Category: Light

Green – 17 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

17AugI’d read on a blog somewhere about taking shots of part of an object or even parts of an object and allowing them to define the whole and another about taking more time to study a shot before taking it.  They must have struck a chord with me because that’s what I found myself doing today.  First when we went to Strathaven this morning after we’d picked up our new reading glasses in Larky.  We were sitting having lunch in a wee cafe.  The local secondary school was coming out for lunch too and for a time we were surrounded by school weans.  I felt quite nostalgic for a while.  Aye Right! (that mean’s “No I DId Not” in Scotland).  Anyway, we were sitting next to a wall and over the wall was the Powmillon Burn and a beautiful fern lit by contré jour light (backlight). It looked good, and it still does after Lightroom has had a go at it.  I took another wide angle shot from the same position, but it did not come out of Lightroom very well.  In other words, it was rubbish.

That sort of set the tone for today’s photos.  Also,most of them were green, like the fern, but one that bucked the trend was a shot of a Yellow Wagtail which wasn’t a plant and wasn’t green, but it WAS only a part of the frame, because I couldn’t get closer and I only got one shot.  Remember, it’s better to have one shot in the bag and then try to improve on it rather than fart about trying different compositions but then miss the shot entirely and end up with nothing.  The other one that wasn’t green was the blue blobs shot which was taken with the intention of having only one flower of the three in focus.

After Strathaven, we came straight back home as I wanted to get the ingredients for tonight’s dinner and Scamp wanted to cut the grass in the back garden.  Grass is also green, or am I stretching this too thin now?

With the dinner half made and having solved today’s Sudoku puzzle while sitting in the garden, I went for a walk to St Mo’s to see if there were any other parts of things I could isolate and that’s where the leaf and the two grasses came from.  Back home I finished making today’s dinner – Thai Green Curry.  Total coincidence!

Possibly one more glorious day tomorrow before the rains come.

Kes – 23 July 2016

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23 July bOur visitors arrived much later last night than we expected, just before 11pm, in fact.  Drink was taken, tales were told, jokes were laughed at and much later than normal, we got to bed.

This morning they were up fairly early and we were up soon after although my head felt a bit thick.  That was when our other visitor dropped in.  Scamp said there was a bird sitting outside the front door, not a little bird, she thought it was a pigeon and it wasn’t looking too well.  Murd said two big black birds had ‘had a word with it’ and it perked up a bit after that.  He said he thought they must have been doctors 🙂

When I opened the front door I saw, not a dead pigeon as I expected, but an apparently live but unmoving kestrel.  It was a bit battered and its eyes were closed, so I feared the worst.  Then its head moved, so it was probably just dazed.  Maybe after hitting the bedroom window and falling on to the grass in the front garden.  I put on a pair of Scamp’s gardening gloves because that beak looked sharp, and gently lifted it up.  Some of the feathers on one wing were splayed out, but other than that it looked ok.  I pulled out a bit of dried grass from its wing feathers and smoothed the wing down. That was when it opened its eyes.  Wow!  Such beautiful, bright yellow eyes.  It looked at me, shook itself staggered a bit then flew off across the road and landed in a tree.  I think it must have been a young bird.  Lovely chestnut coloured plumage, and oh, those eyes.  A great start to the day, and my thick head had gone.

Scamp drove us in to Stirling today and we went for a curry in the usual restaurant, we both had our usual starters and mains too.  Creatures of habit.  Afterwards I went to the bookshop and was intrigued by the title of one book:
“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman.
I wonder why that one caught my eye.  Managed to download it when I got home and will add it to my Kindle booklist tonight.  We both wandered round BHS which was closing today, looking for bargains, but there were none, just junk nobody wanted.

After that we went to Waitrose and I got a big lump of ribeye which I cut into five steaks when I got home.  That should keep the carnivore in me occupied for the next few weeks.

Went out this evening to get some photos in the rain at St Mo’s, being careful to stick to the path.  Don’t want any more ticks.  Surprised to see that NLC have created an avenue of trees and reseeded the wild flower areas.  They must have cut out one of the councillors junkets to pay for that.  Light was terrible with ISOs in the thousands.  Last week I was struggling to keep the shutter speeds fast enough not to overexpose at ISO 100.  That’s the difference in being down south and up north.

More rain forecast tomorrow, so I doubt if we’ll be going far.

