The Colors of Scotland

We define a destination by its food, people, culture, architecture, and other pieces of a mosaic that form a unique identity. A piece that I quickly get a feel for is the local color palette. Daqing had grays with splashes of red while the Blue Ridge Mountains are known for, well, lots of blues. These little nuances give a place a distinctive visual fingerprint that is beyond superficial. Colors often inform our emotions and frame our experiences in subtle ways we may not immediately notice.

The rugged extremes of the natural colors of Scotland’s coastal wilderness filled me with awe. There is a calm stillness that you feel apologetic for interrupting as gray skies rest on the mirror of the sea so closely you would never find the horizon without the help of the dark mountainous isles. You can turn around to find blindingly neon green and yellow vegetation, fed by the tendrils of mountain streams like veins on some giant living organism. I attempted to collect some of the colors from my favorite views in Scotland. Check them out below!

Oban Coastline

One might look out from Oban’s harbor front and see barren desolation. It’s there. The rainy and wind-swept Hebrides is not the most hospitable place to be during the fall and winter months. From afar, the brown and terra cotta colors of dead scrub make the treeless mountains of the isles look lifeless and full of despair. When the rain clears and the clouds unveil the sun, the sea gets creative with the light and reveals a different view. The gentle beige of light scattering through the clouds and glancing off the sea complements the soothing blues reflected from the patches of sky that tease you with the suggestion of a sunny day.

Colors: #497AA6, #2E4959, #73A2BF, #FFF5CE, #C4B390

Old Man of Storr

It would be weird if a place as magical as Storr didn't have an ancient myth to explain its existence. The dark spire of rock almost violently protrudes from the fluorescent mossy carpet of Trotternish Ridge on the Isle of Skye. Legend has it that the igneous tower is actually the thumb of a giant's corpse. This was the second time that giants were used as the explanation for geological oddities during my visit. It's fitting. The silhouettes of the Old Man and his jagged disciples against the mist do resemble a clan of plotting trolls. The landscapes of Scotland and Iceland share a lot in common and the locals seem to have arrived at the same conclusion.

Colors: #A6BDD1, #E8B200, #BF9106, #A6771F, #3A2B25

Mull Sunset

No place on Earth is limited to a single set of colors. Time is the ultimate hue slider. I had the privilege of experiencing the Isle of Mull from predawn to the twilight scene in this photo. As I looked out from the CalMac ferry, the sun left a fiery trail across the horizon as it made off with the colors of the day. It's hard to find fault in a sunset but I think the inky black contrast of Mull's rolling peaks is the real star here. Someone could have ripped this photo in two at the horizon if you didn't know better. A dramatic gradient begins behind the mountains, shifting from a vibrant peach-orange to the deep navy of the encroaching night sky.

Colors: #101726, #222C40, #4F5F73, #FF935B, #FFE3AF

Isle of Skye

Scotland doesn’t need much help from humankind in the way of colors. Nature and time have a lot to work with here. There are times, however, when the clouds gather, the mist rolls in, and a backdrop of gray descends across the land. The colors of the ships and eclectic buildings of Portree really pop against nature’s washed-out, indolent tones. When I saw this fishing boat leaning against the seawall, its deep cerulean hull begged me to pause in the spitting rain and snap this photo. I sampled only the gray-lilac from nature as an outlier from the richer colors on various parts of the boat.

Colors: #9CB9D2, #023059, #034C8C, #8F394B, #407C83

Written by Seth Barham