December Dawn

Strangely I had just finished editing this shot of the sunrise today, both in colour and B&W before I visited other blogs (mark). I did the usual colour edit but thought it might also look good in B&W on a different aesthetic level, coupled with the fact it might be slightly unexpected to do a bright sunrise in B&W? I to say I think I prefer the B&W, B&W in general has it's claws into me now for some reason!

High Tide

This second shot is an improvement on the first thanks toMR MEADER
see comments.

Splash in the Sun

Cobbled Together

New Born

30 seconds old or is it young? Born November 29th in 3 degrees above freezing at the Tairlaw bridge. I do have shots from beginning to end but I thought I'd preserve the ladies dignity.hand-held in poor light

Harbour Views

Ándale! Ándale! Arriba! Arriba

Up in five hours so it needs to be quick :)

Ailsa Craig

At last a change in the light... still on the flat side but not so much that it requires a B&W conversion. Thought the truth be told I wish it was.... B&W rocks at the moment love it!!

Test Trial

Tried something new here, a blend of two shots no bluring done while editing,! not sure if it works or not? So don't be shy in coming forward if you think it's crap :)

By The Loch

Ye Banks and Breas

oh bonnie Doon. Another shot with a Burns connection (see previous post) the river Doon features in poem and song by Burns. As you can tell the river is runin foo because of all the rain.

You can here a modern rendition of the song here not to my taste but hey :)

The Burns Connection

The next post or two might have a connection with the poet Robert Burns, you know Auld Lang Syne and all that stuff. Incidentally syne should be pronounced with a Z zyne. With all the rain of late opportunities have been slim but I tried to take some small advantage of that with a reflection shot. Also hopeing to give a different veiw of the church from the usual standard shot.

The first shot and main one is of the Auld Kirk Alloway the setting for the poem Tam O' Shanter, the poem filled with ghaists (ghosts) houlets witches and the deil (devil) himself and a childhood haunt (pardon the pun) of mine. The shot was taken in the dark and I have to say it was murder trying to get the camera to focus a flash light might have helped if I'd thought to bring one. Anyway here it is the fifth most haunted place in Scotland oh aye and the gravestone to the left is where is mother Agnes and father William are buried...



Another shot and a very quick edit the standard typical shot to show what the church looks like



Oh yeah BOO!! :)

For Sale

One of the first shots take with the new polariser. Taken for the sky not the castle and yes the castle is for sale you can see the sign flashing white. This shot has not been scaled down so should enlarge full size-ish.

Poles Apart

OMG I actually got around to buying a polarizing filter and it does make a difference but it's damn fiddly having to take off and replace the tulip hood all the damn time!! I think the greens in this one are a little to green!

Addiction

More Autumn Colour

After the conversion to B&W I tried out a different editing technique to my usual I think it works?

Wave in the Rain

I'm going to miss all the Autumn colour I just know it!! Either I can't find a location, or the location is overcast, or it's raining, or when the light is good I'm at work GRRRRR! Anyway this is an Autumn shot honest, taken in the rain blah blah blah..



While I'm here concerning the Muninn shot this time spelt correctly I got me N's mixed up [ those with historical knowledge will be pecking fun at me ;) ] also the double N is the correct non Anglicized spelling... I hope :)) Anyway to my point I drove past this creepy chap on the Westwood tractor and though he'll make a good photo! So I drove on collected the camera and when I returned he was still there "obviously" ;)

The question is this, why was this shot, the one taken sitting on the vibrating lawnmower "the safety shot" (I dare not get off tractor in case he flew) the sharpest out of all four shots taken. The other shots taken standing on solid ground not so sharp... maddening or what!? Is it an omen do I have to sit on me tractor for all my photographic exploits??

Patterns O' October

Muninn

For some reason I haven't been in the mood for blogging of late! The same goes for tonight but after visiting Donnie's blog and Mark's blog I felt inspired to do something cheers chaps :)

Caldons

The water of Trool emerging form Loch Trool down at the Caldons end.

Between A Rock

Slightly out comp wise I think there should either be some water above the top of the rock or the rock should either enter the tree line or the sky. Tricky though... this was a test shot for hopefully a return visit for a dawn shot. As I said tricky I was standing on tussocks of grass trying to balance as I do not fancy standing up to my knees in a cold Loch at dawn in October :( especially when it takes over an hour to get there.

Home of the King

Another castle, another shot, still stormy Saturday, well you have to make the most of a wild day! The wave crashing against the castle wall is about 35-40 feet tall, it even climbed a wee bit higher but this was the better shot.

Dunure Blast

Some wild weather on Saturday just the kind I like and I even stayed dry for once!

Ashrays at Dunure

Time

Tobacco Road

Watching the Harvest

Feet Wet

Who me pft! :)))

Curl

out of focus but with that wave curl and the holy isle peeking through the wave shower i just had to post... taken in the near dark.

Chariot on Fire

Dunure Castle in September

September Ashrays

Safe Haven

I think the vertical rock formations in this shot suited B&W better than colour. I was looking for a slightly different angle to shoot the lighthouse from, you can just see the old Port Logan lighthouse in the BG. I had completely forgotten these rock formations where here, great what a wee wander can find while waiting for the sunset.