I can still see those yellow eyes.  Wish I’d thought to take a photo.

Sunny Saturday – 21 May 2016

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21May bSo today is Saturday it’s a bit cloudy today with the threat of rain later.  We went into Baldock with Jamie to the butchers, where else? Got the usual suspects, viz:

  • A couple of dinosaur bones (AKA short ribs)
  • Four sausages
  • Four slices of black pudding
  • Two pork and apple burgers
  • Just for something new, Chicken and Chickpea curry

JIC was buying in for a siege (his expression) and for a barbecue in the garden tomorrow.  When we went back to the house, JIC took us for a walk through the wheat fields and up to the road.  One of his walks with Vixen.  While we were walking, Sim was riding Valioso.  Having a dog is quite tying we always feel, but having a horse must be so much more restricting.

After lunch we went to meet Vixen.  She was much more friendly than I had anticipated and her agility is something to be admired.  Who would have thought that a solid looking dog could jump so high.  We walked her round a dog walking field with JIC throwing tennis balls for her and Sim getting them back from her.  An hour passed really too quickly.  When it was time to leave, I felt really sorry for her.  It was almost like we were abandoning this beautifully coloured bundle of energy – Vixen that is 😉 .  Looking forward to seeing how she accepts us when we are in HER house, not kennels.  No matter how luxurious they are, they are still kennels.

For dinner, JIC drove us to a Thai restaurant in a gastro-pub called the Navigator.  Food was absolutely brilliant.  JIC and I had Duck Green Curry with sticky rice.  Hot, but not unbearably so.  Scamp had Sweet and Sour Chicken and Sim had the biggest seabass I’ve ever seen – a whole one complete with head!  We all had a sort of combo starter to share.  Quite the best meal I’ve had for a long time.  Sorry, Jimmy Spice’s, this was better.

Noilly Prat – 7 May 2016

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comboNoilly Prat is a brand of vermouth from France. “White” Noilly Prat is the archetype of dry, straw-coloured French vermouth.  It’s also the words I woke up to today.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it was precognition or just a word that I saw somewhere and got trapped in my cerebral cortex.  It happens a lot to me.

Woke later than normal and felt as if I hadn’t rested at all.  Only myself to blame.  That’s what happens when you get home at 2am after a long day, coupled with a late night the day before.  Dragged myself out of bed, then a shower and a cup of strong coffee helped put the world back on its axis.

Today we were driving down to Kilmarnock to visit Dorothy B.  We spent a good hour there with her and Colin.  Enjoyed the company and I’m sure she did too.  Got her up to date with what’s been going on in our life and our prospective plans for the next few months.

It was a dull kind of day with very little direct sun, so although I took my cameras as usual, nothing inspired me enough to haul one of them out of the bag.  We drove back up the M77 and dropped in at Waitrose for ‘the messages’ and a light lunch.  While Scamp was deciding on a bottle of wine for tonight, I turned around and what caught my eye?  Why a bottle of Noilly Prat!  Just coincidence.

When we got home, and after finishing yesterday’s (extremely) Hard Sudoku with a little help from my tablet, I went for a walk to St Mo’s.  Again, nothing was tempting me to get my camera out, then I saw the moss fruiting bodies.  Difficult to see with the naked eye, but amazing detail shows up when you use a couple of extension tubes on the Oly with the Panasonic 45-200 zoom.  The green larch needles were taken contre-jour (against the light) and I just liked the little pink flower.  Three shots survived out of 37 taken.  Not bad really.

TV was crap as usual on a Saturday night so we watched a recorded episode of Rick Stein.  He was in Berlin, and what wine was he celebrating?  Why Noilly Prat!  Once is coincidence, twice gets scary, especially since if you’d asked me yesterday what Noilly Prat was, I couldn’t have told you.

Earlier in the week we were promised 24ºc for Sunday (tomorrow), but the weatherman’s revised estimate tonight is nearer 18ºc.  Oh dear, let’s hope it doesn’t go any lower.

Out for a Spin – 19 April 2016

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combo bGot up this morning and couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do.  Yes, it was sunny, but it was cold.  Yes, there was very little wind (good for cycling) but that wouldn’t make for interesting skies.  I was feeling quite down.  In an attempt to lift this “creeping malaise” to quote Floyd, Scamp suggested we go out for a light lunch.  So off we went.

