Category: photography

Up North – 27 April 2016

Posted on by Zogman

combo bAfter a lazy morning (well, yesterday was a bit frantic, so we are due a lazy morning) we headed off just after midday bound for Ballachulish in Lochaber.

I just had to stop on Rannoch Moor to get one last time lapse. Yes, I know it’s old hat now, but just one more wouldn’t hurt. After 15 minutes I had my 10 seconds of video and 100 frames of high quality RAW files I’ll never use again. Such a waste and such a hammering the camera shutter takes making those 10 seconds of video. The good thing about travelling with two cameras is the ability to wander around taking shots while you’re waiting for the 100 shots to be taken. Saw a wee lizard on the moor. Didn’t realise you got them this far north. Maybe it was on its holidays.

Continued up to Ballachulish and booked in. As it was the end of an Itison deal, the hotel was full, but Scamp had pre-booked and also upgraded to a loch-view room with, as it turned out, a jacuzzi bath! Unfortunately neither of us could be bothered to try it out.

Went for a walk to Bishop’s Bay, a place we’d been the last time we were here, back in October 2015. The scenery and views were just as spectacular as last time. Time for dinner when we got back. Food was good, but our supercilious waiter needs to work a bit on his people skills. Scamp ordered scallops and he assumed she was ordering for both of us! What? Does his mummy order for him when he goes out to a restaurant. I had a burger which was fine and Scamp had a seabass fillet, but I’ve seen bigger sardines. She decided to have pudding and ordered sticky toffee pudding with ice cream. I ordered gin and tonic pannacotta and after leaving, he returned to ask if I wanted ice cream or cream with it. I was a bit bemused as you don’t usually have anything with pannacotta, but settled for the cream. I needn’t have bothered. It came as it was without an accompaniment and also without any semblance of G or T in its flavour.

I’d just remembered that the hotel had a lovely microbrewery IPA and we went through to the bar after our meal to see if it was still available. There was the pump with the River IPA. Unfortunately, there also was Mr Personality, the original dumb waiter.  Scamp had a G&T and I asked for an IPA. The scoosh from the tap signalled that the cask needed changing. “It’ll only take a minute” he said. He was right. It only took him a minute to come back and say “mvbemdm fnsn dm” or something like that. He certainly speaks fluent Mumble. It translates as “I don’t know how to change the cask”.  I asked for a pint of the River Blonde beer instead. I’m still not sure if he used a clean glass or the dirty one from the aborted IPA, but the beer was boggin’. I had two mouthfuls and left it on the table. The last time we were here there certainly was Service With A Smile. This time was different. Maybe we were just unlucky or maybe this is a turn in fortune for the Loch Leven Hotel. Only time will tell.

Hoping to head south via Oban tomorrow. Also hoping for decent weather, much like today’s.

Just another Saturday – 23 April 2016

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Page_1-2- flickr--114After yesterday’s biz, today was just another Saturday.

We went to Stirling and bumped into Scamp’s sister and her daughter (the same ones from yesterday) in our favourite curry shop. I wouldn’t have bothered going back there after the disappointments of our last two visits, but I’m glad we did. The menu, if more expensive, had gone back to its previous old faithfuls and I’m guessing the chef was back from his/her sabbatical because the food tasted like it used to. The only stumbling block was the nan bread which we both agreed was too soft and doughy. We’ll let them work on it.

Walked round Stirling shopping centre. That didn’t take very long. Stirling, apart from the castle and the old buildings leading up to it, isn’t all that interesting. More and more shops closed in the shopping mall it’s a sign of the times. Not as bad as Dunfermline the other day. Things are getting bad when the Cash Converter shop closes down. Anyway, we didn’t linger long in Stirling and drove home empty handed apart from a Thunderball ticket that proved not even worth the paper it was printed on. Oh well.

Today’s photo is the final one in the series of Shug and Tam meet the Queen. By the way, just in case you were wondering, it has nothing to do with Mrs McQueen turning 90. It’s just such a nice wee minifig, I thought I’d like to do something with it. I’m done with Comic Life for a while. I’d forgotten just how irritating it was to work with. Until you’ve experienced it, it’s difficult to explain just how badly coded it is. Even the version 1 as its flaws, the most annoying is when it loses focus on the object being edited. Leave it for a while to get its wind back and focus returns. Not something you want to happen when you are working to a deadline, so I doubt if you’d use this on a commercial basis. However, it cost me nothing so I shouldn’t complain, but I always do 😉

To those who read my blog posts, I apologise for the number of updates to it recently as I struggled to add two short videos. I finally worked out today that the only video format that WordPress would abide was MP4. I was sure I’d added a MOV once, but I was wrong. It was only when I was checking the HTML code today that I realised my error. I may not embed any more videos for some time, but hopefully I’ll remember that I wrote this explanation – partly to you and partly to myself!

