Most of the useful photographic time today was spent fitting a new lock to my niece’s kitchen door . Admittedly I could have gone out earlier, but it was too cold and I made excuses and stayed in.
A little dropper from a spider plant looking for its own plot of land to grow on.
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Went for a walk around St Mo’s today. Saw a couple of deer but they were miles away. Got one good shot of a swan, some ice crystals, a sparrow and made a really dodgy shot in Photoshop.
The sparrow has been talking to the robin who constantly evades me when he sees the camera. However, I managed to catch him today when his back was turned.
One of a pair of swans that live on the pond. Looking good in the morning sun.
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Ice crystals on the boardwalk. Sometimes ice is nice, as long as you don’t slip on it.
Isn’t this the most awful piece of ‘shopping you’ve ever seen? Strangely it got an instant fave on Flickr. I should have given it some fancy title and told a long story of camping out all night in sub zero temperatures waiting for the dawn to break to get this exact shot. Maybe it would have got into Explore. Maybe I’ll try it. Anyway, this wee hawthorn bush has seen its fair share of wild winds in the past, judging by the number of twists in its branches. The creator of this artwork is a bit twisted too.
No, there wasn’t actually any snow today, I was driving around in the chance of getting some snow pictures. I’d recently downloaded The Photographer’s Ephemeris and wanted to see how accurate it was. TPE is a neat little prog that works out where and when the sun and moon rises and sets for any given location, and date. It does an awful lot more than that too, and according to my test today, it is extremely accurate. I set out with the stated intention of getting the first shot with the sun just shining through the trees. It was spot-on accurate. Just what I wanted. I would recommend it to anyone who needs to know this information.
THE PINES OF ROME
No, not really, more The Beeches of Moodiesburn, but this avenue of trees always makes me think of Respighi’s symphonic poem (yes, I had to Google it to find out exactly what it was). Listen to it. Like these trees it’s really gloomy.
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I had hoped to get some shots of pheasants here as there are usually a few of these stupid, but colourful birds in the woods on the left. No birds, but a pretty winter scene, so switched lenses and snapped this instead. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, even if you hoped for pheasants!
After checking yesterday’s robin picture, I was sure the Tamron lens was back focusing. I’d seen focusing tools advertised on the net for exorbitant prices, so I did what anyone would do. I made my own. Having Autodesk Inventor on my PC, I spent yesterday evening drawing up the plans for my focus checker. The prototype, like most prototypes was stuck together with pritt stick and mapping pins. However, it worked. It would appear that the Tamron was back focusing by 14 points (out of 20). The D7000 allows you to change the apparent focus point by 20 arbitrary points in either direction, so I did the adjustment and re-checked. It appeared that the problem was solved for the price of a couple of pieces of foamboard, a couple of printouts and a lot of swearing. Testing was set for this morning and off we drove to Glasgow Green. It worked!! Results below:
Goose in Glasgow Green near the river. Allegedly they came from Bowling where they protected a whisky bond.
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These are fluffy balls. “Fluffy Balls” is a technical term for these, eh, fluffy balls :-/
Seen in the People’s Palace Wintergarden this morning.
The remainder of the photos are from further testing in the afternoon at the now legendary St Mo’s.
I liked the way the setting sun had caught the leaves. I also liked the letterbox format.
Tree and Leaf
Leaf still hanging on a twig. Title stolen from a JRR Tolkien book of short stories.
Late afternoon sun through the trees. St Mo’s again.
We went to Dunfermline today. The last time we were there we commented on how run down it seemed. I’d hoped it would have picked up a bit, but it looks like the town is still on the downward slide. So many boarded up shops. So many charity shops. Had lunch and came home. Stopped at Torryburn on the way home and got a few wide shots of the Firth of Forth. Very cold, but dry although the CITRAC signs were promising more snow. No comment.
Dropped in at Torryburn on the way home from Dunfermline today. I’m rarely disappointed with the skies on view here on the Forth estuary. It was bitterly cold although the temperature according to the car thermometer was 4ºc. I think the minus icon must have been misbehaving because it felt like it was well below zero.
