Sun behind clouds

Helios 58mm f/2 lens wide open but with a pinhole drilled in the lens-cap, giving an effective aperture of about f/30 (almost two stops narrower than the lens’s own aperture scale). This was just slow enough to allow a reasonable hand-held exposure of the sun behind iridescent clouds, although it still took a lot of care to retrieve detail in the highlights.

Sun behind clouds

Change to Fair

Fisherman's Barometer, St Andrews

Fisherman’s Barometer, St Andrews

The fisherman’s barometer, corner of North Castle and North Streets, St Andrews.

A little experimentation in The Gimp, to create a synthetic “scratches” texture layer – using plasma clouds, old-photo simulation, distortions and other trickery.