Skye

Elgol1Back now from an excellent trip to Skye and proving that with patience, sensitivity and consideration all round it is possible to combine a family holiday with a photographic visit. There do have to be many compromises of course and in truth perhaps neither fulfils its true potential but in the same was a really good day's climbing ends in the pub, then a really good session taking photographs ends with being able to share the them with family. The day itself is the better for the social aspect. I failed miserably to get up before the family and return for breakfast triumphantly, the week and my energy just weren't like that . I did manage an evening in Elgol while the family rested after the drive up. The rest was achieved by combining visiting interesting places and what seemed (to me at least...) very efficient picture taking.

The weather was kind with only one day fully saturated and during the rest we managed to visit Elgol (twice), Neist Point, The Old man of Storr, The Quirang, Kilt Rock and Sligachan. On the journeys to and from we also took in The Buachaille twice and Eliean Donan.  A few photos were made from lay-bys and more than a few were made more hurriedly than they should have been but the week was a great success.

Elgol2From Monday to Friday, less one washout, I managed at least 6 'keepers' which even allowing for the natural attributes of Skye is a good return. If the rest of the family can bear it, I'd repeat this style of holiday again.

Buttermere

Buttermere1470Buttermere in late September. Beware too much pre-visualizing. the week had been wet, windy and changeable. The day had been one of huge showers blowing through and my plan had been set to do battle with the elements in Buttermere. Upon arriving in the valley in the last afternoon, the wind dropped, the skies cleared and the sun even peeped through. With the still conditions, the midges appeared and the evening quickly changed into another plan entirely.

In my mind I'd seen shafts of sun bursting between the showers. What I got was a far more conventional scene. I'd expected to shoot for black and white and I ended up with colour. What works for me is the colour of the water and the tiny patch of sun to the right of Fleetwith Pike.

Buttermere Dash

Buttermere1485

Yesterday I tried to maintain my new year's resolution of seizing opportunities. Having been at a meeting in Penrith all afternoon I rushed straight off at the end and headed for Buttermere. At the top of Honister Pass I changed from work suit to outdoor clothes and set about finding somewhere to park. The road from Gatesgarth to Buttermere village is desperately short of parking spots and I ended up with a very dubious piece of parking. The afternoon had been wild with sun and huge showers sweeping through but by the time I got there the dram had been replaced by tranquillity. Looking for foreground interest while trying to beat the fading light brought me to this washed up log. I was tempted to add to the composition by moving it but settled for higher moral ground. The long exposure was slightly compromised by the fact that the log was able to shift slightly as the waters lapped around it leading to a loss of critical sharpness. I made both colour and black and white versions but much prefer the colour one in this case. I was glad as ever to have worn my Hunter wellies as the entire evening's picture taking was made standing in water about a foot deep.  It was a beautiful and tranquil evening at the end of a very busy day. the peace and quiet were medicinal and even the long drive home and late evening meal could not take the shine off a wonderful experience.

Tiree #4

A second image from Salum. This time with a much simpler composition. Fewer clouds and trying to eliminate as much as possible expect the three bits of land above the sea. The right hand is sadly attached, I think the whole image would have worked better if it had been three separate distinct islands, but you have what you have.

Tiree#3

Back to the Broch at Vaul today with just the little Nikon. I was thinking about simplified seascapes. The final choice has just one point of foreground interest and relies upon the fabulous clouds to carry the image. Less is more, the question will be how much less I can achieve.

Tiree #2

PRN_1306-as-Smart-Object-1After a disappointing afternoon I went down to the tiny beach nearby. Here I went some way towards that more simplified composition. The light was fascinating and combined with the long shutter speed, produced an image that almost seems to be lit artificially. I'm pleased with this image and I think it keeps me on track. I'm tempted to think that it would have been better without the large rock to the left?I'll return soon as that little cove has more to give I think.

