Around Auchterarder

I’m not entirely sure why, but I got it into my head to make a series of photos without reason or purpose so I spent a couple of lunchtimes walking around Auchterarder just snapping scenes. Very different to my usual contemplative landscape style – this is reactionary, street photography, with a consistent presentation style (sepia-toned monochrome). All images were shot on a Pentax 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 30mm nearly wide-open at f/3.5 as well using a daylight whitebalance.

Funnily enough, reducing the variables by insisting on one focal-length and aperture and allowing automatic exposure left me free to think about composition – in such relatively alien territory, wave the lens around and see what looks good.

Around town:

I took the new-found constraints into the surrounding countryside:

Country 2:

All images processed using RawTherapee; uncropped, but exposures normalized and the consistency of toning arising from an orange pre-filtered black and white conversion with sepia toning to finish.

Argyll PhotoWalk 2016: Around Inverary

I was a bit late joining the photo-walk this year, but caught up with the small crowd of folks in Inverary prior to walking around the town with a camera in tow.

The views from the front, looking up lochs Shira and Fyne to sunlit mountains surrounding Glenkinglas, were stunning.

We also went around the Jail, where one of the guides pretended to have been naughty…

Around Inverary

At the start of October, I spent a happy Saturday on a photo-walk organized by a friend around Inverary in Argyll, the group numbering nearly 20 folks.

It was quite a day – over 7 miles walked, folks socialized with, the town and surrounding landscapes investigated.

We started with a trip up the bell-tower and the adjacent All Saints’ Scottish Episcopal Church in the middle of town:

After that, we visited Inverary Jail – quite interesting to get a glimpse of the conditions folks lived in. A friendly guard posed for us:

As we were walking around to the castle for lunch, there was a burst of sunlight over the landscape. A few days prior to the excursion I had discovered an old Pentax film camera in a storage box, and loaded it with film and acquired an extra 50mm prime lens for it, along with an adapter to the Sony NEX-7. So this is Strone Point and the top of Glen Kinglas, on an old 50mm f/1.7 “nifty fifty” Pentax PK-fit lens:

We had lunch in the Inverary Castle tearooms:

Inverary Castle

Inverary Castle

The afternoon was spent climbing up Dun na Cuaiche. I was impressed to see what an effect the geology has on the area, as (igneous) felsite hills to the north of the town give way to psammite (partially metamorphosed sedimentary) bedrock along the shore of Loch Fyne. The watchtower is a folly – the only thing it looks out over is the castle itself, affording no real protection from anyone else feeling like invading!

 

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.

Newton Stewart

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I seem to be back in the old temporary stamping ground for the morning, while the car gets its MOT done… so I went for a stroll around the town – which doesn’t take long – to appreciate the views of the river Cree from the bridge.