Minimal

Deep Blue

A single exposure although the sky might look added on, it's not! Funny if I were to lift the camera up a shade you would see a busy main road and a row of cottages! click the shot to enlarge

Dark Nights & Ashrays

a gimp edit from april

Ailsa Craig

and some cloud

Spring Splash

Another from raw totally processed in photoshop (sad but probably goodbye to GIMP) one or two issues I'd like to resolve but a bit happier and getting there. I do like the way the splash of the wave has caught the sun however. click to enlarge

Into Spring

This was taken a week ago, just a wee bit to early for the bluebells to be at there best so I'll try again in a day or two. This was taken with my old 135mm pentax manual lens the first lens I ever bought... god 25 years ago. Anyway after the pain of that last thought I suppose on my digital camera it has an effective focal length of about 200mm. I have to say I was pleased with how well the old thing performed.

Although a minimal edit in GIMP it was the first shot I loaded into photoshop and instantly noticed the difference between the two editors. Only the final sharpen was done in photoshop for this one.

click the shot to enlarge

The Excuse this time :)

I am still here and the excuse this time is.... due to the banding on the feathered brush I have experienced on gimp I have switched to CS4 much to my annoyance!

That said CS4 it is very similar, it's just taking some time to work my way around it. I am finding however it is also adding something that I have felt has been missing from my work for the past year... a clarity kind of thing. Added to which working seven days a week for the past few months has limited me some what :(

My first total from raw to finish in cs4.

Meikle Stane

I posted a shot of this rock back in the autumn HERE and thought it could be improved upon? Sitting in Loch Trool the loch was the scene of one of the initial battles fought by Robert De Bruce 1307 in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

This was taken at the cauldons the opposite end of the loch from where the battle was fought. My next hope is to get a dawn shot with some mist on the loch and one with ice and snow but heavy snow does make it a tad difficult to get to.

Port Logan

Ash my Ass

To answer Marks question. The first night and for all I knew the only night the ash cloud would be here and give a promised Armageddon sunset, well I was late. As a result it was a hell of a dash for a shot of the ash... cloud running a fair way, only arriving 10 mins before the sun disappeared. To make things worse it was a very low tide offering very little foreground, that and being out of breath did not help.

Anyway the result was a hugely exhilarating impressive nothing, nada, zilch, just the usual old sunset nothing different and the story was the same on successive nights bummer!! So the answer is, if it was there I didn't notice :(

I Am... I'm Me

and I'm still here! Sorry I'm workin seven (so much for it bein lucky) days a week at the moment, still takin shots but nae time to post... as this non rescaled shot is testament to

WOOF

Forget snowdrops ;) I think the first sign that spring has sprung-ed is when you hear the call of the first Yellowhammer (yesterday) and when the first Dog Violet Erythronium dens-canis sticks it's napper above ground. Also known as a trout lily because of it's leaves.

shot with my old Pentax SMC-A 70-210mm on macro... not to bad for a lens I've had for over 20 years.... I was 2 when I got it :)