Staffin, Isle of Skye, Scotland, Spring
The sheer variety along Skye’s coastline is ridiculous.
The sheer variety along Skye’s coastline is ridiculous.
Basalt columnar cliffs? Billion-year old boulders? White sand? Knife-edge sea stacks? Waterfalls? Sea caves? Skye’s got it all.
And—at An Corran, Staffin—there is the “Jurassic coast”.
As I’ve mentioned on this site before, Staffin’s An Corran gained national attention in 2002 when a local couple walking along the coast noticed a large three-toed lizard-like footprint in a slab of rock. Further exploration uncovered additional dinosaur footprints. Turns out that were likely produced by a creature akin to a Megalosaurus. These fossils are estimated to be around 160 million years old, which makes them the most recent dinosaur relics found in Scotland.
This is the main draw of An Corran. But for us, we were more interested in the cliffs and the coastline.
All photos taken on my Sony α7ii using my Pentax SMC 28mm F3.5 prime lens. RAWs developed in Lightroom, then edited and finalised in Photoshop.
Staffin, Isle of Skye, Scotland, Spring by Ian Cylkowski is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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Staffin, Isle of Skye, Autumn
When you think of Skye, do you think of dinosaur fossils?
When you think of Skye, do you think of dinosaur fossils?
Probably not.
Much like Cornwall’s famed Jurassic Coast, Skye has its own version at An Corran beach, Staffin, on the Trotternish Peninsula.
In 2002 a local couple walking along An Corran spotted a slab of rock with a fossilised footprint embedded. Experts later identified it as originating from a small ornithopod, a bipedal running dinosaur.
Further excavation revealed more dinousaur footprints, the largest being around 50 cm long and originally made by a creature similar to a Megalosaurus. They were dated to around 160 million years old, making them the youngest dinosaur remains in Scotland.
An Corran is also home to one of the oldest hunter-gatherer sites in Scotland, which dates to around the 7th millennium BC.
Not only is An Corran home to a treasure trove of history, it also features some weird and fantastical geology, which primarily caught my eye for compositional reasons.
These photos were made from two separate visits, which explains the drastically different light conditions.
Shot on a Fujifilm X-T2 with a Laowa 9mm f/2.8 lens using a customised Pro Negative Standard film profile.
Staffin, Isle of Skye, Scotland: A Trio
A small trio of images from around Staffin on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.
A small trio of images from around Staffin on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Specifically, these photos were taken from a small chunk of coastline east of Staffin village called An Corran, which became rather well-known from 2002 onwards for the Jurassic-era dinosaur footprints discovered there.
Photos taken with my previous camera before I accidentally destroyed it: the Sigma dp0 Quattro.