I’d driven over the new Drumgrew bridge yesterday.  Now don’t look askance, this is quite a big deal.  The bridge has been closed for over 5 months now to allow it to be raised to accommodate the cabling for the electrification of the Glasgow – Edinburgh railway line.  The closure has been a real pain as the only other direct route from Cumbernauld to Kirkintilloch is a single track road with very few passing places.  So to return to today, we drove over the new Drumgrew bridge and out towards Kirkintilloch – nobody in their right mind actually wants to go to Kirkintilloch, which means that the upgrade of the Drumgrew bridge was a bit pointless really!  To cut a long story short, we drove to Drumgoyne and had lunch in a garden centre there at a table next to the window and in the sun.  My ennui was lifted.

Rather than drive back the same way we had come, I turned at the end of the road and we went back through Killearn then over the hills to Fintry.  It’s been ages since I’ve driven along that stretch of road and today was a good choice.  The light during the run was lovely with bright sun and fluffy clouds driving shadows over the hills.  Just what I wanted for another time lapse.
[Have you ever had one of those words or phrases that’s in your head, but just won’t come out your mouth, or in my case down to my fingers and out through the correct keys.  Time Lapse is my blind spot.  I know the technique.  I could, and often do, give anyone the MEGO effect (My Eyes Glaze Over) talking and enthusing about it, but ask me what it’s called and all I can say is “That time exposure thing, no, not exposure.  Delay, no, not delay either.  It’s that effect you see on the TV all the time.”  One day I’ll remember the phrase, but by that time I’ll have moved on to some other obscure effect, I’ll forget ITs name, and the whole thing will start again.  Aargh!]
The Time Lapse.

It wasn’t the most dramatic scenery.  We’re not talking Rannoch Moor here, just some low hills with interesting clouds casting shadows on them and best of all, a convenient parking place.  Unusual in itself in Scotland.  This time I set an interval of 5 second and 60 frames.  That would give me just over 4 seconds of video time for 3 minutes of filming / frame recording time.  This was a much better setup than yesterday.  Firstly because I was using a tripod today, but secondly and mainly because I could sit in the car instead of wandering around like a spare …  The video, once the Oly had created it, was good enough.  More leisurely than yesterday’s one.  That may have been due to the shorter interval or to the fact there was less wind than yesterday.  However, it worked and that’s the main thing – and the focus was correct this time!  You might notice that I collected a few cars on the road in my time lapse (see, I’m remembering it now) and also, towards the end was photobombed or should that be time-lapse-bombed by a bee!  Once I get the thing sorted out in my head and remember its name, everybody wants to get in on the act!  While I was packing up I noticed a goose sitting snoozing among the bracken over in the next field.  By the time I’d changed lenses it had woken up and was keeping an eye on me.  I grabbed a few shots and left it.  I imagine as it didn’t immediately fly off that it was either hung over from the Old Firm match on Sunday or it was sitting on eggs.  Either way, I didn’t want to annoy it and we drove away.

We stopped further down the road at the Crow Road car park (remember going there to do mountain climbing JIC and Hazy?).  Spent some time watching the shadows running across the valley rather than trying to record them.  That’s where the monochrome landscape came from.  Behind me some sheep were lunching on the thin grass over by the rocks and I thought they’d make an interesting shot or two.  That explains the shaggy sheep shot (be careful how you say that!).

Hoping for more sun, less ennui tomorrow.

The Time Lapse

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comboToday we had an appointment with our financial advisor in Falkirk and it was an early meeting at 10am.  Not so early you may think, but working backwards from there it meant allowing 30 min to get there, making and devouring breakfast another 20 mins with essential lie-in, showering and shaving (for me!).  All in it would take about an hour and a half, so I set my alarm for 8.30.  Of course, we were awake long before that.  There’s a special little internal alarm that triggers as soon as you set the physical alarm and doesn’t allow you to go back to sleep after you wake two hours before the physical alarm.  So, we went to Falkirk and the news was good, so to celebrate we went to Tea Jenny’s for an early lunch.  The food and service were excellent as usual.  You really should visit this cafe the next time you’re in Falkirk.  I don’t really care if you are from New York or Tokyo, make the effort for heaven’s sake!