Tiree #1

This is already proving difficult. I'm struggling for simplified compositions already. Whether this is due to tides or seduction by the big vistas I'm not sure. I am to some extent influenced by the paintings of Colin Woodcock who runs Blue Beyond, the gallery on Tiree. he seems to capture the very magic that I see on this island. Many of my images, have an echo of his work. There is something about the combination of the blue sky, blue sea, topaz sea over sand and the pure white shell sands that reaches deep inside me. However, I know what I must do - simplify, simplify, simplify. Somehow while still keeping a  sense of the place to lock the images to this island. I'm pretty sure I will be more successful at higher tides, but time will tell. The day is brightening with some patches of blue starting to stake a claim to the immense skies. Nowhere I've ever been has skies that appear so large. Tiree-seascape

Heading North

The bags are packed and we're heading north tomorrow morning. The destination is the Hebridean Island of Tiree via an afternoon in Glencoe /on Rannoch Moor. It's ten years since I've been to Glencoe and despite an exceptionally poor weather forecast, I'm looking forward to being there. The following week will be spent on Tiree. I am determined to look at both places with fresh eyes. Despite an annual visit to Tiree, my photography making has shifted dramatically this year and I'm hoping for a new lease of life on the island. Just about everything has changed since I was last there. New equipment, new inspirations and nearly all my best work has occurred in the last 12 months. My goals, against which I will be judged on return are simplicity in composition, new variants on old locations and new viewpoints found. I'm going to be thinking in colour and black and white and will be looking for opportunities for long exposures. On any domestic trip, a balance has to be struck between photography and more 'normal' human shared enjoyment. It is 15 months since I was last there ( the annual Whit trip being lost due to emergency eye surgery) and the pressure is on to produce.

iPhone

20120729-110906Taken using iPhone3 camera and processed in phone using Snapseed App.

'The best camera is the one you have with you.'

Bass-Rock

Picture taken this afternoon with an old Canon A570 Compact camera. I just went out to scout around for an evening trip and saw the clouds and light sit nicely. When I got back I thought there was an odd flaw in the picture giving a strange blemish to the upper left of the rock. On zooming in, it became clear that the 'blemish' was tens of thousands of sea-birds all lifting off at once.

North Berwick tidal pool

Tidal-Pool

This image was made yesterday during a brief visit to North Berwick. I've been trying to capture this picture for ages and finally got the combination of my availability, weather, light and tide all together at one point. I waited three hours on the beach and this was the very last exposure I made. It was taken on a Nikon D700 with a 50mm F1.8 lens. 4 minutes at f11 with Lee 0.6 ND Hard Grad and Lee Big Stopper. The structure is a children's paddling pool which in itself is not of any photographic significance. However the tight composition serves to remove most extraneous detail and the long exposure reduces the detail in the water to a flat shape. The result is simplified to the geometric shapes. The icing on the cake is of course the Bass Rock in the far distance. This is a fantastic part of Scotland for coastal photography. This location was first brought to me by Colin Homes, the Edinburgh based landscape photographer.

 

If you want to get ahead

My new tripod head has arrived this week. I had identified three major features:

  • More stability than the Manfrotto 486RC2
  • Arca Swiss compatible
  • Low profile

Induro HeadThe obvious candidate and the one that most fellow photographers arrive at is the Really Right Stuff BH-55. This is the de-facto king of ball and socket heads. I was pretty much resigned to having to pay their high prices and accept having to order direct from the States when I came across an alternative The Induro BHL3 This is a little known head and I struggled to source it in this country but it deserves to be much, much better known. See my full review here.

Refining the process

bass-rock-editThis image was made three weeks ago. The revised workflow that I came back with has begun to change the nature of the output. The combination of CS5 and Silver Efex Pro has begun to allow me to produce the image that I had in my head.The initial RAW file came out of a Nikon D700, Nikon 16-35mm VR and Lee Big Stopper. 

Workshop impact

North-BerwickThey say the proof of the pudding is in the eating and I suppose the saying holds true. I enjoyed my time with Colin Homes enormously and would recomend it without hesitation. However in good management speak, what has been the impact and what did I learn?

