A Walk Along Loch Ness (sort of)
July 11, 2009
Written 29 June 2009
Highlands: Day Two
Last night at Fort Augustus I walked up the lock on the Loch to see if I could find my Ness. What I found was less Ness than could have been, but more canal than should have been.
Photographs were taken of a fat black slug; making use of my zoom to show slug not to scale; placing my hand on the ground next to the slug to document slug shown to scale. Longer than my index finger by a fair bit.
Initial disappointment in the canal gave way as sunset set in and suddenly I understood just how high the Highlands are when in the distance in all directions the clouds come down to touch the tips of everything I could see.
Four hundred dollar camera creates only daguerreotypes because nothing can document the breadth of the eye and the soul reading a landscape in conjunction. Mountains shown not to scale; no way to place hand on mountain to show them to scale.
Concept for a movie: fifty minutes of footage of a footpath narrowing, ground growing sodden, shoes and socks soaked through with stagnant, stinking water, slugs intriguing but a little horrifying because I don’t know when I’ll put my foot down and feel POP!, one slip and fall avoiding puddle and coating lower legs in muddy water. Minute fifty-one: reaching the end of the canal and watching the sun set on a loch and that’s the key to the experience and fog among the mountains enraptures and delights.
