Firemonkeyphoto

I was relieved to see Fraser’s headtorch dissappear behind a shoulder of rock at the finish of the second route. I could let go of the freezing cold metal camera and shove numb fingers back into warm gloves. I tucked my 5D’s only battery into my pocket to keep it warm and contemplated changing to the 70-200mm I’d dragged up the hill. A minute later Fraser topped out and set about rigging a belay for Dave. It was about then that an electronic whoop echoed up from the distant car park. A set of flashing blue lights had pulled into the ski-center. “Bugger, its the Police!” shouted Fraser while I winced, imagining what my flashes must have looked like to a non strobist. I had been tossing every joule of flash I had at the icy, rocky shoulder in order to get some form of exposure from a long long flash throw. “You’d best stop with the photographs” advised Fraser as I killed my pocketwizard and dialed up my ISO “The…FLASH photographs.. sure!” I corrected him. We had Dave on the end of a rope halfway up the route, so we were staying put until he reached the top and there seemed no practical way of signalling “We’re OK…really!” from the top of the crag. It had been a good evening til that point with Edinburgh’s sodium glow providing a wonderful backdrop. We finished up, packed gear and descended to face the music.

We met the policeman where the slope flattened out, he had lifted two ski poles from the center and was using them to good effect. Fortunately for us he was quite cheerful and understood what we were up to very quickly. We apologised for inconveniencing him and he passed us the number for the FCC, who we could warn in future. Apparently the good people of Fairmilehead (2km away) mistook my strobes and Exposure Enduro torch for an SOS signal. He chatted amiably on the way down and left us with a semi-menacing “Catch you later….”