I’ve discovered DJI GS (“groundstation”) Pro, which allows me to plot-out routes in advance with waypoints and control what happens at them, long before arriving at a location.
Well, currently we’re at the stage of wondering why the camera’s pointing back the way we came when it should be looking exactly the opposite direction.
Still, there’s a lot of nice views to be had above Kinnoull Hill.
And the finished video:
For about 13 years I have been of the opinion that it has not been a year without at least one trip to Glen Affric.
My favoured time is autumn, late October, to catch the trees in the Caledonian Forest reserve at their most colourful.
Arriving before sunrise, the light is all dull and the scenery a moody shade of gloomy – the last vestiges of moon stars remaining in the cobalt blue sky.
One of my favourite scenes at Glen Affric – two ncie birch trees amongst purple and green heather.
Sadly this shot has been marred in recent years by the installation of a large wide path cutting right through the heather between bench and trees; this photo used to be easier to compose but now I’m too conscious of having to position the frame to avoid the path just below; it’s becoming too much of a trick-shot for my liking.
Slowly, over the course of an hour after the posted sunrise time, the sun will gradually rise behind Meall Dubh beyond Loch Beinn a Mheadhoinn, casting a beautiful light on the forest:
Having arrived so early, it is a delight to bask in the first proper warm sunlight of the day:
One of my favourite birches – always think it should be called “Dancer” for some reason – basking in the first warm rays of sunrise amongst the heather.
For several years, on and off, I’ve attended an annual Photo-Walk based in Inverary, Argyll. This year was no exception – always good to catch up with friends I’ve met on the walk previously.
As always, Argyll is a favoured place and Autumn a favoured season; the combination of light and landscape makes for enjoyable drives.
An auspicious viewpoint – right next to the public toilets on Inverary front – but it makes for a cracking view up the loch toward a spot of sunlight illuminating the hills around Ardkinglas.
This time the organizer, Richard, had brought a couple of props – most notably a bottle of Isle of Jura Superstition and I had one or two ideas in mind “just in case” we ended up at a particular favourite waterfall.
We made our way down the slippery embankment to the burn, where I set up tripod amongst the boulders to maximize the lead-in lines of water flowing around the rocks up to the waterfall – tripod placement was fairly tricky with a wide-angle (24mm) lens and the slippery lumpy terrain to negotiate – and then as the camera was busy taking 20s exposures (4x with pixel-shift) I trotted back and forth through the water firing a flash-gun down onto the bottle of whisky and surrounding rocks (manual triggering at 1/8 power with the diffuser out and reflector down to stop the light itself registering in the scene).
Product Placement
I quite like Isle of Jura whisky… not necessarily on the rocks though.
I had originally experimented focussing in on the bottle itself and using a wide aperture to restrict depth of field, but that did not fall naturally through the scene – the waterfall was still sharp behind – so I stopped-down to make everything in focus and relied on post-processing tricks in Affinity Photo to draw the eye onto the bottle differently instead – some Orton effect and various soft-light Gaussian blurs, masks and elliptical gradient fills to boost the saturation, make it all glow and still leave the bottle sharp and bright. The final toning came from Snapseed of all things.
I’ve done a little product-photography before but never tried blending [bad pun intended] it with landscape work, let alone pairing it with light-painting, but I think it worked – certainly compared to the straight shot, the bottle with its amber glow just makes it.
It’s been years since I visited the Cairnwell in Glenshee. The road is still just as steep and the glens are just as glacial as ever I remembered. This is the view from the ski centre, Glenshee.
The trig-point on top of East Lomond, one of the more noticeable hills in Fife. It’s not a bad route for spending a couple of hours strolling around – but the view’s much better on a sunny day.