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.

Endorphins again

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Page_1-2- flickr--108A dull morning.  Cold and dull.

Afternoon was spent trying to ignore the ignorant Rangers supporters next door stamping and shouting their team on to an eventual win, while we watched the F1 cars whizzing around a hot track in China.  Neither of these sporting events really improved my mood.

Scamp wanted to go to the Sunday Social at Mercado in Glasgow.  I wasn’t totally over the moon about driving and parking in Glasgow city centre just after an Old Firm game.  We’d never been to Mercado, but had heard that the floor wasn’t great for dancing.  I thought I might just have enough time to go out and get today’s PoD, but just as I was going out, the rain came on.  Plan 2.  I’d left the ‘weemen’ setup and tripod in position in the spare room.  I took three of four shots of the same scene as before with differing focus points.  At least I’d have a potential PoD.

On the off chance that it would improve my mood, I drove in to Glasgow.  Tried to park in an NCP carpark just round from Mercado.  Luckily I didn’t have enough change to pay the exorbitant £6 for 2 hours.  Drove back round and parked on the street 100m away.  Parking free on a Sunday.  A bit further to walk, but a saving of £6.  NCP Normal Costly Parking.

Maybe it was the endorphins again, but after 2 hours of almost non-stop dancing, I walked out in a totally different mood.  Maybe it’s not anything so scientific, but there’s something in this salsa dancing that gives me sore feet, but lifts my spirits.  Watched a few ‘rubber men’ wandering around bemused with smiles on their faces and Rangers scarfs.  Maybe they were experiencing the effects of endorphins too.  Saw a few sad looking green and white dressed men too.  It’s a strange game this football.

The image  for this PoD is two shots.  One focused on the Queen and one on Shug and Tam.  I exported them from Lightroom as layers into Photoshop and painted a mask on Shug and Tam’s layer to allow the Queen to show through from the lower layer.  This gave the effect of sharp focus on the front pair and on the Queen at the rear of the stage while the ‘subjects’ were out of focus, a physical impossibility, but essential to the conversation.  The text was laid on using Comic Life V1 which, thankfully, I’d retained when I updated to V2.  Sometimes updates do more damage than good.  That’s why I’m still using Mountain Lion instead of the allegedly borked El Capitan on the Mac.  I’ll continue to use it until it isn’t practical anymore.

Hopefully a warmer day tomorrow.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now – 11 April 2016

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combo bYesterday was a long day and a long drive, so today was just about relaxing and coming to terms with this urban environment again after the wide open spaces of Skye.

Didn’t do much this morning apart from my daily sudoku, but today’s game was an “Easy”, so not to much of a challenge.

While the “Gems” were practising I went for a walk along the Luggie, but under a milky sky, everything was dull.  I did find a new piece of graffiti under the road bridge.  Good bright colours, but poor shading and highlights which left it pretty 2D looking.  It looks like one critic has already tried to burn it off.  Difficult on a concrete wall, but that’s the Cumbernauld mentality for you.  Totally brainless.  The other shot was a couple of daffodils that looked like they were talking to each other.  Unfortunately, under the flat lighting, there was very little modelling.

I hadn’t realised until recently just how much the clouds and sky contribute to landscapes whether they are paintings or photographs.  The Indian bloke with the umbrella from a couple of days ago needed a plain, textureless sky to focus attention on the main subject, the man.  Contrast that with yesterday’s monochrome landscape.  A flat toned sky would have dragged that image down.  The wild sky in it – it wasn’t faked by the way – was in harmony with the wild land underneath it.  These are the extremes and there are degrees of cloud detail within those extremes and the sky must be in sympathy with the land and the subject.  Sometimes the land is simply a backdrop and then the sky too should be a supporting player, but if the landscape is the subject then the sky should play a more leading role.  After all is said and done, it’s the light from the sky that creates the modelling on the land.  Maybe I should think more about the effects of the sky light on the subject and if the light isn’t good or is too flat, I should re-assess my subject.

After all somebody said that it’s all about the light.

