Ayrshire Coastal Landscapes - Trip Report
As part of a recent project I had the opportunity to spend a few days on the Ayrshire coastline photographing some of the scenery along this amazing stretch of coastline. On a clear day the views from the coastline are spectacular with the Isle of Arran and the Argyll and Bute peninsular around Cambeltown.
We made Girvan our base for the trip which allowed us to explore the coastline north and south from this point. Girvan is a small town with plenty to keep you occupied including an interesting harbour and lovely sandy beaches. This part of the Ayrshire coastline is quite diverse with beaches, rocky outcrops, cliffs and harbours making it an ideal location for a few days landscape photography. This part of the coastline doesn't feature in that many photographs particularly on the popular photo sharing website making it much quieter when out and about and really letting you take in the views and make your own photographs without being influenced by other photographers work.
During the trip we visited the small town of Portpatrick which is situated on the coast south of Stranrear. Portpatrick was one of the original ports importing and exporting goods from Ireland so has a great deal of history. Unfortunately the weather did not play ball when we visited so wide vistas were ruled out in favour of capturing the details in the harbour.
A highlight of the trip was walking a section of the Ayrshire Coastal path runs down the side of the famous Turnberry Golf Course along the beach to the famous Turnberry lighthouse before heading inland directly through the golf course allowing you to walk through and admire the popular Alisa & Kintyre golf courses. The development of the new ‘Trump’ Turnberry complex is well underway with the course closing this autumn in order for it to be reconfigured and have the accompanying resort facilities upgraded. The present course looked in amazing condition with the holes around the lighthouse looking rather frightening particularly the blind tee shot from the competition tee of the 9th!
Ayrshire is an area I am hoping to travel to more in 2016 to visit the many locations I scouted out during the trip. Combined with a couple of days in the nearby Galloway Forest the area offers excellent opportunities to photograph an area which is much less photographed creating unique original landscape photographs.