When we got home I considered wheeling the bike out and taking it for a run, but there was a cold north wind blowing and I decided to go for a drive and possibly a walk instead.  I’d seen the dodgy looking santa last week and wanted a photo of it.  Up close it looked even creepier, stuck in a hollow of an old tree.  After that I went down to Auchinstarry to try my luck at making a time lapse, like the bloke on Rannoch Moor.  When I got to my chosen place, the sky looked interesting and I found a hollow in an old tree to wedge the camera in.  I chose the 9mm lens on the Oly to get a decent wide sky and did a six minute timelapse of just 60 shots at 10 second intervals.  I calculated that this would give a 6 second film of clouds scudding across the skies.  You’ve seen these things on the TV.  Very arty.  Halfway through the exposure I noticed that I’d bumped the focus lever on the lens to the closest focus setting, about 20mm, so everything was going to be out of focus.  However, mastering the process was more important than the actual finished article this time and I was reasonably happy with the result.  Next time I’ll prepare more carefully, rain protect the camera and lens, use a sturdy tripod and take care not to nudge the focusing lever.

The bramble leaves shot was just a grab shot to make the most of the brilliant contre-jour lighting.  I like the colours you get in bramble leaves.

Hoping for that cycle run tomorrow if the weather is more forgiving.

All Good Things … 10 April 2016

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combo bAfter breakfast we packed up the car and pointed it south. Made fairly good time all the way down the road. Stopped off at Spean Bridge for lunch which for me was a mega breakfast of bacon, link sausage, lorne sausage, haggis, black pudding, fried egg, beans, tattie scone, toast and tea all for £7.95. Scamp had a chicken burger which was uninspiring. Should have had the mega breakfast, even if as a semi-veggy you’d have had to donate your sausages and bacon to me.

Back on the road we continued south and stopped just past the Clachaig Inn so I could take some photos. The first of the day. I wanted some shots looking back at Loch Achtriachtan – bottom right. I also got a decent shot looking the other way up the glen towards the Pass of Glencoe. That’s the mono shot. Just got back into the car when a people carrier arrived and out spilled half a dozen Chinese tourists each with a smartphone on a selfie stick and I thought of Murd!

Found a slot in the never ending stream of traffic heading up the glen and drove on to Rannoch Moor. I was watching the cloudscape that was forming above the snow covered mountains and trying to figure out where would be best to park to grab the shot I could imaging was being created for me. I’ve been caught out before by ignoring the first parking place, trying for the optimum viewpoint and finding there’s nowhere there for parking – Scotland’s terrible for providing parking where there is nothing worth seeing and no parking where there is. This time I chose the first place that presented itself almost empty too – just a white van in it, and decided I’d walk until I found the best VP. As it turned out, there was a beautiful clear shot of the mountains and clouds right across form the parking place (top two shots). Took the shot (or 10) and then realised there was a tripod with a camera but without a photog, just to my right. Then I turned round and saw the driver of the white van watching me. It turned out he was doing a time lapse of the changing cloudscape. I asked him how long he’d run it for and after some thought he said “about 30 minutes should be enough”. He said he was driving down from Skye and really should be in a hurry, but the landscape was just too pretty to ignore. I told him we were doing the same and took my leave, wishing him luck with his time lapse.

Our next stop was between Crianlarich and Lix Toll for a coffee and to stretch my legs. Then it was on through Callander and Doune to the M9 and home. It took us just over six hours.

Thanks Murd and Jackie for the hospitality again and hope to see you soon.

Over the five days we clocked up around 660 miles and I took 335 photos, most of which were rubbish, but some of which I’m really proud of. That’s what photography is all about. A 10% success rate is pretty good. My success rate was about half of that, but then, you can’t quantify art 😉

Walking in the Sunshine – 5 April 2016

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combo bScamp had Elevenses booked with her sister and Lunch booked with a friend today, so I had the day to myself.

After a wee natter with Hazy on the phone, learning more about my latest apps (Thanks for the links the first one especially is just what I was looking for), I took myself off to buy my dinner (Steak pie) from the butchers.

