South Queensferry

On a whim, we stopped off at South Queensferry and walked along to Hopetoun House. We didn't go to the House because it was late evening by the time we go there but we did walk along the coastline. (Someone I know will be very interested to know that there was a multitude of White Foxgloves along the roadside.)

I only had my Lumix compact with me and the weather wasn't great so I didn't take any great photos. However, I found a terrific spot, on-route, for taking some photos of Forth Rail bridge and I hope to get back out there at night to take some photos if they still light the bridge.

Here is a slightly 'posterised' view of the Forth Road and the Rail bridge from where we were. They look like one single bridge from this angle.

Clydebank Titan Crane

I actually used my DSLR yesterday. It's been too long. I was in Clydebank at night so I thought I would try out some of the 'circles of confusions' style images that I love. The Titan Crane was lovely with it's coat of many colours. If it hadn't been such horrible weather I might have been able to get a reflection of it in the Clyde. (I am unable to insert a 'carriage return' or a new line for some reason - sigh)

Pinhole Photography Festival.

Back in early March my dad kindly sent me an email containing a link for the Pinhole Photography Festival in Edinburgh.

His timing was perfect as I was free to pop along on the following Sunday afternoon to have a look at the gallery and perhaps attend the workshop if there was space. As fortune would have it, I was able to join in the fun and games.

The workshop was held by photographer Kenny Bean who talked us through the art of making a pinhole photograph. He showed us images taken from a tiny camera, where a cartridge was held inside the photographer's mouth, to larger scale photographs taken from Kenny's outstanding Wheelie Bin collection.

The staff were really friendly, the workshop was definitely worthwhile (they even provided free use of the cameras, photographic paper and developing chemicals, which was very kind) and the gallery was very impressive.

I did have a go myself but my prints turned out to be very disappointing (what's new?) as I didn't really have a full grasp of just how 'wide' the pinhole range was going to be. Even when I was standing 10ft away from my subject of a tree it appeared as a tiny twig within my frame. Timing for exposure and developing is also something I need to experiment with but now that I've tried it I need to get making my own little cameras.

All I need now is to find the time.....

I've cropped out the subject so you can get a hint of what I was trying to photograph!!!

Traffic Trails

It's been a while and I have a few draft blogs in the pipeline but I've been so busy working that I've hardly had a chance to take any photos let alone blog about them.

However, I did manage to get out onto the bridge over the M8 one evening and try out some long exposure shots of the traffic below.

It's a learning process but here is one of the images I took....

Chloe Cat!

She was so old and fragile it was only a matter of time before this day would arrive.

Goodbye my little buddy.