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This robin plays hide and seek with me all the time, despite the fact that I feed him well, summer and winter. Today I managed to catch him at last feeding from my home-made bird feeder made from an ovaltine tub and a pencil. Why buy when you can make?
After a couple of days posting snow pictures, I feel I’m all snowed out. I just can’t be bothered taking any more snow shots for the present. I’ll probably go back to it soon. Had a good day in Glasgow and lunch in Chaophraya. Cold, but dry. The weather, not the restaurant.
I’ve liked these striped flowers since they appeared on the table so today was the day to give them their place in the sun!
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It would appear that our snow due yesterday had become lost in transit. It was delivered during the night. I think we got someone else’s snow as well as our own. Maybe I should stop making jokes about the white stuff and I don’t mean milk. I think someone in the weather department has it in for me.
I like the pattern of the boardwalks at St Mo’s. Unfortunately, NLC don’t like them. I think they cost too much to maintain, and being in Cumbernauld, they get bypassed more than if they were in, say, Motherwell, the centre of the the NLC universe. Cumbernauld? Where’s that?
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This is a vertorama made from three individual shots and merged in Photoshop. Lovely light for an hour this afternoon.
I like this new building being constructed in Queen Street Glasgow. The ‘S’ shape looked good from a distance, but up close it’s not so clever looking. I’m sure it will be great when it’s finished.
Two sparrows showing that you if you cooperate, you can both get your nuts at the same time, so to speak!
Despite dire warnings from the weather people, the predicted snow forgot to come. It may just have been delayed enroute and will surprise us tomorrow. Who can tell? Certainly not the BBC weather forecasters who simply hold their hands out the window to tell if it’s raining.
I get really pissed off with some of the group admins on Flickr. The latest one for Wild Scotland will not allow pics to be posted unless they are geotagged. That means the first one here will not be appearing. Nor will the other 18 that were on the site before this strange requirement. Oh well, their loss.
The other thing that pisses me off about Flickr and may eventually lead me to leaving the site is the recent fashion for ‘favouriting’ pics without leaving a comment. It seems like a lot of folk join Flickr (other sites have the same problem) simply to ‘collect’ pictures. Now maybe, like my daughter suggests, it’s just an extension of the Facebook ‘like’, or maybe it’s a more sinister attempt to steal photos. In an attempt to find out which is which, I’ve decided to drop the size of my standard Flickr images for a week or two. I’ll see if the smaller images are less interesting to the Favourite Fiends.
I saw three deer on a walk through the woods today. I managed to photograph this one while unconsciously framing it with the out of focus branches of the pine tree I was hiding behind.
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Sparrow feeding this morning in the garden.
Blue tit demonstrating how to hold your breakfast peanut while you eat it.
St Mo’s pond by evening light.
I drove into Falkirk today and got lost looking for a retail park. Eventually found it along with the shop where they were selling some good acrylic paint for a quarter the normal shop price. Still stuck between oils and acrylic. Oils are much nicer to paint with but they are messy. Acrylics are easier to work with, but dry too quickly for my style of painting. Unfortunately, they don’t mix and match, at least I haven’t found a way to do it yet. Photos taken from the top of the Tak Ma Doon road today. I accidentally left the AF switch set to manual and screwed up a couple of potentially good shots. A lesson learned.
I’ve photographed this cottage many times over the years. I wasn’t satisfied with today’s shot, the sky just wasn’t right. So I cropped a bit of more interesting skyscape from another of today’s shots and faded it in to the cottage shot. Much happier with the result.
I had accidentally set the lens to MF before this shot and it was slightly out of focus as a result. It took a bit of post processing to get it looking like I saw it, but I think it’s an improvement over the raw file.
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Took a long walk along the canal in the morning hoping to see the legendary kingfisher. He/she was out somewhere on business. However, I did see a pair of swans flying low over the canal and a buzzard off in the distance across the canal and unreachable even at 300mm.
From the top :
1. One of a pair of swans flying low under the radar on the Forth and Clyde canal.
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2. Swan flying along the Forth and Clyde canal.
3. Female goosander looking just a little startled
4. A beech tree sitting alone under an interesting sky.
5. Pinecones sitting in a nice horizontal line.