The Big Ladder Photographer Limited Edition
Glenfinnan
The Iconic Bridge Featured in The Harry Potter FILMs
“Glenfinnan is easily the most successful image of my 30 year career being published over 50 times in both print and online INCLUDING The Times, Daily Telegraph and The Guardian Eyewitness.
Chris Gorman – The Big Ladder Photographer
Introducing the first ever limited edition framed image from the Big Ladder archive
- Location: Glenfinnan, Scotland
- Date: 18th October 2022
- Dimensions – Print : 680mm x 420mm. Frame : 910mm x 970mm
- Paper: Fuji Fine Art Photo Rag 300gsm
- Signed and numbered by Chris Gorman with certificate
- Edition 1/6
The image was captured on the 18th October 2022 at The Glenfinnan viaduct in the Scottish Highlands. The viaduct will be well known to many having appeared in 3 of the Harry Potter films (The Chamber Of Secrets, The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire).
This stunningly presented picture shows the Jacobite Steam train crossing the viaduct on a beautiful early Autumn morning. The low sun perfectly backlighting the train illuminating the steam beautifully. Carriages from the train were used in the Harry Potter films being pulled by the fictional Hogwarts Express.
The Story Beyond the Picture
When setting out to capture this image my aim was to photograph the Jacobite crossing the viaduct in beautiful autumnal light, light that isn’t a given in this part of the world. A very keen eye on weather forecasts told me that a high pressure system would push into the area giving cloudless skies for one day only. Based on this I jumped on a plane to Glasgow and then drove the final 4 hours overnight to Fort William arriving at Glenfinnan at 9am. My research had told me that the train would cross the viaduct once only at precisely 10.48am.
I arrived on scene with 2 drones to capture this. The DJI Mavic 3 and The DJI Mavic 2 Pro. The image was finally captured on the Mavic 3 with its wonderful Hasselblad optics capable of producing extremely high resolution raw files giving the picture incredibly vibrant colours and clarity.
I knew I couldn’t travel all this way and not get the image and in my experience drones can throw up last minute problems so I decided to have both drones powered up and ready to fly.
At 10.45am I got the Mavic 3 airborne some 2 minutes later I could hear the train powering through the hills. The sound of the engine reverberating off the surrounding countryside. It fair to say my heart was in my mouth. I could hear it but couldn’t see it then suddenly there it was powering along the viaduct the crisp white of the steam beautifully backlit by the low morning sun. I fired off 5 frames in a burst and then it was gone. The steam is probably the most important element that makes this image work. The high pressure weather system meaning the air was completely still thus the steam couldn’t be blown away creating a beautiful long white cloud unseen in any other images from this area.
The image has had little post production with only the shadow areas lifted in a raw image converter. The rest is exactly as captured. The next day the image appeared over 2 pages in the Guardian Eyewitness and The Times, it has also been published twice in the Daily Telegraph. The image has also been exhibited on Londons South Bank as part of the BPPA Assignments Exhibition.
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