AWOL

Nikon D70 @ HDR image, ISO 200

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Right, I've had enough - I'm out of here!

After a nightmare few weeks (or is that few months?), I'm delighted to be going to Thailand for a much needed break. I've not had a chance to prepare for it though and the prospect now of an hours sleep before I need to get to the airport isn't filling me with much enthusiasm. Good job it's a long flight for me to catch up on some sleep!

But as I said, haven't had a chance to look into it properly so I'm not entirely sure where I'm even going! It is an organised tour though, so hopefully I'll be ok. And hopefully I'll come back with a few decent shots to share.

As for this shot - it was taken a month or so ago on Buchanan Street in Glasgow. And yes, it's an HDR. Quite an interesting effect, I thought. I was hoping that this image was going to be used for an album cover of a well known Scottish band, but in the end it wasn't to be. Maybe next time...

See you all in 2 weeks time!

Rogue One

Nikon D70 @ 62mm, 1/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200

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All I seem to do when I post here these days is complain about the lack of free time I have and apologise for slow updates. So why stop now? At the moment I feel as if I'm being punished for something but don't quite know why or what for. Hopefully I'll be forgiven soon and I'll be granted my freedom again. Or maybe I'll just stop moaning about it!

Took this shot at the weekend while in the west end of Glasgow. A typical urban/graffiti scene which I seem to be instantly attracted to these days.

Uknown

Nikon D70 @ 70mm, 1/320 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200

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Not really sure what to say about this one!

Ramsay Gardens

Nikon D70 @ 70mm, 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO

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I think I'm going to have to make more of an effort to find some free time to get shooting again... it's been too long. Having said that, I don't have much control over how much free time I have!

Was at Turnbury for the weekend with my firm. All expenses paid and all that good stuff. No time for photography unfortunately, which was a shame becauase there's some great shots to be had down there.

I did manage to get a game of golf on the Ailsa course though which was recently voted the best course in the UK. And deservedly so - it really is a fantastic course. Having not played golf in over a year (and having only had 2 and a half hours sleep) I was quite pleased to find myself 3 over after 17. The less said about the 18th the better though!

I guess I should say something about the shot. I'm pretty sure this is Ramsay Gardens. Taken from Princes Street as the sun was going one evening a couple of weeks ago. So so.

understated

Nikon D70 @ 46mm, 1/4 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200

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It's been a poor show on my frequency of updates recently, and so I apologise. Finding time to squeeze in an update seems to be getting more difficult every day.

This is a shot taken from my archives. I took it about 4 months ago on a foggy night on Rose Street. When I first saw the shot on my computer I thought it was OK, but not worth processing. I saw it again last night and thought it might work quite well in B+W, so I gave it a chance.

what time is it?

Nikon D70 @ 62mm, 1/640 sec, f/8, ISO 200

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It's one o'clock.

My brother and his girlfriend were over in the Burgh for a couple of nights so it was the perfect excuse to visit some of the touristy sights we have been meaning to see since I moved here. First stop... Edinburgh castle.

We got there just in time for the firing of the "One O'clock Gun". The One O'Clock Gun is fired every day (except Sunday) at precisely 13:00, and is said to be so accurate that many Edinburgers stop and set their watches by it.

We spoke to the guy in the picture afterwards who explained that the origin of the tradition lies in the days when sailing ships in the Firth of Forth were able to check and reset their chronometers in the time when acurate timepieces weren't available.

In 1861, Captain Wauchope, a Scottish Naval Officer in the Royal Navy invented the time ball which can still be seen today on top of Nelson's Monument, Calton Hill. At one o'clock the ball drops giving the signal to sailors, but this meant that someone would have to be looking out for it and it often couldn't be seen in foggy weather. So, the gun was fired simultaneously to the time ball dropping and this meant that the gun could easily be heard by ships in Leith Harbour (2 miles away).

Deadly Still

Nikon D70 @ 10mm, various shutter speeds, f/5.6, ISO 200

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I wanted to see how many comments I could squeeze out of you on my previous post... I think 12 is about my limit! I've been looking at my stat counter recently and have noticed that the number of hits this site gets is about 75% less than what it was at the start of the year... where's everyone going?!?

Anyway, in an attempt to reverse the trend I offer you another HDR. Taken at about midnight on the same night as this one.

Being fairly late you can imagine that there weren't many people about the uni at this time. There was a very strange little security guard though, who watched me for about 15 minutes from afar. I figured he had seen me, knew that I was harmless enough and was just interested in what I was doing. The next time I looked around though he was standing about 100 yards away - deadly still and looking straight at me. He wasn't going anywhere fast so I just continued snapping away. A few shots later and I turned around again - he was about 50 yards away now. Next thing I knew he was only 25 yards away.

At this point I was starting to get slightly concerned. I felt as if I was in one of those cheap horror movies - every time I turned around he was slightly closer, but I never saw him move! Rather anti-climactic I know, but I eventually walked up to him to make sure everything was alright. I asked if it was ok that I was taking pictures of the uni, to which he responded "well, it's a bit late now". If it wasn't ok then why didn't he bloody well tell me when he first saw me, instead of stalking me like some weird pyscho.

Anyway, he let me take my shots and didn't kill me, so it's all good.

I should perhaps also say that this is the back of the Stair Building at Glasgow uni where I studied law for 4 years - man am I missing those student holidays now!!!

Fantastical Forest

Nikon D70 @ 10mm, various shutter speeds, f/8, ISO 200

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I entered this shot into the recent fujimugs.com challenge for distortion and (un)fortunately it came 2nd. You can check out the original entry here.

I was really pleased with how this one turned out. It was taken a couple of weekends ago at Chatelherault Country Park. There's a small opening during the forrest walk where there's a nice collection of 3 or 4 really old and interesting oak trees - I was really desperate to get a good shot of them. I was probably trying too hard and as a result I simply wasn't seeing any shots. Just as we were walking away I voiced how disgusted I was at being such a crap photographer. At this point my girlfriend yanked my camera off me, turned around, took a quick snap and said "right, there's your shot". Jesus, she was right. How annoying! :)

So, having been gifted with the composition, I proceeded to set up my tripod and create this HDR. I think I ended up combining 8 different exposures and was delighted with the results - it just shows you how well photomatix can cope with scenes of extreme dynamic range.

I felt the image had a slightly surreal and fantastical feel to it and that the hue adjustment complimented it well.

Oh, almost forgot... this is another shot where the smaller version doesn't really do it much justice... check out the larger version.