Callanish Standing Stones – Isle of Lewis

Callanish standing stones

Photo: Callanish standing stones, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

The standing stones at Callanish are one of the more important sites in Scotland.  These image are from the main stone circle, but there are also several other smaller circles within view from this location.  And although I’ve done my best to make the location look isolated, in reality there is a village and houses just a 100 meters away.  Kind of takes away a bit of the mystery of a place like this.  For me it is some ancient place out of the long forgotten past.  In my mind it would be better located off in some distant boggy moorland with nothing else around.  For the locals of the village, it’s just a place they walk their dogs through.  The other stones at Callanish are just in the middle of sheep and cow pasture.

Anyhow, even though the stones have been photographed a million + times, they where still one of the locations I wanted to visit on my island trip.  I first stopped by in mid afternoon and got lucky with some blue sky and sun.  next I returned just prior to sunset and again was lucky and had about 10 minutes of sun before it disappeared behind the clouds.  I waited a bit into the night and was again lucky with the rising full moon.  I got a bit bored, and cold, waiting around for the sky to darken so I pulled out my flash and decided to play around a bit.  I must have looked like a complete mad man, running around the stones in the dark, popping off my flash at apparently random times, then running back to my camera.  Luckily I was the only one around by this point.

Callanish standing stones, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

Evening sky over Callanish standing stones, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

Callanish standing stones

Silhouette of Callanish standing stones, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

2 replies
  1. john campbell says:

    was born at Tolsta isle of lewis, have touched the stones before it was banned.

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