Scotland is a magical place, the home of Sir Walter Scott and John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, among many others, but those I have read. Both, and others, wrote of the treeless, human-less, featureless, "uncanny" green of the Scottish glens It struck them, and Rudyard Kipling, as vaguely malignant. I have never been to Scotland but a friend is there now. I talked him up about the unsettling greenness of the glens and asked, if he and his wife had occasion, to take photos. The first two he sent were lovely, of the Scottish coast, but "Turn the camera around!" I implored. He did and produced two of the finest pics of the glens that I have seen. My favorite is this one.
Can you believe a normal person took that? It is edtremely similar to another fanous of the glens taken in 2006:
But my friend's is clearly, to me, superior. The view is more panoramic. Picture a human at the bottom of the glen in the deep background in my friend's photo. They would be a speck hopelessly surrounded by green, and a speck without apparent chance of survival: no water, no food, no ground cover for shelter, seemingly remote from any other human. At least in the 2006 photo there is a river that runs through it, which negates the hopeless otherwordliness that Buchan, et al found so unnerving.
A close second as my favorite from my friend, is this pic:
Honestly, I have compared his photos with Google images search term "wild scottish glens" and simply "scottish glens" and my friend's are superior to anything I have seen. He could stay there for my sake. It would diminish the average IQ of Florida unfortunately, but perhaps add a point to the Scots national average.