There was very little movement in the sea that day so I plan to return when there is a bigger swell, looks promising. I will need to sort out the focus point (hence this one clicks to larger than usual) though... or it just could be the strong light and dark contrast in the vertical rock that throws the eye out but i think it the former!

f27 1.5 sec iso 100

Ripple Effect

i'd love to say this whole shot was planed but it wasn't. i had packed up having shot nothing worth while and was heading hame but brought the camera back out in the vain hope of some reflections with ailsa craig in the bg. then the ripples happened shear luck and shear luck i managed to capture them almost didn't :)

Port Logan

Port logan down in Galloway where the bbc filmed 2000 acres of sky. Although the foreground looks blended it's not. I promise to visit all tomorrow it's late again :(

Fine Print or not so Fine :)

Okay I'm sure the anticipation of waiting to hear why I do not print my photos has reached a crescendo of huge proportions by now!!! ;) So I will not keep you waiting a moment longer in-case that anticipation morphs in to unstoppable amounts high dudgeon and we wouldn't want that :)not to mention I would not be so cruel and shabby to you the reader.

Sorry it's taken so long to write what I'm sure will only make you cast your eyes to the firmament in shear disappointment but I've been preoccupied in searching out a new chariot, balanced in equal measure at a slight guilt at using this as a means to pick folks brains! Not out of laziness I hasten to add!

As I sit here in plain view hanging on the walls of my bothy are two paintings I did back in 1995, (not very good) but not a single photo. The reasons for which are varied!

1 I'm a stingy git
2 I'm a stingy Scot
3 I'm a.....well not that stingy ;) I was approached by a fine artist who wanted to paint one of my images in a commercial project. Firstly in an oil painting then a print run! Not knowing what to charge mixed with some guilt because they were doing all the work ie painting I said they could use the image for free. Said artist being an honest type put forward an offer which I was happy with, so a financial reward is coming my way after all ahhh karma!. Sorry I'm drifting now you can see why I decided to write an article instead of answering this in the comment section to Marks query... this will teach you not to ask ? Mark :))

4 Within a week perhaps less I do not like my work because I know it could be done better.

5 Whenever I did a small print I was hugely disappointed at the result. I now know there is a lot of calibration and sharpening issues involved which I could sort out.


Now to pick your brains! I must be typing the wrong search questions into Google as I can never find an answer to what I need to know! I would now like to print some shots for myself and I also have an outlet (coffee shop chain) that would be willing to put some up for sale. The question is do you print them yourself, can you without paying mega money for a printer? From what I can gather no, not only that with reasonably priced printers the photo will fade over time That alone would put me off as I would not want any potential customers disappointed.

Next I can't seem to find where (preferably in the UK) the professionals get their photos professionally printed. Added to which if they were professionally printed I would be worried they would come back looking crap ie because of the sharpening element etc etc and could not be sold not to mention money down the drain. So all-in-all I'm just sitting here printing nothing nada. And If I'm really honest I think my work is just a bit to amateurish, I find it really difficult to judge. I'd be happy if just 1% of my stuff was ok.

Oh well guess I'd better post a shot, after all that is what here is for :)

Blue

I have been after a shot off this chap for a couple of months now with his lovely blue eyes, at last thing came together. Unfortunately in the intervening time a shot with the same composition I was going for appeared on the excellent Mindful Eye. I am genuinely not copying another's work and nearly did not post this because of that, but I though it was so unusual to have a horse with blue eyes I just had to. The eyes have not been edited to look blue they are!!!!

ps if blue eyes in a horse are not as unusual as i think then let me know and i will remove this post I know nout about all things horse!!!

Disappearing Rain

I will write soon!? errr mainly Machiavellian sorry! For some reason it seems harder to write regularly on a photo blog! To think believe it or not, I used to write at least once or twice a day everyday on a blog that climbed quite high up the google rankings! But a stalker put an end to that :{ added to which a possibly associate/or not of theirs has appeared of late? Apologies if you are not an associate him me lady!

Anyway a slight improvement light wise today not so grey :) Seems like we have had a month of rain... well that's my excuse for the lack of shots and not so long ago Canna, Eigg etc were running short on water, well they sure ain't now.

Quick Thoughts

Before I get around to writing something. When I uploaded last nights shot it looked sharp enough! Looking at it today however ouch! So here is the new sharpened version I tried out a new algorithm in this one and I think I prefer the results to my usual sharpening technique.

In The Meantime

Mark asking if I had printed a shot or had plans to print it gave me an idea to pick your brains in an article but it's 00.24 and I'm up at 05.30 and I do not have the time to write it so this shot will have to do meantime... damn I'm being neglectful again :( tomorrow I promise???? :)

Window of Opportunity

I was in a micro climate with out rain for this shot! All-round it was pouring down and the sun then popped out for five minutes 12 seconds so a hell of a rush to get set up and shoot :(

Before the Rain

Apologies I have been neglecting the blog of late it's not intentional :)