Month: November 2014

An uninspiring day, brightened by food again!  Lunch at the Cotton House.

You can tell it’s been a dull, unphotographable day when it’s a picture of a flower that makes the 365.

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Waited in this morning and lo and behold the parcel did arrive!  Drove in to Glasgow to see some of Wil Freeborn’s pics hanging in the Glad Cafe.  Really pleased I went because the burger and coffee in the cafe were excellent.  Paintings were good too.  Worth the trip into the hinterland of Queen’s Park.

Then it was back into dull, dreary Glasgow City Centre.  Full of women (Men do Christmas shopping on the 24th Dec after being in the pub all afternoon) buying everything in creation to make Christmas the jolly, merry, happy time we know it isn’t.

Ask yourself, when do we use the words “Merry” and “Jolly” other than at Christmas?

Frosty undergoing official testing before being pronounced biologically clean.

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I waited in all day for a parcel to be delivered by Royal Mail. It turned out to be a Royal PITA. Of course, it didn’t come. 4 hours wasted.

Later in the afternoon I did get out for some photos. Weather was pretty dull, so I had to do some ‘shopping on this one to inject some colour.
Basically, I did almost no levels adjustments in LR, but selected it and a bright coloured leaf pic and exported them as layers to Photoshop. Placed the leaf layer on the top and used gaussian blur to blend all its colours together. Changed the blending mode to Overlay and reduced the opacity a bit and got the image you see here.
The method works best with a strong main subject.

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I really must get into a habit of getting up earlier, or setting the alarm at least for about 8.00am.  Another lazy day after I’d got the washing done and tomorrow’s dinner sorted out.  Spent the afternoon recording some music for S.  Did manage an hour or so across at St Mo’s and that’s where todays shots came from.

I like the placement of the seat on the little hill with the grass and bare trees behind. I preferred to keep it simple and rely on the compo rather than colour.

Looking very delicate, these waterdroplets caught my eye.

Mushrooms, or is it toadstools? I must learn the difference one of these days. Lots of them about this autumn. Must be something to do with the warm weather that is now leaving us to the cold of winter.
Is it my imagination, or does it look like the one at the back is attempting to eat the foreground one?

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I spent most of the day split between bashing out another oil painting and trying in vain to get this minidisk recording again.  I think the main problem is the battery is no longer holding a charge.  With the little amount of work I get it to do, it’s hardly worth buying a new battery.

This is bit of an antique these days.  In its day it was high tech and high fidelity.  I still use it occasionally to record the odd choir piece.  I’ve even used it surreptitiously and totally illegally to record a concert in the Albert Hall.  Now it’s been more or less replaced by the ubiquitous iPhone.

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Missed most of what looked like a clear but cold day, watching Lewis Hamilton win his second world championship. Can’t say I like him, but I think I like Nico Rosberg even less.  Perhaps his less than sporting exploits in the past have caught up with him now.  Karma.

After the race and with just a little bit of light left, I glanced out of the window to see these little toadstools growing in a fencepost in the garden.

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We had decided to go to Perth on Saturday and had booked lunch at Cafe Tabou.  The drive up was interesting from a photography viewpoint with low lying mist in quite a few places.  As usual though, Scotland shoots itself in the foot and provides very few parking places along the route.  Also, there are now average-speed cameras on the A9 from Dunblane.  However, there are no signs to tell drivers what the speed limit is.  How difficult would it be to put some indication of the speed limit?  When we arrived in Perth, it seemed that lots of other folk had decided to visit this weekend too.  We had to drive round quite a few places before we managed to get parked for more than the obligatory 3 hours.  Why 3 hours?  Don’t you want us to stay, Perth?  Anyway, it was a Christmas festival that was causing all these people to try to spoil our day.  Gigantic TV billboards everywhere, noise  and general Ho, Ho, Ho!  I just can’t get excited about all this moneygrabbing nonsense.

On to the photos.

View of the landscape keeking through the mist on the way up.

Don’t know what the group’s name was. They were on the sound stage as I walked past in Perth main street. There is an expression that “what they lacked in skill, they made up for in enthusiasm.” It didn’t apply here. They were loud, and that’s it. Pretty bad really. Nice to see a bassist getting a bit of front stage

Three of the hilarious Absurdist Pipe Band who added a bit of levity to Perth’s Lights On party.

I saw this on the way home from Perth and managed to get parked at one of the few parking places on the A9. I had to shoot through a chain link fence, but managed to fit the lens through the little square of wire.  Processing done in Lightroom with a bit of adjustment brush to lighten the foreground then saturate and clarify the sky area.  Quite pleased with the overall finished article.

Taken at the same point as the last one, but a few moments earlier. The mist kept changing in shape and density, but I liked this one best. Processed in Lightroom and Intensify

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The day started well with some decent sun for a change, unfortunately I slept through it, well, not all of it, but a lot. Managed a quick painting. Not the best, but decent enough and it was a chance to do some painting knife techniques. Went out for a walk along the Luggie from Greenfaulds station after lunch, but light wasn’t good.

I’ve walked this path a few times, but this is the first time I’ve seen the nest sitting on the reinforcing joist. Despite the dull day, there is a lot of colour to be seen if you look hard.

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Little fern growing in a crack on a pillar. I’m not sure what the yellow stuff is. I think it’s probably a lichen of some sort.

I had intended going for a walk this morning and then having a wander round Glasgow by myself. It started off dull with a bit of a drizzle, so I changed plans and managed a different type of painting, using oils again, but limiting my time to 1 hour. Didn’t manage to get to Glasgow either, so no photos. I went out in the early evening to move my car and saw the leaves sparkling in the streetlight. It was difficult to get the colour balance right, so I used photoshop to layer two copies of the shot. Desaturated the top layer and used a layer mask to cut through locally and show the golden leaf. Simple!

Oil on card 280 x 220mm

A little bit of ‘shopping was done!

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Aw naw! It’s nearly Christlefridge! Went in to Glasgow today because S thought it was time we started Christmas shopping. Why, I ask you? It’s not even December yet, let alone double digit December (alliteration) when all sensible people start their shopping. Anyway, it was an excuse to have a nose around Waterstones, the art shops and maybe just a wee jaunt into Jessops (nearly alliteration). Followed by lunch, of course.

The light was quite the opposite of yesterday with bright, bright sun creating high contrast. I liked the way that worked for the pic of the futuristic cinema complex just off Sausageroll Street. A wee bit of post processing in LR5 which did a great job of curing the converging verticals for once and a bit more processing in Intensify to finish it off. It could probably do with a bit more saturation, but where do you stop then? This will do for the moment.
It looks like I’ve got another dustbunny here, but like the last one, it’s a flier. This time it’s a twin engined turboprop. Those with a greater fascination will no doubt be able to ID it from this tiny image. Me? I don’t care, I just like the fact that it’s there.

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Sitting in O Sole Mio having lunch, I glanced across the street and saw the sign for the off sales at the same level as the one for the Tron Church. Two examples of good spirits perhaps?