Family, Photography and other misc news
The purpose of this last photography trip was primary for the wonderful landscape opportunities but I also had a go at Wildlife photography.
Now I am not very good at wildlife photography but I do enjoy it. I did get a few images that I am quite proud but there certainly not good enough to show.
But I know your all dying to see them so I thought I would post just a few, please don’t judge my people and landscape photography by these!
The last two days has seen us slowly heading home. We caught the lunchtime ship, from Tarbet on the Isle of Harris on Saturday, and we had the highlight of seeing Dolphins during the crossing. As always my wildlife photography was not up to the task and all I have is a blurred fin, disappearing under the wake of the ship, but the memory will remain with me forever.
We spent Saturday night in a small Bed and Breakfast in Ballachulish called Fern Villa, in Glencoe. The owner is a keen photographer and has many photographers staying with him.
The area is very popular with walkers, climbers and photographers. I took the opportunity on the way though the previous week to shoot a few Landscapes. I thought they might work as HDR shots, so bracketed widely.
I heavily processed one, and lightly processed the other, not sure which I prefer, but Caroline hates the heavily processed photo, and I have to admit its got that HDR Look!
Sunday we travelled to the Cumbria and stopped at the delightful Yew Tree Chapel, a most wonderful place to stay and two wonderful hosts.
Today we finally headed home after almost two weeks away photographing Landscapes and Wildlife.
We took the opportunity to head over to Mount Grace Priory a English Heritage property well worth a visit. The weather was not up to much so just a few reference shots but I will definitely be heading back.
Now that we are home we have the problem of dealing with all the hundreds of images that were taken over the holiday.
For a change I did not take a laptop with me but just our new iPad. All photographs at the end of each day were imported onto the device and basic metadata and keywords were applied using the great PhotoSmith app. Now as I type this PhotoSmith is uploading all my work into my Adobe Lightroom Library.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be uploaded the odd photo from the trip for you to enjoy but now the difficult part of the trip, processing the digital and medium format film photographs from the trip.
We have been blessed with good weather but it was only natural that at some point we would have a day of rain.
With heavy rain and full rivers and streams the waterfalls were in full flow. While the light was not conductive to landscape photography I took a number of pictures for reference.
Today we crossed from Harris to the Isle of Skye. Not as much bird life present on this crossing as before but we still managed to spot Puffins, Gannet and Terns, but the highlight was two Dolphins who came to play briefly in the bow-wave of the ship.
Now we find ourselves relaxing in the bar of the Glencoe Hotel, enjoying a bottle wine while waiting for the sunset.
Taken on my iPhone.
The Isle of Lewis has some wonderful archaeological sites. In particular there are a number of fine prehistoric stone circles.
By midmorning we had visited four stone circles. The weather was, shall we say interesting. Dark storm clouds kept whipping, by but glimpses of blue kept appearing in the distance, illuminating patches of hillside.
I set up the camera and waited for the light to appear. Oh so very briefly a shaft of sunlight appeared, but by the time I had metered the scene, and set the mirror lock-up, just before I tripped the cable release the sun disappeared.
We waited a while but then a few drops of rain started to fall. So with that we packed up and walked back to the car over the peat bog.
By the time we had reached the car the rain had blown over and the stone circle was again illuminated in a shaft of bright sunlight. A lesson in patience I think.
The next two circles while warranting a visit did not get blessed with the light.
The last circle was the most impressive, and the visitors centre made a most impressive Latte. Now the dark clouds had blown over and we were blessed with golden sunlight which lasted the rest of the day. Unfortunately brilliant sunshine while chocolate box pretty does not evoke the drama that dark clouds and shafts of brilliant sunshine can evoke.
Maybe better luck next time. Landscape photography is certainly not an easy art!
Photographed on my iPhone and Edited in Adobe Photoshop Express.
My Landscape Photography definitely has a manmade influence. Most of my Landscapes are of manmade structures, old Bridges, Piers, Abbey ruins and Churches.
For your true Landscapes, then an early start is essential. Up here in the Outer Hebrides Dawn today was about 04:00am and Sunrise at 05:10.
At 04:30am this morning, I could be found down at the bay setting up the medium format camera gear. Early starts is not something I find easy, but when in a location like this, a Sunrise is hard to resist.
Very busy day today, spent the first part of the early morning on Isle of Skye, then the rest of the morning on board ship.
Lots of Herring Gulls, but also Guillemots swimming and flying by. Also incredibly lucky to see lots of Puffin’s, not just swimming and diving, but also flying past.
You would not believe how fast they can move. A 200mm f/2.8 lens with a 1.7 teleconverter, is not really long enough to catch them but I managed to get a few shots I am pleased with.
I was hoping to post a few pictures but Photoshop Express on the iPad cannot edit RAW files so I am afraid you will all have to wait.
Shooting from the ship was a major challenge, I was using a monopod to save my arms as a tripod was not really practical but the vibration from the engines was a problem. I had the VR (Vibration Reduction) mode of my lens set to active and kept my shutter speeds high, this meant shooting wide open most of the time, meaning depth of field was limited.
Restful day for us tomorrow, maybe some landscape scouting but not much else.
I noticed from a Twitter feed that TV presenter, wildlife photographer and general all round wildlife geek, Chris Peckham, has been on the Isle of Man filming for this years Spring Watch.
While I have been getting better and better photographs with each visit to my local parks and nature reserves, sometimes only a trip to some exotic locations do you feel will enable you to capture that killer shot.
Trips to Africa or the far East are expensive, and as the BBC’s Spring Watch program shows not strictly necessary. Many of the remoter areas of the British Isles have simply stunning scenery and wildlife and can often be a viable destination for a long weekend.
Chris was enjoying the sunshine, Cormerants and Lampreys, and a chocolate cake, it was his birthday on the Isle of Man. A great location for a long weekend.
One thing you must always remember is, that unless your visiting a zoo, nowhere guarantees seeing wildlife. Enjoy the visit, if you see anything, wonderful; and if you get your photograph, then that’s the icing on the cake.
Today finds us in Uig, a small port village in the north of the Isle of Skye. The camera gear is all packed in cases safely stored in our hotel room for the night. While we were tucking into fresh Scottish Scallops in a local restaurant: as we looked out over the bay, we could see Heron Gull’s wheeling overhead, while in the rock pools, Oystercatchers fished, Hooded Crows kept a lookout for an easy meal and Pied Wagtails also took a meal from the rock pools.
A fantastic wildlife sight. A sure lesson to always keep a camera to hand, unfortunately an iPhone and Nikon D200 with a 12-24mm f/4 are not suitable tools for birds!
Still a wonderful memory to file away.
Installing Lightroom presets can be a little tricky but Mat from Lightroom Killer Tips has recently found out, there is a far easy way.
Just Drag and drop the preset file on to your Lightroom icon in the dock.
Thanks Matt.
Of course that is if your a Mac user. If you’re a Windows user then double click the preset file. It will most likely say it does not understand the file type. Associate the file type with Lightroom and then double click will install it.
Have not tried it in Windows, as I do not have a Windows machine handy to test it on, only Apple Mac’s, Linux, and Solaris at present. Must rebuild that Windows 7 test machine of mine.
Something all photographers worry about, this the fourth in a series of posts. This time something a little different that you might not have thought of.
Are your shots tack sharp?
Try using your mirror lockup, something I always use on my
Hasselblad when shooting landscapes, most digital SLR’s have
this function these days.
On lower end DSL’s it is generally buried in a sub menu, but on higher end models there may be a dedicated button or dial.