This image superbly captures the best of the brooding Scottish Highlands, an otherworldly scene that would not be out of place on the fictional Star Wars forest moon of Endor. Craggy mountains rise high to brush fearlessly against a turbulent and pitiless sky: Scotland is no place for the faint of heart.
The image is preserved perfectly behind a cast acrylic panel so that we guarantee it will remain pristine for one hundred years. It is available in three sizes: two feet wide, three feet wide and four feet wide.
The pictures are very heavy, up to fifteen kilograms for the largest size, and must be secured properly to the wall. The reason for the weight is that the pictures are bonded to a highly polished 20mm acrylic panel rather than the standard 5mm panels, because the extra thickness gives the image a depth and clarity that truly brings this scene to life.
The peaks are inhospitable and unwelcoming, bar when a shaft of brilliant sunshine pierces the gloom cast by the clouds piling overhead. These clouds are no transient pieces of fluff; they have weight and gravitas. Ignore their warning at your own peril!
On descending from the chilly peaks, one is brought to the kinder foothills where tufts of sweet grass, air-soft heather and imperious purple thistles abound. The sunshine is stronger here, friendlier and able to spread itself amongst the flowers and plants, warming the sleepy dormice and blundering bumblebees as they go about their mysteriously busy yet tranquil lives.
The trees are thicker on the lower slopes, spreading their branches welcomingly, the dark green foliage harmonising with the lighter yellow-green of the turfy grass. One can imagine a knight on a quest stopping here to water his horse and take a moment to rest his weary body and soothe his frayed soul in the cool shade of one of the trees, perhaps unwrapping his simple meal of bread, cheese and milk, the latter still faintly warm from the farm where he obtained it, gratefully pressing a coin into the hand of the farmer’s wife as he accepted the victuals.
The waters of the hidden loch are mirror-smooth and impenetrable and it is all too easy to imagine that the obsidian dark waters conceal the hide-away lives of kelpies, mermaids, selkies and their equally mythical brethren! The loch stretches out to the viewer, daring, rather than welcoming, ingress. Swimmers summoning the courage to leave the coarse-grassed foreground, warmed by a gap in the clouds, must be stout-hearted and prepared for the water to bite with an icy chill: but those brave enough to persist will be rewarded with crystal clear views of the secrets at the bottom of the loch (some of them anyway, no man will ever know all there is to know of Nature’s mysteries), pure, clean water and the rewards of being able to look at the loch and know that, this time, the water did not win.
But these waters refute exploration; it is a brave soul indeed that would dare to mark the unruffled surface and none would enter without the utmost respect. The hidden loch will fiercely defend itself from the uncaring and unwary, taking souls into the depths, never to be seen again. It is around such waters that magic and legends arise: swords offering themselves to the valiant, bean nighe or fairy washerwomen mourning the future deaths of those whose clothes they wash before they fade from sight and even the Salmon of Knowledge, a magnificent fish with the power to bestow its eater with all the knowledge of the world, but whose gaze can cast a man into an enchanted sleep. Who, knowing of these myths, could cast aside their caution and step into that water without purpose, determination and hope?
The whole picture deeply stirs the imagination of the viewer: challenging, daring and inspiring. Simply to gaze upon such a vista is food for even the most jaded modern soul. Perhaps the words of the poet Patrick Scott Hogg sum it up best, with this excerpt from his ‘Fragmented Images of the White Loch, Castle Kennedy’:
In these scenes and moments
Distilled, in the kiln of Nature’s raw heart
Are the emotions, fallen and uprising,
Like the waves upon the shore of life’s vast ocean
When humanity awakes!
When the miracle of each moment is lost ere we grasp it
When the eyes of a child open
Never close, no matter what dreams may come
And even hoary grey and furrowed age-lines
Cannot erase the deepest sigh and wonder:
Yet all expires with the leaf and sap
To the warm embrace of Nature’s arms:
Beauty is transient as love is brief.
O let me be buried there, forever at peace
‘Mid the places I loved when my spirit was young.
Testimonials for The Hidden Highland Loch
‘Very interesting image. Very moody and with dramatic scale. Generally feels very realistic and has a sense of the sombre grandeur that is appealing.’
Paul Huston – Senior Digital Matte Artist, Industrial Light & Magic
Paul was responsible for the visual effects in all six Star Wars films, Indiana Jones, Willow, Star Trek, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as many others.
‘Beautiful composition and lighting. Feels like an Ansel Adams photo that takes me away. … I would frame this.’
Dark Hoffman – Freelance Digital Artist, Sony Imageworks
‘Composition and lighting are fantastic and a superb choice to go B&W. Ansel Adams eat your heart out! … Overall a very strong and professional piece which is why I think this is a winner.’
Max Dennison – Art Director, Digital Domain London
‘Awesome lighting. Reminds me Ansel Adams photography.’
Susumu Yukuhiro – Matte Painting Supervisor, Whiskytree
‘Very nice Ansel Adams-inspired piece. Lots of detail and interest.’
Richard Hill – Editor, 3D World magazine
Pigment inks on 271gsm satin paper, professionally hand-bonded onto a 20mm cast acrylic panel.
Limited Edition of 30 prints:
- 10 at 48″ (w) × 20.4″ (h)
- 10 at 36″ (w) × 15.3″ (h)
- 10 at 24″ (w) × 10.2″ (h)
Each limited edition acrylic print comes with a signed Certificate of Authenticity, and is ready to hang.
