Photo of the Week 2024-12-16

 

- The Shores of Loch Assynt -

 

In the Highlands, on the shores of lovely Loch Assynt sit the remains of a 15th Century Castle and a more modest 17th Century Laird's House built for a Lady who "did not care for the austerity" of the castle. Both proved a bit of a challenge to find interesting compositions during our brief stop as we turned onto A837 on the NC500.

' Ardveck Castle Remains Across the Loch '

' What Remains of Ardveck Castle '

' Calda House Remains  Across the Loch '

' What Remains of Calda House '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' Along the Shore to Calda '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' Ardveck from the Beach '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' Back Along the Path to Calda '

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-12-09

 

 

' Moine House III '

A very early start to our day had us in Scrabster to fuel up before hitting the NC 500 for 4+ hours of driving through Caithness and Sutherland. Our first stop to stretch legs and enjoy the scenery was at Moine House in Lairg.

' Moine House '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' Moine House II '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The remains of Moine House, made a nice foreground element for Ben Hope and the distant peaks, though a bright mid morning sky proved  challenging to prevent from blowing out.

The stop had not been planned so we made it brief and headed off to Durness next.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-12-02

 

While researching locations to visit during our full day on Orkney, I discovered this seaside trail featuring a sea stack. This became our primary objective for our last stop of the day and it did not disappoint. I could have wished for bigger waves or better light but I think this turned out just fine.

 

' Yesnaby Castle Sea Stack '

The Yesnaby Coastal Walk was a wonderful conclusion to our full day on Orkney.

Here are a couple other views of the sea stack ...

' defiant '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' independent '

 

' last legs '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' Yesnaby - The Story in the Rocks '

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-11-25

 

' A Birsay Bay Tearoom View '

On our second day on Orkney, after arriving in Birsay and making a number of images from a seaside parking area, I parked the car at the tearoom and stowed the camera gear for lunch. As luck would have it a grand scene developed outside our table-side window ... and me with only my cell phone :-/
 

I posted this shot at the time, direct from the phone complete with reflections in the window. Here, I've cleaned up the reflected lights, added a touch of processing magic and cropped more to my liking.

 

A few minutes later, it looked like this :-O

 

It was a great day, a great lunch and a great view !

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-11-18

 

 

' a stone still standing '

The Stones of Stenness today consist of four upright stones up to 6m in height

 in a circle that originally held 12 stone

 

' The Stones of Stenness '

 

The stones were encircled by a large ditch and bank, the form of which has been lost over time by ploughing. Some of their story is told on the interpretive panels at the site.

 

 

 

 DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-11-11

 

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them

 

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal 

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; 

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound, 

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, 

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, 

To the end, to the end, they remain.

 

                                                                         Laurence Binvon

 

 

Note: Photo by John England, processing & treatment by Doug England
 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-11-04

 

As we docked, then left St. Margaret's Hope for our Orkney accommodations in Stenness, rain came and then quickly passed. By the time we parked our car to unload, the heavy skies were breaking up ...

 

' Across to Graemsay and  further to Hoy '

 ... this was the view that greeted us from the entrance to our home for two nights on Orkney. The sun was beaming rays through the cloud down onto the northern tip of Hoy.

 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-10-28

 

The Old Packhorse Bridge

On the third day (second day of driving) in Scotland we made our way through the eastern highlands to Inverness. The day's route was planned to include a stop in Carrbridge with plenty of time for photography. Why, because the Old Packhorse Bridge was there.

 

This bridge instantly became a "must see" when I first learned of it while researching locations for our trip. It was one of the first places added to a map of locations to visit for photography. Labeled "the oldest stone bridge in the highlands", whether true or not, it certainly was something to see and a little challenging to find just the right composition.

I’ve visited historical sites before and been surprised to find them surrounded by elements of modern living. Such was the case here, but with some time to explore compositional options I was able to come up with something a bit different than the typical tourist snapshot.

For this subject, one obvious shot was from a viewing platform located st the bottom of a staircase that brought you down closer to river level. Another would have been from the modern road bridge spanning the river slightly downstream. I worked both of these using different focal lengths and even ND filters to get some water smoothing long exposures. Ultimately, the image I like best was from the viewing platform "ish". I say "ish" because I put down the camera bag and stepped up, over and onto the rock of the river bank to get further left than the platform would allow so that I could include the wonderful leaves of a maple sporting fall colour.

 

 

' Fall Colour at The Old Packhorse Bridge '

 

It was hard to get the composition I wanted with some of those "elements of modern living" encroaching on the upper right but I worked it the best I could and took care of the rest in post ;-)

I made a number of shots to document the bridge in context with it's surroundings and offer them here to provide a bit of background story of getting an acceptable image in such conditions.

' commemorative plaque '

 

 

' branches in the way '

' someone move that other bridge '

' what a spot to put a petrol station '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' no clear view '

 

 

' at least this shows the upstream rapids '

 

In my ranking, this final one might be a distant second to the featured image.

'  The Old Packhorse Bridge '

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-10-21

 

I was still going through a bit of a backlog of images from Scotland, selecting, editing, processing when the Aurora Borealis event of Oct 10 struck. That provided a totally new experience of shooting, selecting, editing and processing which I blogged about those last week. Now, as I turn back to Scotland, the autumn colours here in Southern Ontario are firing off and of course I'm drawn capture them ...

... although I'm always eager to get to my latest captures, I also want to make the time to continue learning processing methods and techniques. Like my cameras, there is still much capability that I don't know about and use. Today's learning, included reworking an image after viewing an online tutorial showing how to use some of the latest Lightroom masking techniques to transform RAW files.

