Bright Light / City

 

A fairly obvious shot from a viewing location on the south side of the Tay, the road bridge disappearing in a stream of lights flowing to Dundee in the fog. At night. As a long exposure, because it’s what one does, right?

Bright Light / CIty

It’s been a while…

It’s been a few months now since I called time on the fixation with black&white closeup as a style. So it’s time to remember how to do it… Herewith, mostly as a lens-test, cyclamen and cactus plants from the kitchen windowsill.

Since I last looked, RawTherapee has changed a lot – I’ve learned that the `Contrast by Details’ control was responsible for some undesirable noisy artefacts in previous profiles, it’s gained better control over black and white conversion and even support for X-Trans sensors (now there’s something to lust after).

A Lunchtime Stroll

I spent a lunchtime recently with a friend from the Photo Society, strolling in leisurely fashion around the South Inch in Perth, mostly admiring the shapes and colours of trees. Well, why not… especially in Autumn!

Then and Now, Night and Day

Some time around March 2007 I acquired an ancient camera, an Ensign Carbine No.3, and took a photo of Perth railway station by night, returning home to develop the film myself. It’s the only photo I remember taking with that camera, but I like it for the Ilford Pan-F tonality and glow from the lens-haze.

Today, on my lunchtime stroll around town, I took a quick photo on the mobile, looking back along the same railway tracks to the station from the other side.

Perth railway station taken from Glasgow Road using a mobile phone camera (2014)

Perth railway station taken from Glasgow Road using a mobile phone camera (2014)

Perth railway station at night, taken on the Ensign Carbine No.3 with Ilford PanF+-50 film (2007)

Perth railway station at night, taken on the Ensign Carbine No.3 with Ilford PanF+-50 film (2007)

Around Dundee Law

A couple of photos from around Dundee Law:

looking south across the River Tay

A view from Dundee Law looking south over the River Tay.

A view from Dundee Law looking south over the River Tay.

The radio transmitter on top of the Law:

The radio transmitter on top of Dundee Law.

Looking west over Lochee, with the Menzieshill Water Tower and Camperdown Jute Mill across to Perthshire hills in the distance:

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Sony NEX-7, 2-stop circular polarizer filter, HDR +/-1 EV.

Squaring the Spheres

A few weeks ago I ordered a pair of extension tubes for the Sony NEX-7; today I got around to experimenting with them for the first time. It’s quite scary seeing so much dust on the live-view LCD panel and realising it’s actually on the front of the lens.

Two tangerines and an apple.

Three Balls - two tangerines and an apple

Three Balls – two tangerines and an apple

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.

Colour or Black and White?

No doubt this is one of the oldest conundrums, generally long-since answered. The conventional approach is that black&white is meant to be an end in itself (a choice made at the time of shooting rather than an option or fallback in processing), in order that the eye be drawn to forms and shapes and textures, appreciated for their own sake without the distractions of realistic colour. As such, you’d expect most images to work either as black&white or as colour; it can also be somewhat annoying when one sees an image presented in more than one way as though the photographer couldn’t decide. It’s even more irksome when you are that photographer. Today I reprocessed an image taken a couple of months ago, and was struck by how  it looked in the intermediate colour form before applying the intended toning.

Shapes in the Dark - colour

Shapes in the Dark – colour

Shapes in the Dark - black and white

Shapes in the Dark – black and white

In this case, I contend the two images both stand alone independently well, and they convey different things; further, the the colour gives a means of distinguishing the silhouetted trees from the surrounding foliage that the black&white image does not, making it look moodier.

A Change of Direction

Sometimes, one’s photography takes quite a turn.

A few years ago, I was all interested in large-format landscape work, when a fellow member of the photo-club inadvertently threw the spanner in the works by saying his particular approach gave results that represented how he felt at a given scene. Hang around: how come every LF landscapie I know feels exactly the same way then, if that way is defined by 5×4 format, tripod low on the ground, golden-hours (normally morning, strangely), portrait orientation, near-mid-far, Fuji Velvia film, grad-ND sky and rear-tilt perspective, amongst other things? Having seen that as a clique fashion rather than individual expression, I rejected it and promptly went digital, making a photo a day using overcast dull light to show the shapes of trees in the local woodland realistically.

Last Saturday marked something of a milestone: 4 years of posting a daily photo on Blipfoto. Over time, the idea of forcing a photo a day (especially one as considered and well-processed as I strived to achieve) has become artistically unhealthy and my enthusiasm for the site has waned considerably, so I called it a day.

In some ways, the future looks to be a return to landscape; certainly I intend shooting a lot more of it than I have previously, but I’m intending letting the inspiration drive matters not forcing it by the calendar. I’m hoping to post more often on this blog as well, but using the real camera as well as the mobile, so there’s been a bit of re-branding happening too…

So it was, on Sunday afternoon, with head slightly reeling from the decision, I set off with Dog for an afternoon stroll, with no idea how far or where we’d go except that I wanted it to be a long walk. And it was the longest we’ve been on since moving here, I think – left Portpatrick and walked past the golf course to Port Mora where I usually turn inland and walk through the Dunskey Glen, but this time I continued past Port Kale and the transmission huts (where cables came ashore for monitoring communication during the Troubles in Northern Ireland)…

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Transmission huts in Port Kale, outside Portpatrick

…and with a bit of determined plodding along the Southern Upland Way, the next thing we saw was Kilantringan Lighthouse in the distance.

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Kilantringan Lighthouse along the Southern Upland Way, black and white with my favoured platinum toning

It took 2.5 hours, so probably 8 miles or thereabouts, given very few photo-stops and some leisurely steep bits.

All in all, an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Incidental Impressions

Last Thursday tea-time, the Queen’s Baton came to Stranraer as part of the run-up to the Commonwealth Games. It was quite fun to watch the crowds milling around in anticipation – arguably made for more interesting street-photos than the baton itself.