Category: photography

Brendan Blunders In – 13 January 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Do these weather chappies think if you give a storm a ‘human’ name, it makes it less scary? Somebody should tell them it’s not working.

Today’s storm was named Brendan and it was a stoater. It blundered around, knocking down bins and firing the rain in your face when you weren’t expecting it. It was just an awful day. I don’t like the high winds. I don’t like thunder either. Maybe it’s the noise, I’ve never thought about it really, but I never did like high wind or thunder. I don’t mind rain or sleet or snow. They’re really just different varieties of the water that falls on you after all. Despite all that I took myself out in the wind and rain that was Brendan to get a photo or two and a writing pad. As it turned out I got four photos, all of trees blowing in the wind. All pointing straight up. All with a really slow shutter speed. None with the camera resting on the Beadbag™ which was designed for such a situation! Needless to say one of those shots became PoD.  It looks as if its been converted to mono, but it’s actually just a combination of the contrast and the dull day that leaches away all the colour.

Have you ever tried to buy a pad or writing paper. Nobody seems to write letters anymore. Yes, you can buy envelopes in all sorts of colours and sizes, but no writing paper to make the letters to put in them. I tried all the shops in our new retail park and not one of them had writing paper. A reporter’s notebook was the closest I came. I dare say email had put paid to actually writing to people. Finally I tracked down a writing pad at a wee newsagent’s in Condorrat. I’ll use it carefully and then store it somewhere safe, for the next time I need to write a letter.

After dinner we drove up to the Town Centre to go to ballroom class. Tonight we were tackling Waltz Across Texas as a sort of warm up, then it was into the waltz proper. The routine we’d started to learn last week. This time Scamp filmed the whole routine, both the ladies and the mens parts. The second hour was foxtrot. Neither of us had ever done foxtrot before, so this was all new. I think we may have about 75% of the routine in our heads now. It’s just the part where we teach our feet how to actually execute the moves that we need to perfect. We did also find a ‘bad part’ of the dance floor where we always got things wrong. I think we should mark that area with red spray paint to make it easier to avoid, and therefore make fewer mistakes. After Mr Fox’s Trot we reprised the Blue Angel Rumba. One of the expert couples even offered to take us through it and that made it a lot clearer. We have a video earmarked on YouTube for that one already, so it just needs a bit of careful watching to identify the individual parts, then they should be easier to join together. I think also I need a new pair of dance shoes. The ones I have keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Tomorrow it’s coffee with the guys. Scamp’s out with Annette in the morning for coffee too. I think we both need some adult conversation!

Windy and Warm – 7 January 2020

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I thought I’d woken up in the middle of the night and then notice it was about 8.15am and it was dark outside.

It stayed like that all day with only about 30 minutes in the middle of the day when there was light on the horizon, but it didn’t last. Scamp wanted to go shopping today and that’s what we did. Because the only place she knew she could get some of today’s messages was Morrisons, and in an attempt to offset the shortfall in their winter sales figures, that’s where we were going. Next question was where. Falkirk is our usual preferred shop, but with the strong winds, especially in the east and the heavy rain showers, I suggested we go to The Fort instead. Closer and quicker to get to. Also, I wanted some stuff from Hobbycraft at The Fort. With that settled, we wrapped up well and drove off. It may have been stormy and wet, but it was also warm. The car thermometer read 12ºc when we left the house.

So we got what we wanted in Morrisons, except the bottle of Grants Sherry Casked which was absent from the shelves and also the Yorkshire Mixture which was also missing. Could it be the same person who had a taste for sweeties and whisky? Did they perhaps drop a couple of sweeties in their dram? Maybe I should try that. We bought a bag of polystyrene beads for me to make a bean bag to rest my camera on when taking low macro shots (they came in handy later). We also bought some sparkly foam backed card to make The Fairy a new pair of wings. Scamp is going to wash The Fairy’s dress, make her a new underskirt and also repair her wings. The Fairy is almost 50 years old and hasn’t had her dress cleaned or her underskirt replaced in all that time. Her wings have been repaired once or twice, but really do need to be renewed. Happy with our purchases we headed home.

Scamp went out to get her hair cut after lunch and came back looking even more beautiful than normal (if that’s possible). Then I discovered I needed spring onions for tonight’s dinner (Pad Thai), so I wrapped up well, stuck in a pair of headphones and enjoyed a walk in the rain with The Uncle Devil Show to get the spring onions. That’s when I noticed my thighs were aching a bit, presumably from the two days dancing I’d had Sunday and Monday.

