"Castles of Time: A Scottish Odyssey in Sepia"
In 2008, my British/American mom approached me with an idea steeped in nostalgia and a touch of adventure. She wanted to revisit Nairn, Scotland—a small coastal town in the Highlands where she’d spent part of her childhood during World War II. Her father, my grandfather, had been stationed there with the Royal Air Force in 1941 when she was just two years old. Nairn became their safe haven amidst the chaos of war, a place where the distant wail of bagpipes mingled with the crash of North Sea waves. She lived there for four years before returning to England, but the Highlands left an indelible mark on her soul—a love for its rugged beauty, its haunting music, and its ancient castles.
Mom insisted on driving while I took on the role of navigator, armed with maps and a GPS that occasionally lost its mind in the wilder reaches of the Highlands. We started in Edinburgh, where the imposing castle perched atop its volcanic rock set the tone for our journey. From there, we wove through the countryside, ticking off castles like treasures on a scavenger hunt: Dunn, Fraser, Cawdor, Stirling, Dunnottar, Glamis, Eilean Donan, Claypots, Dunvegan, Kilchurn, Stalker, St Andrews, Fife, and Urquhart. Each one had its own personality—some brooding and windswept, others elegant and serene.
The weather was as dramatic as the landscapes—mists rolling over lochs, sudden bursts of sunlight illuminating stone turrets, and the occasional drizzle that made us huddle under umbrellas. Mom’s love for the Highlands came alive as we stood before Cawdor Castle, where she hummed a tune she remembered from Nairn or when we gazed at Dunnottar’s cliffside ruins, imagining the stories those walls could tell. At Eilean Donan, framed by mountains and water, she declared it her favorite, though she said that about nearly every castle we visited.
We didn’t just chase castles. In Portree on the Isle of Skye, we marveled at the colorful houses and beached boats, snapping photos of shaggy Highland cattle and adorable sheep grazing nearby. At St Andrews, we crossed the famous Swilcan Bridge on the Old Course, a nod to Scotland’s other great legacy. Everywhere we went, the sound of bagpipes seemed to follow us—sometimes from a street performer, sometimes just in Mum’s wistful humming.
For the photographs, we chose black-and-white sepia tones—a deliberate nod to timelessness, as if linking Mom’s childhood memories to the present.
Those five days were exhausting but exhilarating. We laughed over wrong turns, savored cups of tea in tiny villages, and grew quiet in the presence of so much ancient beauty. For Mom, it was a homecoming—a chance to reconnect with the Highlands that had shaped her early years. For me, it was a privilege to see Scotland through her eyes, to witness her joy as we turned her theater-room dream into reality, one castle at a time. When we finally returned home, my camera full and our hearts fuller, we knew we’d created something special—both a collection of photographs and a memory that would last a lifetime.
You can view all of the Castles and Surrounding areas in my Castle Gallery! https://erikamasterson.com/collections/castles-of-time-a-scottish-odyssey-in-sepia