Some aspects were reassuring in terms of my existing practice and my general camera craft stood up reasonably well. I've not long been using the Lee Big Stopper so some aspects of handling that were brushed up. The first part that Colin addressed with us was exposure. This came as a bit of a surprise as I'm reasonably adept at getting well exposed images with a  good range of tones. However whether it is due to growing up with colour transparency film or not I have  always feared over exposure. Colin pushed us to get our histogram as far to the right as possible I've seen this expressed as ETTR (Exposure to the right). I've never worked that way in the past but seeing files produced have converted. He also taught me to make use of RAW files. I've never been that bothered but working in RAW was a revelation. The final part of the technique slot was given to using Photoshop CS5. I've never gone beyond Elements before but now it has converted me completely.

Lessons learned.

I took the plunge a couple of weeks ago and signed up for a Coastal Landscape photography course. There is an enormous industry out there of people offering to take your photography to a new level and in many cases with not that much to demonstrate that their photography is at any special level. I've always viewed such offerings with a degree of skepticism. Out of the blue, when visiting the delightful seaside town of North Berwick, I was literally stopped dead in my tracks while passing the local art shop. In the window was a huge framed print of the image to the left. I just stood and stared. It was a Sunday and the shop was shut so i did what anyone would do, photographed it on the iPhone and took a note of his name to investigate further. The photographer is Colin Homes and when I discovered that he was running courses, I was hooked. Here was someone taking images I'd kill to have taken and ready and willing to show me how. The booking was made and I duely spent a fantastic day with him a couple of weeks ago.

The day began with an overview of his workflow, a little on photoshop and an insight into creating the best possible file from which to work. After that we headed off, just two of us on the course that day, to the coast not half an hour's walk from the town. The next four hours or so were spent taking photographs with exactly the right balance of guidance from Colin. Never pushy, never intrusive, just there when required. The input for me was balance between a little technique and a greater part of compositional suggestion. We're all different, but for me it was spot on.

We returned in time to base to have a look at our output and for each of us one file recived the Colin treatment using Photoshop CS5. Colin took us through the inital RAW import and manipulation then a whistlestop tour of using layer masks, particularly the use of multiple gradient masks. This gave each one of us a final file demonstrating all the taught elements.

This process illustrated a number of important points in the teaching and learning process. The teacher must for me have credibility, they must be able to pass on their knowledge ina  way that enables me to learn and finally I need to enjoy the process. I had a superb day, thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned loads into the bargain. Almost more importantly, I have continued to learn from the day and  my own process has changed forever. Can't wish for more than that

Time and Tide

Time and tide, as they say, wait for no man. I’ve just made the effort to check times, got up early, made my way down to the sea to work on a particular image only to find I’ve made a mistake. Not only was the tide not high but it was virtually out and getting lower. I was there last night but ended up coming home after  a very frustrating hour. The cold was so intense that the pain in my hands became unbearable. On top of this the wind was so strong that it was lifting the tripod (+D700, lens and bag hooked on below) to the extent that I had to hold on during the 2m45s exposures. One of those times when maybe the ultra thin, lightweight carbon fibre legs might have been better made of cast iron.There is a danger in pre-visualisation as today when I couldn’t make the image I had in  my mind, nothing else would come and there was no flow.

Eastern shores

Just back from a brief visit to North Berwick. I'd gone to visit some local beaches and with a picture of the tidal pool in mind. In my defence the tide was against me and the image I made was ok'ish. However I was brought up very short when I happened to look in the window of the art shop on the high street. I was stopped in my tracks by one of the most remarkable pictures I have ever seen. They are the ones that fall some way between inspiring and making me want to throw it all out and take up stamp collecting. The photograph was by Colin I Homes. I just stood and stared and wished it had been mine. On searching for his work I came across his website  and discovered a huge body of marvellous images. I also discovered that he runs courses and am currently investigating.

Into the mist

Having snowed hard most of Sat the forecast for Sunday was thick mist. Time to take the camera up onto Sizergh Fell not far from our house. I set off to visit the boulders previously shown but caught the composition while looking around the area. Tree alone didn’t offer much, sheep alone were just, well- sheep. Together, for me, something works about this image. It almost seemed as though the two sheep had posed there deliberately to balance the image. I like this image a lot. The Fell is a very special place, full of ancient echoes and somehow this picture captures something of the mystery.

D700, 16-35mm, 0.6 Grad ND.