… 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.