David Yarrow goes back to his Scottish Roots with new 007 Series
SKYFALL
GLENCOE, SCOTLAND – 2025
Glencoe offers one of Scotland’s grandest locations, especially at the denouement of a winter storm. The cone shaped volcanic monolith of Buachaille Etive stands proud at the entrance as if it was a white hatted sentry guarding the national treasures in the glen beyond.
This is the celebrated gateway to the Scottish Highlands and a land known not just for its natural beauty, but for its bloody past, particularly the Clan feuds between the MacDonalds and the Campbells. The drive through Glencoe encourages a silent historical musing as intense as any road I know in the world. Shit happened here.
But there is also an untamed regality
to the region that has long drawn filmmakers and, of course, this goes full circle, as this remote part of the world has long been associated with the Fleming
family and particularly Ian Fleming – the creator of James Bond. He lived here before moving to Jamaica in 1946.
A pivotal sequence in the 2012 Bond movie “Skyfall” was shot on the road down from the A82 to what was Ian Fleming’s nephew’s shooting lodge – Dalness. The location was well chosen and all those that are drawn to the mournful beauty of Scotland, appreciated the subtle alchemy between Bond’s
DB5 and the quintessential Highland topography. I doubt any other Bond location has as many daily visitors as that Glen Etive Road.
This panoramic was taken near the entrance to that road on the West Highland Way. We had watched the weather forecast every day for 10 days before the shoot and not in our wildest dreams did we ever expect the light and
the snow cover to be this kind to us. We still had to move quickly with the props and I had to find compositional balance in my frame, but the weather was the transcending component. We were back at Dalness for breakfast.
This photograph is personal. Scotland
is my home and I think we did Glencoe proud. No wonder Sam Mendes chose to shoot here in the Skyfall movie and the truth is that we got luckier than him with the weather.
I would like to thank the Alba Police force and Phil Fleming for their help in making this shoot happen.
The entrance to the Glencoe pass in Scotland offers a volcanic amphitheatre in all weather conditions, but at the denouement of a snow storm there is
a haunting menace to Buachaille Etive Mor, the cone shaped monolith that rises vertically to the west of the A82. This
is a place where many bad things have happened over the years and the rawness of the topography gives a symbolic nod to that. Glencoe is not a place of lavender fields and sun kissed meadows; it is a primeval geological aberration of granite rock.
The pass is one of the most arresting visuals in the UK and I have filmed up here many times over the years. Of course, I am far from alone and the
celebrated film director – Sam Mendes
– chose Glencoe as a key location for Skyfall in 2012. I am sure his decision was influenced by the fact that the Fleming family has, for four generations, lived in the region and Ian Fleming himself spent many a day in the shooting lodge just 45 miles down the road to Glen Etive. This is most emphatically Bond country.
From the single-track West Highland Way running parallel to the main road,
we were able to offer a sense of journey to Bond’s DB5 and the other props came to mind quite naturally. At first light, the red telephone box certainly popped against such a formidable backdrop and we had made sure the lighting inside the box was functional. That made all the difference
and we are again reminded that it’s often the small things.
The strongest photographs have an emphatic sense of place and conveying this was acutely necessary to do justice to both the destination and the Bond parody. We did get lucky with the weather and also, I want to thank the Fleming family and the Alba police force for their help with this project. It was not a bad few days to spend in pursuit of my craft.