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 😉

Moody Monday – 4 April 2016

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P4040124- flickr--95It has rained almost all day, but that’s ok, because it produced today’s PoD which is a water drop of the curve of a tulip leaf with another tulip leaf or two behind.  Taken with the somewhat bypassed E-PL5.  That shouldn’t be the case, because the E-PL5 is an excellent camera.  In some ways it surpasses the E-M10 in that the rear screen has even more flexibility than the ’10’s and the EVF can flip vertically to allow the camera to be at ground level with the photog looking down through the viewfinder and out through the lens rather than lying prone to get one eye to the viewfinder as is the case with the ’10.  Without the EVF, it’s just that little bit nearer too which is a great advantage for taking candid shots which I occasionally do.  I used the kit lens for the above shot and it makes a fine fist of the job.  For some reason, the ’10 doesn’t like the kit lens and produces dark blobs which look like dust bunnies but aren’t.  I’ve checked with my sensor checker lupe and the sensor is clean.  The lens also had a problem with the aperture leafs sticking which caused the ’10 to overexpose occasionally, but the ‘5 hasn’t shown either of these faults so far.  I’ll keep a weather eye open for problems in the next week or so.

Like I said, it was a wet day today, and as is Monday which is Scamp’s day for Gems, I made myself scarce this afternoon and did a little bit of work in the gym and then had bit of a swim and then 15 minutes in the sauna to round off my session for the day.  Pool was very busy, but that’s to be expected with the school Easter holidays on.

Hoping to go to salsa tonight and maybe try to remember what we did in bachata last week.  Hoping for better weather tomorrow and the chance to get my bike out.

April Showers in March – 27 March 2016

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combo bI started writing this, sitting in the Winter Garden at the People’s Palace on Glasgow Green with Scamp, having a late breakfast on a sunny intervals day.   We’d agreed this morning that that we’d go for a walk along the Green on this, the first day of British Summertime.  There were a few hardy rowers on the Clyde, but they were few and far between.  I’m guessing that some were absolute beginners just deciding whether or not this was a sport for them.  If there was a day to test it out, a cold, windy one with a strong current would be a good one to dissuade the unsure.  Although there were many sunny intervals, there was also a cold wind and on the way home from the Green we drove through hail showers.  Having said that, the sunny intervals made up for the wetter, windier times.

When we got home, I went out for a walk in St Mo’s hoping for some more shots to bolster the ones from Glasgow Green and the People’s Palace.  I got not one photo, in fact the camera hardly came out of the bag, so all of today’s shots came from the earlier photo-fest in Glasgow.  The daffodils were from our front garden and I have no idea who the sleeping beauty is (bottom right).

It was good to have some longer periods of sunshine today after the clocks went forward, even if we did lose an hour of sleep last night.

Hoping for more sunny intervals and even some short April showers (in March) tomorrow.

Two in a row – 20 March 2016

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combo bWow!  Two sunny days in a row.  Allegedly this is the first day of spring, but with two sunny days in a row, it could be summer.  Not the start of summer, but summer itself.  Equinox be damned.  Everything could go downhill from here.  Despite the fact that the days are getting longer and the nights shorter, if it’s not sunny tomorrow then it’s a case of “nights are fair drawing in”.  Still, in the spirit of spring, Scamp got the mower out and cut the front grass.  This was swiftly followed by George across the corner getting stuck in and cutting his grass too.  I think he was slightly miffed that Scamp had beaten him to it.  I’d have cut the grass myself, but I know Scamp likes it done to her own formula and if I’d have done it, the stripes on the front lawn wouldn’t have been perfectly parallel, so I let her have first dibs.  Such a gentleman me!

What I did do was take myself off to St Mo’s to revel in the inexplicable second day of sunshine.  There weren’t many creatures to photograph.  No deer, no Mr Grey, not even a frog pushing its head above the pond surface.  What I did have was some low angle light to play with, so I shouldn’t complain.  Took the “Big Dog” (Nikon) with me as Little Dogs (Olys) are getting tired of being the general ‘dogsbodies’.  Managed to get most of the photos taken with ISO settings of under 2000.  It’s amazing what you can do when you have directional sunlight.  I was a bit concerned by seeing what I think was another ‘photog’ walking along the boardwalk.  I don’t know who he or she was, or how they worked out where “St Mo’s” is, but they must know that St Mo’s is mine and mine alone.  Yes, I’m willing to share it with others, but only if they write to me asking for permission first.  So, if you are reading this, interloper, do the decent thing and ask permission before you trespass on my personal space.  You have been warned.

Looking forward to see what tomorrow will bring.  Hopefully more sunshine, I’m not greedy.  Just one more day would be good.