Old Boats of Mull
Mull has a fine and interesting history of commercial sea fishing. When the herring shoals were in such bountiful abundance Mull, like the rest of Scotland, benefited from the sea's riches. Today, very much of that industry has vanished into history but there are still one or two relics of that bygone era. The cover page of this website shows three old decaying wooden fishing boats lying at rest on the shore, just north of Salen, on the East coast of Mull - they are very photogenic and it is very easy to park next to them, off the road, in order to photograph them to one's heart's content. Immediately below I have included another image of these boats, taken, improbably, with my Olympus OMD EM1 micro four-thirds camera - due to its very small sensor and relatively modest number of mega-pixels the OMD EM1 is not the obvious choice for landscapes or seascapes, but it can produce some dreamy black and white conversions, which is what I have done here.
above
Old Wooden fishing boats, Salen, Isle of Mull
below
Old fishing boat at Croig, near Dervaig, North Mull. Croig is a delightful tiny fishing port lying a little to the North West of Dervaig, Mull. I have noticed that these old fishing boats seem to follow a common design - probably due to a common origin in a boatbuilder's yard and intended for a common purpose. Stripped of all the available metal on this old hull, the elements will, eventually reclaim this boat. I was very privileged to meet a small boy on his bicycle, his younger sister and their mother while taking this photograph - the small boy's paternal grandfather had worked this old boat and had, eventually, retired it to this final resting place.
left
Leica M9 M Monocrom, Leica M 35mm Summilux lens, f16, 200 ISO, 1/160 sec, hand held
left
Leica M240, Leica M f2.8 35mm Summaron lens, f22, 200 ISO, 1/250 sec, hand held