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 :)