The Pad Thai worked really well. It was from a kit, but the only pre-prepared ingredient was the sauce, I’m sure I can find a recipe for it on the net and make my own. Noodles make a nice change from rice. After that I had to find a PoD. I found it in the bag of polystyrene beads. I sat a bunch of grapes on the bag of polystyrene beads. Lit it from below with two LED lights. Then used reflected light from a third LED light to remove some of the shadows from the grapes. PoD done.

Before I wrote this blog I cancelled my upgrade to ON1 2020. Too many bugs in it that would be caught, quote ’in a future update’. Sorry, but I paid for software, not to be a beta tester.

Tomorrow I may tackle the making of the bean bag. Also, we may go out somewhere for a walk if there’s any light and if the wind abates.

It’s a new dance class – 6 January 2020

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And we don’t have to drive in to Glasgow to do it.

Scamp was out at a gig in Steps, not the old 80s group, but the wee place on the outskirts of Glasgow. Gems were entertaining today, the first gig of the year. I was staying home to start tidying up the back bedroom. After about an hour’s work I could confidently say I’d found the sofa. It’s not completely unearthed yet, but signs are good that it’s there. It was really horrible dull day, so I didn’t really mind a bit of housework. Then all of a sudden it started getting lighter, shadows started appearing in the room which meant there was light getting in. Yes, the clouds had a bit of texture and they were definitely getting lighter.

Time to go out. I selected Fannyside as my chosen destination because the clouds were breaking up and with a strong west wind I might get some interesting skies. What I hadn’t realised was just how cold it was with that wind. I got a few shots at my usual place beside the pine trees on the far side away from the loch, but then the light was moving and I needed to move with it. Drove back onto the moor road and down to a draw-in where an old peat processing plant used to be before the moratorium on industrial peat cutting was introduced. Got a bunch of shots there across the loch and the moorland behind me. Finally got a shot with an old tree in it. I’ve taken shots of that tree in all sorts of weather.

Back home I cut the sky form an east facing shot and pasted it in to a west facing shot with the tree in it. A bit of colour enhancement and some Oofle Dust (the stuff Sooty used to use) and today’s PoD appeared.

Just as I was finishing the singer arrived home, quite delighted with the gig. Then it was time to make dinner before we headed off for our first dance class in Cumbernauld.

Lovely big hall. A bit cool, but I know from experience that it needs to be be cool when you’re dancing. We started off with a line dance of sorts, just as a warm-up. I survived it. Next was beginner’s Waltz. There were two of us couples dancing it, but Scamp and I were soon promoted to the intermediate class. Actually I could do most of the moves, but the different terminology from what I was used to and the slightly different combinations flummoxed me for a while. However, by the end of the night I was getting the hang of it. The girl who runs the class is a lovely dancer and seemed to know her stuff. I was most impressed. An hour passed really quickly, always a good sign and we both agreed we’d be back next week, all being well.

Tomorrow we are expecting heavy rain and strong winds, so whether we go out or not and where we go will be determined by the weather.

Dull but we went Dancing – 5 January 2020

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Today was nothing to write home about on the weather front. Just dull and grey.

I did get out for a while in the afternoon, but there was nothing inspiring to photograph. That didn’t stop me, of course, but there was nothing in the twenty shots that I took that stood out enough to be a PoD.

Slow cooked Lamb Shoulder for dinner had been started before lunch. Seared the meat in the frying pan then pierced it all over and stuck in some rosemary sprigs, rubbed some salt into the still hot meat and put it in the slow cooker for three hours. I came out nice and tender, although there were a few chewy bits away from the bone. What we in Scotland would call ’Cheuch’. The rest of the meat was fine. Scamp’s dinner was much quicker to cook. She had a fresh tuna steak which she cooked like I would cook a steak. Three minutes per side with a couple of minutes standing time. It looked lovely too.

Drove in to Glasgow and got parked right away. In fact there were lots of parking places available. Found out that 12 folk from one of the salsa classes have booked a week long holiday in Cuba and hired a salsa teacher to boot. That would have been a good break, but probably a bit too much ‘away time’ at the busy start of the year. Danced with a few folk I knew from class and so did Scamp. Managed to remember how to salsa and made up a few ‘new’ moves that I can’t remember now. That’s how it goes some days. Still can’t imagine two classes being taught at the same time in such a small space and with bar service running at the same time. Good luck with that Shannon.

