Against the backdrop of a moody Scottish dusk, these towering steel horse heads loom 30 metres tall, aglow with shifting colours.
The 300-tonne statues, called The Kelpies, watch over the entrance to the ocean, where the Forth and Clyde canal meets the North Sea in Falkirk.
Their patterned skin, made of stainless steel, is held aloft by an intricate steel framework. At night the two statues glow in unison as the glow of upward-pointing spotlights spills out round the gaps in their surface.
They borrow their names from mythological horses which haunt lochs and rivers in Celtic legend. Kelpies were said to be able to transform into beautiful women to ensnare travellers. The massive sculptures, designed by Glaswegian Andy Scott, pay tribute to the working horses which once fired Scotland's economic prosperity by dragging industrial barges along the extensive network of canals.
Construction work on the sculptures was completed in November, and the towering, luminescent artworks will be opened to the public later this month. Mr Scott has said of his sculptures: 'They are the embodiment of the industrial history of Scotland.
