Mountain landscape - Scotland

The features of Curved Ridge, Crowberry Tower and the north buttress of Buachaille Etive Mòr lit up by the morning sun in the West Highlands of Scotland. Image © Colin Henderson Photography. Permission required before use. To license this image, plea

Buachaille Etive Mòr 5.15am

This photograph captures Curved Ridge, Crowberry Tower and the North Buttress of Stob Dearg lit up by the morning sun on the Munro Buachaille Etive Mòr, which is located at the entrance to Glen Etive and Glen Coe in the West Highlands of Scotland. I’d been shooting for over two hours at this point, waiting for the sun to properly rise, having climbed the hill opposite Buachaille Etive Mòr the previous evening and camped on its shoulder. Going up a hill such as a Munro the evening before is my preferred approach when creating mountain landscape photography as I get to shoot the scenery in the evening sun and then again at dawn during the same shoot. The only negatives for me with this approach is when the sun sets behind my subject matter and it’s in shade (which I knew would be the case from this location) plus the weight of my pack, which usually includes camping gear. The pay off being I only have to roll out of my sleeping bag the following morning to start shooting and there’s no two-hour march up the hill to get ready before sunrise.