The Western Isles and the Northern Isles, at the very edges of Britain, are rarely blessed with blue skies and bright sun. They are swaddled in cloud and wind and rain. And, yet, there is here a quality of light that you rarely see elsewhere in Britain. The cloudscape is an extension of the landscape, and as the light suffuses through the cloud, it acquires a painterly, almost ethereal, quality. It may be why there are so many artists on the islands. It is a lovely light for photography, too. I have previously posted photos from Lewis and Harris (and written about it, too), so here are some images of Orkney. The landscape of Orkney is not as bewitching as that of Lewis and Harris, but the light can be as beguiling.
Approaching Orkney
Graemsay from the Scrabster ferry
The lighthouse on Graemsay
Stormy skies over Scapa Flow
Looking across the Loch of Stenness
The far shore of the Loch of Harray,
seen from the Ring of Brodgar
Yesnaby Cliffs
Storm over the moors, near Dounby
Pandaemonium 
Orkney is one of my favourite places – I wear a silver ring in the form of the stones of the Brodgar circle. I’d move there in a heartbeat if I had UK residency.