I has been one of those magnificent summer days with bright sunshine, blue skies and lots of fluffy white clouds.  As such my thoughts turned to infra-red photography and I popped out briefly with my IR-converted Olympus E-P1 mirrorless camera.  I tried a few different shots with mixed results but the one above, of the coachhouse here at Lochalsh Woodland Walks, was by far the best.  The trouble with bright sunshine is it can sometimes lead to lense flare if the angles are wrong, especially at wider angles, so several of my attempts were less than perfect as a result.  That being said, it is always good to practice, and it is the first time I have been able to test the IR method on a truly suitable day.  The following are a few of the other examples, some in black & white and some in the 'goldie' format.

I honestly can't believe that it has been six months since I last posted on my blog, but it has!!  I have genuinely lost my mojo when it comes to photography over the last few months, with a combination of work pressures and really poor weather in the north-west of Scotland (mostly), I just wasn't feeling the vibe.  When I did get out I was generally just going through the motions and as a result haven't produced any notable images for quite some time.  Anyway, I am feeling more in the mood and have some holidays coming up, so let's hope the energy returns and I can get back into posting more regularly.

The above image was taken this weekend at Alltandhu in the Coigach area of Wester Ross.  There was a small flock of twite, a kind of brown finch which is actually pretty rare, flying around the campsite and feeding on the flowering docks.  This one kindly perched, feeding, quite close to the car and I managed to get some shots through the open window before it flew away.  There were also some wonderfully colourful lesser redpolls, a close relative of the twite, but sadly they were too mobile to get a decent shot.  I have been trying for many years to get a dgood shot of a twite, without success as they mainly sit too far away, on fence wires and the like, but at last I have one - happy days.

While going through my more recent images I worked up the following collection of bird shots which I am pretty pleased with: