Fields run deep in golden swards
Hot summer winds blow through the corn
Ripening corn/barley, Auchterarder.
Category Archives: photos
Dunnottar Castle
Dunnottar Castle is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 2 miles south of Stonehaven. The current ruins date from the 15th and 16th centuries, but there is believed to have been fortification on the site since the Early Middle Ages.
The ruins of the castle are surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160Â ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, with a steep path leading up to the gatehouse.
I made these photos over the course of a couple of hours after the eclipse in March, partly because I know the place well, partly because I was reminded of it by a photo in the local photo-club, and partly because I wanted to reshoot it at greater quality with newer processing techniques. It’s a pity the path down to the shore is so muddy – perhaps I should revisit either in winter or early spring instead.
For the record, the workflow for these is:
- tripod, SRB ND1000 filter, multiple frames around 8s shutter-speed at source
- RAW conversion in Photivo
- HDR panorama in Hugin + enfuse
- tonemapping in LuminanceHDR
- post-processing in darktable
- further post-processing in Gimp:
- colour toning
- film emulation (vintage, Ilford Pan-F or Rollei black and white film emulation)
- wavelet sharpening
- organization (tagging + metadata) in digiKam
- bulk resizing with ImageMagick.
Glen Clunie: Landscape Vistas
I must admit to not having found the landscape in Glen Clunie particularly inspiring – good for covering distance whilst hiking but not many trees to catch one’s interest. However, the resultant photos have some merit – hopefully the convey a sense of the expansive topography of the post-glacial floodplain through which the Baddoch Burn runs.
The particularly dark photo is an experiment inspired by my twitter friend Neil Mansfield‘s work with Dark Landscapes.
As I was returning back along the glen, three dogs in the garden of the stone house started shouting and running around me; the owners invited me in and plied me with tea. Next thing you know there’s three dogs all clambering over my knee on the sofa. Highland hospitality at its best.
Glen Clunie: Landscape Details
Three photos from a pleasant afternoon’s stroll along the Baddoch Burn in Glen Clunie, just up the road from Glenshee.
Rocks can be so colourful at times, can’t they? 🙂
Around Birnam Hill
A handful of photos from a stroll up Birnam Hill near Dunkeld. It makes a great weekend afternoon stroll – past a wonderful little waterfall with views looking out over the Highland Boundary Fault.
In the Woods
It’s been a while since I made photos of closeups in the woods – and for the most part, last time around I avoided contrasty light for the purpose too. Last night, I took a single prime lens (my favourite Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 of old) and one of my favoured strolls over Craigie Hill around the golf course, seeing what there was to be seen under the trees…
Falls of Bruar: Flow
One Saturday lunchtime several years ago, I spent a happy hour bugging the assistants in my local favourite camera shop, trying to find the ideal tripod.
Having visited the Falls of Bruar the weekend previously, I had a particular photo of the waterfalls flowing around the rocks in mind.
As usual, Manfrotto was the most recommended make. I tried to believe in them, honestly, but with no combination of legs, invertible centre-column and 3-dimensional head being sturdy enough for the camera of the time, I emerged with a Slik. (This process has been repeated with the same outcome a few times since.)
That afternoon, I went back to Bruar with my new tripod and totally failed to get the photo I wanted, but by dint of pointing the camera the other way staring down the gorge after sunset had happened and the light was fading – what’s come to be known as the blue hour – I wound up with a photo that would be my No.1 most-popular on Flickr for about 5 years.
That was “Raw“.
The first of these is “Flow”, the photo I intended to make in the first place.
Water close-ups
A small series of closeup studies in flowing water, taken on a stroll around the Falls of Bruar.
I’ve admired the striation lines  in the psammite riverbed below the lower bridge at the Falls many times – yet every visit they’re still fascinating every time.
Noctilucent Clouds, Perth, 20150623
A classic location for long-exposure night-time photography: standing on the bridge over the M90 at Rhynd, with the road snaking away into the distance… and a clear display of noctilucent clouds above Kinnoull Hill.
From wikipedia:
Night clouds or noctilucent clouds are tenuous cloud-like phenomena that are the “ragged edge” of a much brighter and pervasive polar cloud layer called polar mesospheric clouds in the upper atmosphere, visible in a deep twilight. They are made of crystals of water ice. Noctilucent roughly means night shining in Latin. They are most commonly observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator. They can be observed only when the Sun is below the horizon.
They are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 kilometres (47 to 53Â mi). They are normally too faint to be seen, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth’s shadow. Noctilucent clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon; there is no record of their observation before 1885.
Dramatic Sunset
In the evening of Feb 7 2015, I was driving back along the A90 from Dundee to Perth, right into this sunset. It lasted a while, so I pulled over beside the road in the Carse of Gowrie to shoot it, including a reflection in the car roof (as one does!).
Stunning light.
Favoured landscape: details
Photos from around the Highland Boundary Fault: the first psammite / semi-pelite rocks beside the path, a valley through which the fault runs, and a feather. Don’t ask how long it took to photograph the feather.
A Favourite Waterfall
A couple of views of a small part of a favoured waterfall on my walk up Birnam Hill.
A Favourite Walk
Around January I discovered a new walk near Dunkeld that quickly became a favourite way to spend a weekend afternoon. Starting from the Pass of Birnam, head up the track from Bee Cottage and turn left to go around the south side of Duncan’s Hill then rejoin the path up to Stair Bridge Viewpoint and the top of Birnam Hill.
As routes go, it gives a mixture of sheltered woodland tracks and sweeping landscape views, complete with my favourite feature – you can watch the rocks changing from till to slate to psammite and semi-pelite as you cross the Highland Boundary Fault. Small wonder I’ve done it half a dozen times dragging various folks along with me, gradually exploring further each time as the winter receded.
These photos are from an experiment with a Prakticar 24mm lens (M42 fit) – acquired for cheap from ebay and stuck on a wonky adapter which might explain some focussing issues. Several of them depict the line of the HBF through the landscape, with hills on one side in the Highlands and on the other in the Lowlands.
Changeable Weather
A few photos from the start of January – experimenting with a road I’ve not often travelled, up from the A9 to approach from the south. It was a stunning morning – swathes of cloud-shadow flying across the landscape such that the mountains north of Comrie were alternately visible or obscured behind passing snow/hail clouds.
Corpus Christi at the Cathedral
Yesterday was Corpus Christi, a joyous celebration of the institution of the Eucharist – a service I’ve only previously heard of.
And so, in a spirit of investigation, I went to St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow.  There were lights all around the rood screen and candles; the Blessed Sacrament was processed around the aisles in glory; there was sweet rose-scented incense; there were many rose-petals; the organist opened the swell and hit a 32′ pedal as folks clanged bells around the table. And there was joy.
Festival celebrated properly, methinks.