Spoke to JIC in the evening and he gave some advice on curing Scamp’s dodgy tummy problem. She will be out tomorrow morning buying JIC’s remedies.

Today’s PoD was taken with the Teazer2 from where we parked just off Byres Road. I tried it with a lower ISO and a longer exposure, but this was definitely better, even with the heavy grain.

Tomorrow Scamp has a gig and we are hoping to go ballroom dancing in the evening.

Sunshine! – 30 December 2019

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The sky was clearing when we woke, but it took a while for it to clear completely.

Scamp was feeling a lot better today. Good enough to go for the messages. Rather than face the crowds and the traffic jams, we chose to shop locally in Tesco. I think we nearly emptied the place, judging by the amount of stuff in the trolley we wheeled to Scamp’s car. She had decided to give the Juke the day off because it had worked hard these last few weeks.

After lunch I took the ‘old’ E-M1 out for a spin round St Mo’s and got some lovely light because the clouds had all cleared away and the low sun was warming everything up. Not actual temperature ‘warming’, but colour temperature warming. The Mired value, but you don’t need, or want to know that, do you? Let’s just say it was lovely light during what’s know to photogs as the Golden Hour. Today it was macros again and my favourite and therefore the PoD was one of some moss on the limb of a tree.

By the time I was heading home, Scamp was getting ready for a Gems Christmas/New Year party at Carol’s. A good name to have for this time of year. I wasn’t invited, of course as this was a girls only night, but I was the nominated driver for Scamp and Margie. I was even getting the privilege of driving Scamp’s car, probably to extend the Juke’s holiday. Dropped the ladies off and headed home to do battle with the MacBook Pro again.

This time I was ready. I’d read the script and the the different pieces of software. The first attempt didn’t work. Apparently the secret is to change the system date of the MBP to something about two years ago and try again. I did, and it worked. Panicked after that because although the screen looked right, I had no mouse, no keyboard and no way of progressing with the install. Back to the ‘big’ computer and read the ‘Problems’ section. It was a know problem with a solution. I did a reboot and edited one small tick box before I lost control and voila! MacOS Sierra running on a 2009 MBP. You PC owners may be saying “So?”, but this is a big deal. Apple control what can and can’t be installed on their hardware, but one clever bloke has stymied that. Well done to him. Tomorrow I’ll populate it.

Got the message just about 11pm that a taxi was required. Checked the temperature (actual temperature, not Mired!) and it was -1ºc. Had to scrape Scamp’s car, inside and out!!

When we got back, Scamp was feeling sick. I suspected self-inflicted alcohol induced poisoning, but she said that wasn’t the case. She did look a bit under the weather and went to bed just before midnight. Hope she feels better tomorrow.

If Scamp is feeling better I may go in to Glasgow tomorrow to source some ink for the printer, or then again, I may not. It’s that certain.

The Shortest Day – 22 December 2019

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And it felt like the shortest day too. Very little sunlight finding it’s way to the Scottish earth today.

Apart from having a lot to accomplish today, there wasn’t much incentive to get up and get started, but we did. Calendars to print. Doors to fix. Dinner (mine) to cook. Tidying up to be done. Just normal day to day stuff, but it all seems to mount up some days. Today was that day. Also, there was the usual photo to be taken in almost twilight.

I went to B&Q to get the stuff to fix the door. After lunch I started my dinner – Lamb Shoulder Shank, slow cooked. With that on its way, I went out and took some photos. Mostly macro photos and mostly macro photos of Cladonia lichen. Found some Cladonia Bellidiflora which are like normal green/blue cladonia but with red tips to the crown. Not particularly rare, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen any round here. That pic made PoD. Like I said, there wasn’t much light around and most of the pics were taken at ISO 3200. I know that sounds like technospeak, but to give an indication of the low light, normal photos for most of the year are taken at ISO 200 to 400. 3200 means that there is only about a 1/16th the light available at ISO 200. Dull, dull, dull. Yes, the maths is dull, but the light, more so.

To brighten up this shortest day we watched a BBC re-run of a re-run of a re-run of the five year old Penguins of Madagascar. Still as funny and still finding little quotes throughout the film.

Lamb was lovely and not too fatty. Scamp had salmon as usual. Both of us finished off a bottle of Barolo we’d started last night.

Spoke to JIC later in the evening and were pleased to hear that there wasn’t any serious flooding down by. Sorry to hear that Sim has to work on the 27th in her new job with no holiday allowance as yet.

