Autumn at Balmoral Castle: Where the Highlands Wear Their Golden Crown

Autumn at Balmoral Castle: Where the Highlands Wear Their Golden Crown

There’s a certain hush that falls over Royal Deeside when autumn drifts in. The air sharpens, the light softens, and Balmoral Castle stands wrapped in its most regal cloak, a tapestry of gold, russet, and crimson. Here, beneath the watchful turrets of this Highland estate, autumn doesn’t just arrive, it performs. Every tree, every leaf, plays its part in nature’s most exquisite encore before the long sleep of winter.

The ground around Balmoral is littered in autumn colours

The drive toward Balmoral is a slow immersion into splendour. The River Dee glimmers like a strip of quicksilver beside the road, and the forests rise in layers of copper and flame. On the castle grounds, the lawns are strewn with red maple leaves, as if the earth itself is offering tribute to the granite majesty before it. The grand façade of Balmoral, with its towers and turrets, seems to stand timelessly proud, yet somehow gentler in this mellow light, its grey stone glowing warm against the amber hills beyond.

The road to Balmoral castle

As I wander through the estate, there’s a deep stillness that seems to reach out and steady the soul. The sound of my footsteps on the leaf-strewn path feels almost sacred, each crunch a soft reminder that nature moves in cycles, and that all things, even the grandest of summers, must fall gracefully into rest. The chill in the air brushes against my face, but it carries warmth too, a strange comfort that comes only when the world slows down and breathes.

The castle stands watch, serene and eternal, yet I can feel the hum of life all around it, the whisper of the trees, the murmuring of the Dee, the faint rustle of deer somewhere beyond the field. There’s something grounding about it all, something that stirs gratitude deep in the chest. It’s as though the land itself is speaking, not in words, but in feeling, reminding me that beauty doesn’t always shout, and peace doesn’t always need to be found. Sometimes, it’s already waiting.

Deep red colours frame Balmoral castle

I pause by the gardens where the maples burn crimson, their colour fierce and fleeting. I lift a leaf and hold it to the light, its veins glowing like stained glass. For a moment, I see more than a season, I see life itself, fragile yet defiant, fading yet full of fire. Autumn at Balmoral has that power. It makes you reflect, but gently. It doesn’t drag you inward, it leads you home.

For those who walk here, it’s not just about the view. It’s about what stirs inside you as the Highlands breathe around you. The castle may belong to history, but the feeling, that quiet awe, that peace, belongs to everyone who listens.

Two highland cows butt heads in front on Balmoral castle

A Highland Reflection

The wind carries stories through the trees,

Soft as breath, old as the hills.

Granite stands proud, yet humble in the light,

As autumn weaves gold through the still.

Leaves fall not in sorrow, but in grace,

Each one a whispered prayer come true.

And standing there, between earth and sky,

I feel the Highlands speak and I listen too.

When I raise my camera here, it’s never just to capture a scene, it’s to hold a feeling. The Highlands have a way of teaching patience, of asking you to see rather than just look. At Balmoral, in autumn, every frame feels like a conversation between the land and the heart, a quiet moment of truth caught in light and colour. Photography becomes less about the shot and more about connection, that still moment where nature reveals a part of herself, and you recognise it as something within you too.

A wooden cottage in the grounds of balmoral surrounded by autumn splendor

Summer in scotland

On a dark stormy summers day, the beach at Aberdeen is always the best place to go to see muted contrasty colours, between the dunes, the sand and the sea. So looking at the sky this day, i headed towards where i thought the storm might go and ended up at Balmedie beach. Having walked along to the higest dune i know there, i turned and looked back towards Aberdeen in the far off distance.

My composition needed a 50/50 balance between the sky and land and i thought a long exposure would suit this contrasty day very well. So i set up my composition to run from left to right and placed the sand and sea, as near to the bottom left as possible, to draw your eye along this line, past the windmills and on, into the distance and Aberdeen. I fifted a Lee 6 stop filter, to help me blur the water, creating my water colour look i like down here and fitted a Lee 0.9 grad filter for holding back the skys exposure.

Having taken my exposure, the rain started as the big storm hit me and i packed and headed back through the wet dunes, down to the sand and along back towards the car.

As i was about to turn off the beach for the car, i saw the sun break through, just about where these kite surfers were, and decided to head back into the dunes for some height perspective, as the light just looked outstanding, with dark stormy clouds, rainbows and these guys kite surfing.

Im not shy when it comes to getting what i want in an image and having spoken to this guy called Ross, he agreed to do some posing for me. Low and behold, while im messing about with compostions, there appears a rainbow.

Having my neutral density filters on, i dont normally use my circular poloriser at the same time. So with some speed and trepidation and constant looking to see if the rainbow would last, i changed to my polariser, got Ross to stand in position and turned the polariser till the rainbow stood out.

A polarizing filter, if you dont know, simply filters out unwanted reflections from non-metallic surfaces such as water and glass in addition to light reflecting off moisture and pollution in the atmosphere and for rainbows, its the go to tool.

All in all, by the time id left, my shoes were full of sand, my jeans were soaking wet, but i had noticed none of this as i was so focused on capturing these guys having fun out there, on what was almost a winters day at the beach. But when you focus, you forget, because your in the moment and on days like this, with the fabulous light, i am glad i was the only photographer out there, seeing and capturing this moment in time for me and the other 3 people who were out there having fun.