim - thank you so much for sharing these stories with us. I devoured the magazine this weekend, and it's great to hear more about these islands.

[sarah]

Great to see our little corner of the world impressing people! The historical society in Uig provides a lot of info on the vast and rich history of the place at www.ceuig.com.

[Jim Richardson]

Sarah, your little corner of the world is very impressive indeed. And I love your historical site. It looks like you had some snow recently! I hope all is well out there in Uig and thanks for keeping us posted.
Jim