Category: Uncategorized

… the heart of the sun.

Sunday 16th Nov 2014

Just another somewhat less than ‘diamond day’ where the sky cleared around 2.30pm and for an hour there was some useable light.  S encouraged me to get out for a while before I made the dinner.  Salt crust sea bass.  Fiddly but lovely!  Here are the results of today’s walk around St Mo’s and other places.

I usually try to clone out the cables from the pylons, but I actually like them here because they seem to frame the sun.

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Solitary crow watching the sun set.

I simply couldn’t get the Tamron lens to focus on the grass stem.  The target was just too small and the lens kept being drawn to the clouds and the setting sun.  So, it was back to old fashioned manual focusing.  If I’d been thinking properly, I could have used the focusing screen on the back instead of the viewfinder, but that would have come with its own camera shake problems.  In the end, this was probably the best choice.  It’s not quite 100% sharp, but it’s good enough and the f10 setting probably gave me a bit more DOF latitude.

Went to photograph a farm in deepest Ayrshire today, but the light wasn’t right and I wasn’t happy with the results, so until the results suit me, you won’t be seeing them here.  My blog, my rules!  After that, I got solidly lost in the hinterland of Newton Mearns.  Didn’t actually thing they’d allow a dobber like me into their gated community, but they did.  Having said that, the polis did tail me for a few miles, just to make sure I got the message and got back on the M77 sharpish.

This is the Balgray reservoir.  To be more precise, it’s the access walkway to the little control tower on the reservoir.  I liked the detail in this vandal deterrent.  You can see by the graffiti on the door in the background that it’s more decoration than deterrent, unfortunately.

This is the picture of the day.  It’s the tower and access walkway at the reservoir.  I watched two Polish blokes fishing nearby.  One of them caught a pike.  I remember my dad telling me that Poles used to fish in the loch at Glenboig for pike and were the few people who would eat the fish.

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I left the dreadful Blipfoto today.  It’s been on my hit list for a few weeks now.  It consistently loses entries I add to my collection there.  The interface is clunky and extremely user-unfriendly.  Ok, so is this at times, but I’m making this my own as I go along.  Any mistakes are mine, not some dobber in Embra collecting my money and not providing a decent service.  It was good to start with, but now it’s becoming worse each week, so I’ve left.  That leaves me with Flickr (slow, but a reasonably good audience) and this (long may it continue).  Thoughts of Chairman Zog.

Yesterday started out well and got worse.  Today started out worse and got better weather wise.

After a dreary morning and early afternoon having spent hours repairing the depredations Itunes had dealt to my music library, the sky suddenly cleared and I set off in search of good light.  This was the shot I intended taking.  With the glancing light it looked good.  Good colour in the grass and a bit of texture in the land and sky.

This was the first shot I got and it looked better than I had hoped for.  The warm light from the low sun lit up the land perfectly IMO.  I even managed to capture a homeward bound crow silhouetted against the far hills.  And you thought it was a dust bunny – shame on you!

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It looked like a decent morning, so I decided to get up and out fairly early. By the time I had dragged myself out, it had dulled down a bit, but at least it was dry. Wen along the path from Auchinstarry to Twechar and got some autumnal photos.

Queenzieburn and the Campsies

Another Scottish pronunciation anomaly. Although it is spelled Queenzieburn, it is pronounced Queenieburn.

Red and yellow and pink and green

Bramble leaves showing off their autumn colours. These are probably the most colourful leaves in this country at this time of year.

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Little umbrellas are everywhere found

Mushrooms/toadstools growing on a fallen hawthorn tree.

Not the shiniest day.  Went in to Falkirk to pick up the tickets and have lunch at the tea shop.  Then the clouds came over and the rain came down.

The little flower looked startled at being a star for a day.

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One of the great things about being retired is that you can do more or less what you want, when you want without someone telling you there’s work that needs doing.  So with that in mind, I took myself into Glasgow this morning with nothing more to do than buy some oil paint and my lunch – though not on the same plate, thank you very much.  I had a fine day, too.  Just wandering, or as someone else put it, a flaneur.  An aimless wander.  Ye cannie beat it!

No Exit

Don’t try to use this as a fire escape.  You’ll just be disappointed.

To Infinity and Beyond

Under the M8 In Glasgow there are wonderful vistas to behold.
It’s the leading lines that impressed me along with the painted “trompe-l’œil” painting at the end.  The figure in the mid-distance was a ‘lucky’!

Symmetry

Under the M8 In Glasgow there are wonderful vistas to behold.
I liked the fact that the only colour here was from the leaves and the yellow stair guards.

Glasgow’s Flat Iron Building

Every time I pass this building on the M8, I promise myself I’ll photograph it some day.  Today was that day.  It’s actually Shamrock Street and I really like this isolated tusk of a sandstone building.  I’ll be back on a day with better light DV.

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Acrylic on card.

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Remarkably clear sky and little mist today which was a great change from yesterday’s rain. After spending most of my day wrestling with Lightroom, trying unsuccessfully to produce a more subtle solarization effect than yesterday’s, I decided to go out.

I drove up to Fannyside and saw this vista. It looked quite good in colour, but so much better in mono.

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Having said there was little mist around, turn 90º and it looks like there is  mist lying over the loch at Fannside.  Yes, there was a very little mist there, but really this is the effect of using the clarity slider in Lightroom.  It seems to increase the contrast local to tonal differences, much the same as the acutance I used to get when developing B&W film in Paterson Acutol.  This shot looked terrible in colour and it was a relief to see it looking so much better in mono.  It’s still a little dark, but I think it looks ok, especially on a black ground.

Troon might have had weather for the ducks today (Saturday), but it looks like it was also suitable for starlings. These birds were having a great time.

The bird second from the left wasn’t actually in this shot, he/she was cloned in from another shot.  Also, the DOF was faked using McPhun Focus, a free download from McPhun (Legally Free, that is!).  It’s not absolutely true, but what is in photography.

It was comforting on the drive home to see the CITRAC signs through torrential rain informing us “Heavy rain expected”. Without that information I’d never have noticed!

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Saw these on a walk along the Forth & Clyde canal today. Parked at the Stables near Kirky and walked along the towpath, then back to the Stables for a spot of lunch. Most enjoyable.

Mushrooms or toadstools? I don’t know what they are, but I’m not taking any risks, only taking photos.

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