With the sun coming and going when I got back, I thought it would be a shame to not take advantage of the light and went for a walk along the railway line. I’d really intended to take the Nikon, but forgot that I’d put the Oly in the car when I went to find my dinner, I only noticed when I got to Auchinstarry and thought that if two heads are better than one, then two cameras would be too, so I stuck the Oly in my jacket pocket (a tight squeeze with the 45-200mm lens on) and off I went, but not before getting a 15min sketch done of a strange wee house near the canal.  It wasn’t quite in the open air, I was sitting in the car, but I timed it and it wasn’t done from a photo or a tablet screen.

The weather was much kinder than it had looked with a bit of a breeze, but nice warm sun. The breeze was helping the clouds to scud across the hills and I got some record shots to be the basis of some possible paintings later. I liked the light on the robin which was sitting on a branch across the burn from me, at least 4m away and the picture above is a severe crop to the centre of the frame. The blossom is a bit of a cheat. The branch was actually hanging vertically downwards and I rotated it when I cropped it in Lightroom. That gave me a diagonal composition and also helped remove some extraneous branches that were getting in the way. Not a big cheat, but a cheat none the less.

That’s about it really. A pleasant walk along the railway to Dumbreck and back. Saw a couple of deer feeding, but they were in the middle of a little stand of trees and I couldn’t get a clean shot. I tried of course, but the results weren’t all that inspiring, so they went in the bin. I’m being a bit more ruthless with my thinning out these days. The external drives fill up at an alarming rate otherwise.

I Think It’s Going To … 26 March 2016

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combo b… Rain today.  Rained almost all day.  We went shopping.  Food shopping.  We could have gone to Tesco, but I thought it would be better to go to Stirling, even in the rain.  There’s a Waitrose there and I can usually pick up some nice meat there.  I also wanted a second look at a watercolour painting I’d seen in a gallery there a month or so ago.  Not to buy it of course, but to try out the effect the artist had achieved.  Thirdly, as usual I had a photograph in my head that I could take if the sun came out.  I didn’t get the meat I was looking for although I did get some kidney to make steak and kidney stew.  I didn’t get to see the painting either  because when we came out of Waitrose the rain had stopped, clouds were lightening and the sun was looking like it would start poking through so I went straight to option 3.

While we were driving to the location I’d picked, the sun did come out, but by the time I’d navigated Traffic Light City (do they really need all those red lights?) and found the spot, the good light had all but gone.  I did manage a couple of shots but without the light on the castle I wanted.  Actually there was no good light, but Lightroom is a brilliant piece of software that can spread sunlight where there is none and that is what I did.  Darkened down and texturised the sky with one graduated filter and brightened and warmed up the foreground with another.  That is how the top image and the bottom left image were faked created.  The image bottom right has only had minimal adjustments and show what the scene really looked like.

When we turned and headed for home after a disappointing stop, the rain started again, but not as heavily as it had earlier.

An excellent Chicken Curry tonight with my own version of a curry paste.  Feeling quite pleased with it.

Perth – 3 February 2016

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combo bSince it was a bright cheery day, we went to Perth. We had intended going on the bus, but going there was fine, but coming back was a bit of a hit and miss – with our luck it would be a miss, so we drove. It was a really pleasant run up the A9. The scenery with the changing light on the hills was spectacular. We get so used to seeing this scenery in Scotland and we become partly blind to it. I think it’s because we’ve had such poor weather and light recently that we enjoy the world around us when the light returns.

We had come to Perth to get coffee and tea, well, I had come for these essentials as it’s only me who drinks tea and mostly me who drinks coffee. We went for a walk along the Tay and that is where I saw the swan in a newly formed pond created by the recent floods. It was also where we saw the tower on the far side of the river. I think it was really a bit of a folly.

Lunch in Howies restaurant as we hadn’t booked Cafe Tabou so there was little chance of getting a table.

Scamp wanted to look at handbags on the way to the coffee shop and I spotted what looked like a decent pair of shoes in the same shop. Tried them on and decided on the spot that they were fine. Scamp beat me, she got a pair of shoes and the handbag. I wasn’t too bothered because I liked my shoes, they were a bargain at the price and there were no handbags that I liked. I got my caffeine requirement and we drove home, all in sunshine. It’s forecast to rain tomorrow. What a shame.

When we came home I struggled again with that bloody Nexus 7. I’ve decided it can’t be fixed. I’ve tried everything I can. I think someone has been at it before me and without knowing what they have done, I can’t undo it. I’ve learned a lot in the process though. Mainly, leave well alone when it’s been bodged by somebody else.