Just coming up nearly a year ago, we took a drive up to the west coast to do one of our favourite road trip loops. We booked the campsite at Glenshiel, spent the night in the caravan there, and then set off in the morning to drive the mountain road towards Glenelg, and specifically, the Glenelg ferry.
The ferry crosses the shortest gap over to Skye, it takes less than 10 minutes, but the fun is in the fact that it’s the last manually operated turntable ferry in the world. You drive on, pay your fare, and watch the ferry guys use their strength to turn the back of the ferry off the slipway. You might even be lucky and spot one of the ferry dogs doing the journey with you.
We took the scenic route back to the campsite, making plenty of coffee stops along the way, driving some new back roads and stopping to lug the big Mamiya camera out of the boot to fire off some shots here and there.
I don’t know if this is necessarily why it’s taken me a year to write words to go alongside this roll of film, but I had a pretty negative experience while taking the shot of the dilapidated tin house. We all know I love a wriggly tin building, and so do thousands and thousands of other people if you look at the extraordinary amount of members of the ‘Corrugated Iron Appreciation Society’ on Facebook, so obviously I was overjoyed to spot this building on a quiet little single track road, somewhere on the drive back.
As I jumped out of the car, camera in hands, a man was in his garden in the house next door, so I caught his attention thinking I’d be polite and ask him if he minded if I photographed the building next door. I know residents in the highlands can get sick of feeling like a theme park for visitors, so I wanted to assure him that I wasn’t taking photos for any nefarious reasons, even telling him about my Little Tin Houses website. This man was so dismissive and did his very best to make me feel small. I can’t remember his exact words, but he basically called what I was doing ridiculous, and wanted to shoot down any excitement and joy I took in photographing the house. It was a strange experience and left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the day.
I try to be very careful when I take photos out and about, never to invade anyone’s privacy or give anyone any reason to think I’m up to no good, but this interaction was a reminder that not everyone will get it, or you always run the risk of catching someone on a bad day.
The photo came out great though, what a corker.
