A hugely busy day today so no time for photos during the day and with my Higher Photography demanding an essay by next Tuesday time was tight tonight as well. Hence, following on from our session on Tuesday night at the college I thought I would do a quick still life in the kitchen. Lesson 1: Don't try to do a still life quickly! Lesson 2: Make sure you have the subject in focus.
In this case I took a quick shot without any flash, just using the kitchen lights (above left) which came out OK considering the relatively low level of light, and it is slightly yellow toned. I then tried various combinations of my two camera top flashes, one on the camera the other on its stand at various placements around the subject. This was a little difficult to get right and to be honest there was not a great deal of difference in the results, apart from the flash reflections being brighter or not according to the intensity of flash. The shot on the right was probably the best one I managed, but again is slightly tinted, possibly due to the limited intensity of my flash and the lack of a soft-box to allow a more intense flash without blowing out large parts of the glass in the subject. Still, it was a useful experiment and soon we will be doing this in a ore serious way at the college so I can experiment a bit more then. By the way, the stuff in the glass was not real whisky, honest.
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A busy day today with meeting s not much by way of a chance to get out for any decent photos, and it was pretty grey. Then, suddenly I noticed out of the office window that there was a lovely glow on Auchtretyre Hill so I popped outside quickly and shot off a few pictures before the light disappeared. These shots were made so much better with the moon showing clearly at the top right and Auchtertyre Hill and the clouds lit up by the setting sun.
Here are a few shots taken on a quick trip to the Coral Beach at Plockton on an otherwise pretty grey day. This beach is near the village of Plockton and is made from Maerl beds (a type of coral found off the coast of Scotland) as opposed to the more typical shell sand. The above shot is the first view of the beach from the footpath. Below is a shot looking out towards Skye and Raasay which are trying to hide in the low cloud. The colour of the sea is a beautiful aqua-marine as a result of the coral sand. The third shot is a close-up of the colourful lichen covered rocks near the shore.
Drumbuie is one of the most active crofting townships in Wester Ross, if not the entire mainland, and to think that back in the 1970s this village might have been the site of an oil rig construction yard. Not a pleasant thought but good sense won the day following opposition from the crofters and the NTS the decision was made to abandon these plans in favour of development of the Kishorn yard on the other side of the loch (off to the right of this picture). This crofting township supports a great diversity of breeding birds and 9 species of orchid among other plants and beasties, plus 17 crofting families too! Not to mention that it is a beautiful place as well. I actually stopped to take this photo this afternoon because the light to the north, towards Beinn Damph and Torridon was excellent (see the panorama below, basically taken at right angles to this one) but sadly the contrast between the bright sunshine and the shade of the foreground croftland, and the not very interesting sky meant that it didn't really work well. A good opportunity to use HDR, which I overlooked. Still not too bad.
A trip to Skye this afternoon gave me the opportunity to get this shot of the Red Cuillins with snow on the tops and in decent light. It had actually looked much better as we headed north with really nice bright light on Glamaig particularly, but it was a bit less impressive by the time we reached Loch Ainort where I new there would be a chance of a decent panoramic view. Still, I am reasonably pleased with this shot.
Woke up to lots of snow, by our standards at least, so I took the Lumix FZ200 with me when I took the dogs out for a walk. This handy little bridge camera has a huge 24x zoom, equivalent to 600 mm in DSLR terms apparently, and I have got some of my best bird photos with it. Today though I took it mainly because it was snowing heavily and I didn't want to get the DSLR wet. Hence, some of the pictures didn't really come out as panned. I had forgotten how much more control you have with a DSLR and while these modern bridge cameras offer lots a useful options, etc. Also, I am not sure that the focal lengths given in the caption make sense but I guess that is something to do with it being a bridge camera, not a DSLR? I definitely prefer the DSLR. Anyway, the above shot of the beech thicket was inspired by a photo of Ansel Adams, i think his was of an Aspen thicket and was a lot sharper, clearer, etc. but then it would be since his was taken by a large format field camera. The other shots I got were of a lovely view down to road leading to our house with the old pine trees covered in snow and a close-up of rhododendron leaves covered in snow. Nothing special but I have an essay to get on with so don't have time to head out specifically to get better photos, so these will have to do for today's effort.
Another lovely cold day with a mix of sunshine, clouds and snow (well a little anyway) meant I had to get out and take a few photos at lunchtime. I got a fair few but here are some of my favourites.
Following Tuesday evening's Higher Photography session where we were learning about the use of flash for portraiture I decided to try out my two camera top flashes, which are capable of being used as slaves, to do a still life. I used one on my camera as the fill flash angled upwards to bounce off the ceiling, while the other was off to the left on a stand and set directly at the subject with a diffuser as the main flash. I think the effect is quite good for a quick effort this morning. I also converted the image to black and white and softened them both to try and remove some of the creases in the background cloth (very quickly put together) and I think this has worked quite well too, with the B&W showing the shadow at the base of the candle quite nicely.
A beautiful frosty morning with wonderful pastel shades in the dawn light made it too good an opportunity not to take yet another couple of photos of the view over Loch Alsh. This was one my first attempt at taking a photo on the tripod with the mirror lock-up function active. This is used for timer-release photos, with a slow shutter speed and basically moves the mirror out of the way a couple of seconds before the actual photo is taken to remove any camera shake caused by the mirror moving. I had a close look at it and it certainly seems a bit sharper. The same applied to the following which was a panorama shot and it worked well.
Today started a bit overcast and got steadily worse with wintery rain showers arriving by mid-day. I decided it was a good day to take a visit to Strome Castle, one of the properties for which I am responsible within the NTS, which is an old ruin last occupied in the 17th century when it was blown up following a feud between the Seaforth MacKenzies and the McDonnells of Glengarry. This Scheduled Monument is a popular visitor attraction despite being quite out of the way and has been the scene of several weddings over the past few years as well.
Anyway, the view form the castle west towards Plockton, often photographed through the archway in the picture above, was pretty misty and not much could be seen due to the mist/rain (Scotch Mist is the official term). So I concentrated on the structure itself with these few images before the rain got s bad that I took cover to protect the camera gear. I learned something today though, never trust a mobile phone, because I decided to try out my new phone and take a few shots with it. Unfortunately when I got back they all appear to be corrupted or unreadable at least, very disappointing. Anyway, these shots give a bit of an impression of the atmosphere of the place. |
AuthorI am an amateur photographer who is also a Chartered Geographer with his own part-time consultancy business and I work as an estate manager for a national conservation charity in Scotland. I am based in Lochalsh, Wester Ross, Scotland, just next to the Isle of Skye. SalesIf you like my photos and are interested in purchasing prints, whether framed, mounted or otherwise please click here.
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