Well, it was a dull day, but the good news is that after 2am on Monday, the days will start getting longer and Scamp will give a sigh of relief as her SAD husband starts to come out of the long winter tunnel.

No big plans for tomorrow.

The Blessing – 21 December 2019

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Yesterday I said that just to be out for a walk in the open air without any shops would be a blessing. Today we were blessed with open air and no shops.

Initially we drove to Stirling with the possibility of travelling onward through Callander to Lubnaig or east to a wee loch we’ve been to a few times but can’t remember the name of. We visited neither of these places today. Instead I pointed the Juke towards the compass direction with the most likelihood of some sun, back along the M9 intending to visit The Kelpies. Then Scamp suggested we go to Culross instead (Sorry Hazy), and that is where we ended up.

Culross actually ticked all the boxes:

  • A walk
  • Open air
  • No Shops

We walked along at the side of the now obsolete mineral railway line from Longannet power station to the manmade lagoons near Low Valleyfield. I was intending to take some shots of the boardwalk and new pier at Culross, but then five boys on bikes ruined my shot, or so I thought. They walked and one cycled along the boardwalk, from there on to the pier and finally on to the rocks. I don’t usually allow people in my landscape shots, using Lightroom to unceremoniously delete them. This time I used them. They made an interesting focal point with the sky and sea as a backdrop. That had the makings of a PoD.

We walked along towards what’s known as Preston Island although it’s now a headland. I presume it once was an island before the slag and cinders from the power station were dumped there to reclaim the land. By the time we got there the light was failing so we turned and headed back. I took a few more photos, but nothing as good as the boys on the rocks.

Drove home and before dinner I did a bit of digital cut ’n’ paste to get me the composition I wanted and was really quite pleased with the result.  The Five Stages of Man.

Dinner tonight was going to be a carry-out curry or Chinese, but eventually we settled on a staple: Fish Fingers and Egg with Chips and Spaghetti. And some people call us ’Foodies’!!

Tomorrow we have nothing planned, but if the weather’s good I’m hoping to get some more photos.

Sun worship again – 15 December 2019

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The sun came out to play today and so did I.

Late rising this morning again because it had been a late night last night again. After talking to Hazy in the morning, and trying to remember details of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, we had breakfast. All the while the sun was getting higher in the sky and after breakfast I simply had to go out and get some photos.

The LBJ was a bit tired (like me), so I plugged it in to charge and took the E-M1 with a zoom and the old EPL-5 with the fisheye lens and trotted off round St Mo’s. Fed the ducks and grabbed a couple of shots of a goosander and a mallard then went for a walk in the woods.

Found lots of tiny little fungi, smaller than my pinkie nail, but couldn’t quite keep them in focus. Finally moved on and got some shots looking straight up with the fisheye, the reason I’d brought it! Then I noticed the light coming through the trees and took a few of that with the same lens.
Finally headed for home where Scamp had put the coffee maker on! Thank you so much S.

After an initial look through the photos, and assuring myself there was a PoD in there, we drove in to the Byres Road to the Record Factory where music was playing, the DJ was there, but there were no dancers! Eventually Scamp and I filled the floor by ourselves and gradually, very gradually, people started to drift in. The new area for dancing isn’t nearly as big as the one we were used to in the Record Factory, but at least there are no cross-head screws sticking out of the floor! By the time we left there were about 10 people, not ten couples, just people there. Maybe it was the cold tonight, maybe there were Christmas parties on, whatever, there weren’t may people wanting to dance salsa. Plenty of cars parked everywhere, we had been lucky to get a space. Don’t know what the problem is.

Dinner tonight was a plate of soup then custard and prunes. Not a banquet fit for kings and queens, but perfectly adequate which amused JIC when he phoned.

PoD is the shot of the mallard with the lovely reflections.

Tomorrow is Scamp’s Christmas party for Gems, so I’ll probably help with that and then go somewhere quieter.

Solar Power – 9 December 2019

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Sometimes I think I am solar powered.

Woke to sunshine this morning. Beautiful sunshine. Got up and dressed, no time to waste on a shower, I’d go dirty! Grabbed two cameras in the big black camera bag and waltzed off to St Mo’s (actually I walked, no dancing was involved) while Scamp was defrosting her car. Nearly fell on my backside when I stepped on a thin slice of ice I hadn’t noticed, but regained my balance and nobody was there to laugh at me.