' Rocky Perch IV.v2 - reworked '

' Rocky Perch IV - initial version '

In the reworked version I used the sky masking feature to increase structure, detail and tame the highlights. I also used a radial gradient to enhance the natural sidelight from the sun, subject masking to bring up shadow detail slightly in the cliff. Finally, I used both radial and linear gradients to darken the foreground and bring more attention to the sunlit castle ruins.
 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-10-14

 

While working through a number of photos from my recent trip to Scotland, an opportunity to photograph the Aurora Borealis at an intensity seldom seen had me out with camera at a local viewpoint, Pilkington Overlook, north of Guelph. To say it was a special is an understatement, it was possibly a once in a lifetime experience with the Kp predicted at 8 and clear sky conditions. 

 

I managed to get back from a trip to visit our sons in Eastern Ontario and scramble to prepare for the possibility of a very late and possibly very long night. Arriving at the spot I had selected, it was evident that a crowd had gathered and cars filled the parking area spilling out to the nearby roadsides. When I saw a couple walking to there car I asked if there was anything to see and they indicated that there was but they were going to check out another location. So I continued to grab a camera, tripod, headlamp, had and some gloves to find a place to set up.

Although it was much earlier than I had expected, the show had already started. There was subtle aurora activity across the horizon from NW to NE. Over the course of just over an hour, the performance built to a stunning climax before fading away ... 

Here is a screen capture of all 72 RAW files from the shoot, all without any enhancement, the way the camera captured the scenes with consistent exposure settings. It shows the progression of activity from 21:41 to 22:46 ... it's near unbelievable.

 

At it's peak, I was astounded by what was being captured on the camera sensor. No, it didn't look like this to the naked eye and for an explanation of why, I direct you to this resource so I can focus the discussion on and showing the images I made.

Over the past couple of days, I've been eeking out some of the images I made, mostly those leading up to the crescendo of colour that occurred where I was just after 22:00. The colour really started to come on just before 22:00, with red becoming as prominent as green in the sky. By 22:10 it was all around, ahead to the north, to the west, to the east, overhead and even behind me. It was simply overwhelming, even with the naked eye.

I've attempted to select a set of images from the 3 dozen that I've processed to illustrate the progression of the event during the period I was photographing. Here they are in sequence ...

 

Find me on FB, Insta and flickr to follow along as I post the complete collection of images from this amazing event.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-10-07

Recently, day two in Scotland had us picking up a rental car and navigating our way out of Edinburgh (a story in itself) to the Battery Road Bridges Viewpoint in North Queensferry. All three of the bridges, The Forth (rail) Bridge. The Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing are something to see. As a retired Civil Engineer, my interest in what we build remains keen and I was particularly eager to make this stop at the base of the Forth Bridge because of it's historical and engineering significance some of which which can be read via this link.

 

Worth singling out is that the Forth Bridge, once the longest single cantilever span bridge in the world, is a Scottish icon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and today, second longest to the Quebec Bridge which I intended to visit again with sufficient time to photograph (spoiler alert: potential future blog post).

 

' Forth Bridge '

Following my intention, as laid out in a previous post, to look for something a little different, something creative and unique to my vision in "Photography When I Travel", I created the image above. Getting close to the north support base, I was able to use an ultra-wide focal length to capture this powerful composition. Of all the images I made during the brief stop we had on Battery Road, this is my favourite.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-09-30

 

Back from Scotland for a week and I'm still posting images from the first day we were there, almost three weeks ago. At this rate it may take me a while to get through all that I shot during the trip :-D

After making a stop at the Scott Monument (last week's post), the next stop while in Edinburgh was Dean Village. Research on potential locations to visit and photograph led me to add this to our Day-1 itinerary as it was just a short walk from our hotel. There was much to photograph (see my Scotland 2024 Album on flickr for some additional images), and the old stone bridge carrying Bells Brae across the Water of Leith really caught my eye. So much so I had trouble selecting just one image, so here's a collage.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-09-23

 

I don't do "Travel Photography" per se, I do Photography, while I Travel. What's the difference? Well, to me Travel Photography is done in a documentary style that that provides a straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events. Straightforward being the main differentiator.

When I do Photography while I Travel, in addition to the straightforward, common subject compositions to document the journey, I'm looking for something a little different, something creative and unique to my vision. Travel schedules do not always allow for me to explore photographic options to the extent I would like and such was the case on the Scotland 12-Day Self Drive tour Lynn and I just completed. I'll elaborate ...

 

This trip was not a photo specific tour, it was a trip for Lynn and I to see Scotland and would have us on a schedule with pre-booked accommodation each night and with check in and check out time windows to meet as well as set distances to navigate by car each day. Given that I was both driver, navigator (for the most part) and photographer, it was not possible to be at locations at optimum times or in optimum conditions for photography. I was very much, you're there when you are and you get what you get as far as light and weather, then move on to the next. Far from the planning I might do ahead of shooting to check weather conditions, arrive at time for the best light, schedule a time to avoid excessive crowds etc.

 

Our first night was in Edinburgh and since we had done the Castle and Royal Mile on a previous visit, we started at the Scott Monument close to our hotel.

In this lead image, I used an 11mm focal length and extreme upward angle to capture a dramatic perspective emphasizing the grandeur of this monument to one of Scotland's iconic personalities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This pair of shots were made from the lower walkway behind the monument to include some of the colourful flowers and flowing lines of the steps up to street level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the final images for this post, I composed with the bright blue sky and white clouds, some would say not the norm for Scotland, to capture the beautiful weather we were fortunate to have as a welcome to Alba.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 DJE