Nature is surely the planet's greatest architect, and creating images based on this architecture is a challenge that no photographer can resist, but few can master. I have followed in the footsteps of the likes of Ansel Adams - in Yosemite, Arizona and New Mexico. And to the California coast, the home of Edward Weston. These are the true greats (there are others). It's a humbling experience, but there is always much to learn from exposure to their work.

Photographed on a very wet day in October 2022. But, as ever, the rain rendered the colours very intense, and Glen Affric was glowing at its autumnal best.

“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.”

John Muir

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.”

Herman Hesse

“Ancient trees are precious. There is little else on Earth that plays host to such a rich community of life within a single living organism.”

Sir David Attenborough

So much has been written about Carrifran that I won’t attempt to repeat it here. See the relevant pages on Borders Forest Trust’s site, and the two books edited by Philip and Myrtle Ashmole. I’ll stick to my own impressions.

My stock of photographs show that I first encountered Carrifran in 2014. In planning my new photography business, I wanted to concentrate my pro bono work on one charity, and offered to do so for BFT. It is difficult to find the correct words to describe my first visit, but they would include: astonished, beautiful, inspiring, hope, magical, growth, future, and others of that ilk. They are the words that still come to me on visiting eight years later, now as a BFT Trustee.

They are accompanied by a slight sense of me being, in some respects, an interloper. So many individuals have worked so hard and for so long - over two decades - to bring Carrifran to where it is now. And it is only in the early stages, arguably the most important stages, of its long journey to becoming the Wild Wood that is the vision held by these people. It is a vision of a place where nature will take precedence over people. People have literally sowed the seeds, over 700,000 of them, to kickstart that forest regeneration process, and the time will come - you can see signs of it already - when nature will take over. Natural reseeding will take place and the balance of species will adjust to find its own equilibrium.

My tendency as a photographer is to try to capture the site’s beauty, whether the tiniest opening bud in spring or the widest sweep of the valley. But there is another job to be done beyond beauty, and for me that is new. And that is to systematically record the valley’s change over time. Much good work has already been done by many individuals with their cameras, and I only hope I can add to that. The drone is a new tool for me, and already it is helping to reveal views and patterns, some of them beautifully abstract, that perhaps had not been revealed before.

Much of the recording of change will find its way onto BFT’s own web site and my gallery will be a changing reflection of my own perceptions and perspectives of this wonderful place. I nearly wrote “beautiful” but that would be to undersell it, for Carrifran is so much more.

Holly Gill takes its name from a large specimen that was found in the burn, probably washed off the rocks above in a rainstorm. It was still healthy and growing - you can read more about it in Fi Martynoga’s Tree of the Month article here.

Having walked to Holly Gill on a very wet day in early October 2021, on one of the post BFT conference guided walks, I decided to return on a day with a camera and more time. As these images show, the light was pretty flat, but the intensity of the colours after heavy rainfall is captivating. It is the most fascinating place of incredibly rich vegetation - truly the Hanging Gardens of Carrifran.

Carrifran is not just about trees. It is creating a habitat in which other flora and fauna can flourish, and they do. This collection shows some of the wild flowers to be found there, photographed in the summer of 2021.

Gameshope is different in character to Carrifran. It was acquired by Borders Forest Trust in 2013, and the planting programme is accordingly less advanced. Nevertheless, it seems to me a rockier, harder, tougher sort of place. It too once housed native woodland on the valley floor, decimated by human activity and the unchecked attention of domestic farm stock plus wild deer and and goats. These have been removed, and planting has commenced, on the back of detailed baseline species surveys.

From the photographer’s perspective, Gameshope has “the best hill burn in the Scottish Borders”. I can’t recall who said that, but they are right, and it will feature in many photographs and film clips.

The southern end of Gameshope abuts the northern end of Carrifran, and I nurse an ambition to walk the length of the two together, though I have managed to find excuses so far for not doing so. It is a place where a photographer can easily become distracted, capturing the wonderful lichens on a stack of rocks, or yet another angle on a waterfall. Like Carrifran, there is a recording job to be done too - not just capturing beauty and rugged grandeur.

Drygrange lies on the west side of the Leader Water; a stretch of mature and new woodland wrapped round Drygrange House. It includes woodland paths, an orchard and allotments, managed jointly with Greener Melrose.

Extract from the SSSI Site Management Statement (SNH 2010): Abbey St Bathans Woodlands Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) comprises of seven woodland compartments which occur on the slopes above the Monynut Water and Whiteadder Water, adjacent to the village of Abbey St Bathans. Together these woodlands constitute more than one third of the remaining ancient deciduous woodland in Berwickshire. The SSSI is also one of the most important woodland sites in the Borders district for its lichen flora and supports several locally rare and declining species.

A range of woodland types are present within the SSSI including dry sessile oakwood with birch and juniper, mixed oak-elm-hazelwood with ash and flushed birch- alderwood. The woodlands have historical continuity and contain a large number of mosses and liverworts (49 species), lichens (155 species), higher plants (over 200 species), insects, mammals and birds, including several locally rare and declining species.

Site condition monitoring carried out in 2003 and 2004 found the ‘upland oak woodland’ and ‘lichen assemblage’ features of Abbey St Bathans Woodlands SSSI to be in unfavourable condition. The main factors contributing to the unfavourable condition of the SSSI were a lack of woodland regeneration and limited understorey development, the presence of invasive species such as Rhododendron ponticum and a lack of deadwood.

Stells (or Sheepfolds as they are labelled on OS maps) are a common site across the Borders landscape; testimony to the importance of sheep-farming to the local economy. The stone-built stells (the evidence for those built in turf is less visible) date primarily from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and many are still in regular use today, as a vital tool in assisting the shepherd in managing the flock. Some of the more remote stells, perhaps located on higher ground, are perhaps now used less for this, but still provide shelter for the sheep in poor weather. This can be true for those in a poorly maintained and even partly derelict condition, for natural shelter is scarce in these bare and exposed lands.

Many of the stells are round in plan, constructed with remarkably accurate geometry, but the images show other shapes, not unusually with the addition of external segments of walling for additional shelter.

The majority of the photographs have been taken with a drone and this initial collection of images will grow over time. The current OS 1:25,000 maps have been the initial tool for identification and location, and I have tried to show an OS six-digit reference for each one. These will mainly be in the Scottish Borders, but I may occasionally slip into Dumfries & Galloway or Midlothian.

There is an interesting article on stells, albeit from Exmoor, here

April 2021