No time for camera testing today. I’d (partly) mastered the buttons and dials on the LBJ and today was too good to waste on test shots. Got a few shots of interesting fungi in the woods and some backlit leaves, but nothing too special. Nothing that was a contender for PoD. It’s remarkable how quiet the shutter is. Much quieter than any of the Olys. Yes, of course I was still testing and comparing. It’s the way I am!

By the time I got back, Scamp had returned from her shopping trip and she’d put the coffee maker on. Thank you Scamp. She’d been busy because she’d made a pot of soup too and it smelled lovely. She’d also done the hoovering which has been my Monday job for the past few weeks. She just can’t sit still some days.

After lunch and after Gems had gathered I had my Monday talk about all things Art with Margie, I put my boots on again and drove down to Auchinstarry to walk along the canal, across at the plantation then back along the railway. Got a few more shots with both cameras, two of which I knew would be on Flickr and one of which I was sure was destined to be PoD. Saw a poor luckless quad bike rider getting his/her front wheels stuck in a bog, right up to the axles. Don’t know how they were going to get out of that one, but I wasn’t going to help pull it out.

On the way back I paused to just take in the colours and shapes around me. You don’t realise just how beautiful the countryside is until you’ve had a week of rain and leaden skies. Sometimes I think I’m solar powered. I need sunlight to recharge my batteries. Without that dose of vitamin D I just get deeper and deeper down and it’s the sun on my face that lifts me, well that and Scamp’s smile. It can lift me any time. “One smile relieves a heart that grieves” Robert Graves.

Back home it was good news. Jamie Gal was in the driving seat tonight. We went in to see if the beginners class needed any helpers, but two weeks of Shannon had taken its toll and it was a vastly reduced class in the hall. An even class of leaders and followers, so we weren’t needed after all. Our own class was well attended, but the skills of the class were a fair bit below what an Advanced class should be able to demonstrate. Jamie took quite a lot of criticism for his absences and I did feel sorry for him with nobody to stand with him against the class. However it had to be said and now he knows the feelings of the class.

Came home feeling a bit deflated with the loss of two dance classes and nothing to fill the vacuum until the new year. Hopefully a new year will bring new opportunities or am I starting to sound like an astrology page from the Daily Record?

PoD today went to a dried stem of cow parsley with an out of focus background. I liked it. There’s more on Flickr.

Tomorrow we’re expecting rain and Windy Willy. That won’t be fun!

A Mickey Bow! – 8 December 2019

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Another dull, dark, dreary day. Rain from morning until night. However, I did, under Scamp’s careful tutelage make a steak pie for my dinner, she had salmon. After that, I just sat at the computer and moped.

In the afternoon I decided to walk to the shops to get puff pastry for the pie. It gave me a walk, even if it was in the rain and maybe, just maybe a chance to get a photo. You can probably tell from the photo at the top of the page that I was unsuccessful in that respect. I took the LBJ and tried, oh how I tried to get it to focus. It wouldn’t. I think the thing is just stupid. I think as well as the usual CPU it’s got a NUMPTYU. When the CPU gets fed up working it switches over to the NUMPTYU and it does whatever it wants to, as long as it contradicts what I want. Came home empty handed.

Finally I settled on another still life. This time the subject was my new bow tie and, as it’s a Disney bow tie, it’s only fair to call it a Mickey Bow. It tried tying it as usual, round my neck, but it’s not like a normal tie that you can loosen and pull gently over your head, as Number 1 Son used to do. The only way I could get it off was by cutting off my nose and possibly my ears. I felt that was just too much of a sacrifice for a photo, anyway the blood would probably stain the bow tie. I finally applied some maths to the problem.

If my collar size is 16.5”, that is the circumference, “C”, of the circle that is my neck.

C = πD where D is the diameter of the circle

By transposition D = C/π

So, roughly 16/3

Even more roughly 5”

Yet more roughly still, equal to the diameter of the yoghurt maker in the upstairs tools cupboard.

So, I tied the tie round the yoghurt maker, which was a lot easier than I thought, and carefully slipped it off. Voila, a subject for tonight’s PoD.

Tomorrow it’s Gems and they’re rehearsing, so I’m going out. Afterwards, we’re hoping against hope that it’s Jamie G who’s in the chair for salsa, but it looks like it’s the end of the advanced class for us. I think we may be going to a ballroom class instead of salsa on a Monday night. The end of an era.