I had a great day in the darkroom yesterday, processing five 120 films, two of which were colour.  I had never tried develping colour film before and wanted to give it a go using my waterbath that I bought a while back for cheesemaking!  I had seen some videos on YouTube that suggested it was not that difficult if the temperature can be controlled, so decided to give it a go.

The above shot is the finished article after a process of development, scanning using my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark iii camera and the 60mm f/2.8 macro lens and a light box.  I then imported the images into Lightroom, set the white balance and inverted them in Photoshop before returning the inverted image to Lightroom for a bit of normal post processing.

The final images are not great because I was having a bit of difficulty wth colour balance when shooting the negative scans, and I got some of the settings on the camera a bit wrong as well, so they are a little grainy, but I can do it again as the negatives look pretty good.

Here are the various stages of development leading to the final image above:

Here are some of my other images created in this way:

First real snow of the winter over the last couple of days and I found I had a little bit of time to get out on the estate with the camera to try and capture this relatively uncommon phenomenon.  I was hoping to get some wide contextual landscape shots but also to zoom in on some of the details, so went out with my 40-150mm lens, giving plenty of scope for different compositions.

The following couple of images were taken looking west towards a small outcrop with birch trees along its summit, with an amazing dark brooding sky behind and strong afternoon sunlight coming in from the left, making for a dramatic composition.

On my way over to Duirinish I stopped and took the next couple of shots, the first looking along Loch Alsh towards Carr Brae, where the light was playing nicely on the snowy hills and highlighting the three old pine trees above Reraig; and also at the Horse Park looking north towards the Applecross hills and the Bealach na Ba, always a favourite of mine.

Finally, and by no means least, I stopped at Badicaul on my way home to capture these two shots of amazing light and snowy clouds on Beinn na Caillich above Broadford.  The two were taken from the same spot with different amounts of zoom, I think I prefer the slightly more zoomed in version.

The UNESCO Man & the Biosphere (MAB) programme is an intergovernmental scientific programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments. It combines the natural and social sciences with a view to improving human livelihoods and safeguarding natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sustainable.

The UNESCO Wester Ross Biosphere is approaching its tenth anniversary and has just launched a Crowfunder appeal to ensure it has a future supporting sustainable communities and the environment across Wester Ross.  The organisation, established in 2016 has worked for nine years with virtually no public funding, apart for delivery of some specific projects.  In response to the lack of public funding the Biosphere has established a social enterprise, Wester Ross Consulting, offering a range of community support services and other consultancy work, always linked back to the core function of the UNESCO designation.

So, this is a plea to support the Biosphere by clicking the link below and making a donation to the campaign or sharing this with your friends and social networks.  Without your support the Wester Ross Biosphere cannot continue to work with communites across Wester Ross to help protect this wonderful place and promote a sustainable future for everyoen who lives and works here.

Thanks

Back the Biosphere Campaign

What a beautiful late afternoon/early evening it was yesterday.  I had a walk round the circular coastal path from Duirinish Station to Port an Eorna and on to Drumbuie and back to Duirinish.  The sun was low in the sky and eventually set beyond the horizon, lighting up the few clouds that were present.  I was trying out some long exposures with my ND filter kit, which results in beautifully smooth seas and soft skies.  This is something I plan to try out more, especially when there is a bit more movement in the sea and more interest in the sky.

Here are some more images captured during my walk.