I know this is hardly “real photography”, but give me a break here

I’ve recently bought a Medium Format camera, so am doing a lot more film work. Will try and get some scanned in for publication…

Well, this shot is the complete opposite of that.

I wanted to take a shot of sunset alongside the wrecked hulls in the empty side of Bowling Basin (far west of Glasgow, beyond the Erskine Bridge, on the North side of the River Clyde). However, fate was not smiling on me. Sunset was around 9pm, however the marina area is locked up securely from around 7pm each night.

A rather nice visiting yachtsman (sailor, yachtist, boat-owner, whatever you’d call him?) let me in to have a look around, however this was at least 20-30 minutes before the light would have been ideal. I couldn’t have him waiting around on me, so I had no option but to trudge away, dejected. I’ll go back when sunset is prior to 7pm.

With my main ambition blown for the evening, I thought I’d muck around instead. This was the result: an experiment in HDR photography (being a merge of 4 separate exposures). My friend Robert has been raving about HDR images for months, and has been keen to see what I did with the technique. I hope he approves

This evening didn’t pan out great for photography, but it was a good laugh, and was good to be back out stomping around the wasteground of West Scotland. My mate Mike got an excellent silhouette of me against the sunset, which I would like to post on here, if he’ll let me. Most of all it was just good to get out, fill our lungs with fresh air, and play with our tripods

There seems to be a lot of discussion online about good photography locations for the refinery - this was taken from the back-end of the refinery, where it meets the Firth of Forth, at the water treatment works. The works are signposted, on the road between Grangemouth and Bo’ness. There’s a gap in the hedge before an abandoned farmhouse, if you follow that all the way to the bottom you’ll find the refinery spread out in front of you.

However, I think I’d prefer a shot with more elevation, which oversaw the entire complex. There was a ridge behind us that looked to be maybe 300ft in height, so maybe on another night we’ll try that out.

That’s all for now…

The harbour wall was stacked full of boats like this… I’d imagine their sitting out for the winter, or getting repaired, or some other nautical nonsense that I really don’t know about! Anyway, I’ve never seen this before, and I reckon it’s the image I’ll take away from the nights photography, in place of the one I intended to capture (funny how that happens, eh?)

I’ve been a bit under the weather the last week, which had resulted in me being off work (shocker!) on Thursday and Friday last week. A combination of a dodgy stomach, and perhaps just a bit exhausted. I reckoned if I didn’t get out and do even a little photography this weekend I’d be upset, even if I was starting to feel better. Back to work tomorrow!

Anyway, after driving through torrential rain on the journey over, I was glad to find the weather perfectly alright. I almost turned back on a number of occasions, too!

All things considered, I’m glad I headed over, but I’m now seriously exhausted. Bed time.

I think Amanda will never come with me to do photography every again - a fiercely cold biting wind was cutting across the hilltop, and I wanted to wait around 40 minutes until the light got better. Poor girl.

We got back off the hill and got some nice warm food in us. Yumm. San Francisco was a lot of fun.

P.S. The latest upgrade of WordPress has broken my comments box on the home page - if you want to comment on this post, click on the “Twin Peaks” title above, and the comments box should appear. Thanks.

Anyway, a last minute change of plans yesterday gave me the perfect opportunity. I had a few hours to kill between work and meeting Amanda, so I set off with the tripod, camera and a 20mm f2.8.

Those of you who know me personally will know that I usually trek around with a big camera bag, with flashguns, lenses, reflectors and all-sorts being dragged along for the ride.

I’m thinking this new minimalist way of working is somewhat better. Your head is no longer worrying whether you have the right lens, enough memory cards, etc, etc. Instead, you utilise what you have available. I’m not convinced that this produces better results, but I know for sure it’s a lot more fun!

Have been doing rather a lot of stressful wedding photography (not my choice, honest, folk keep asking!), so I might see if some of those photos can be put up here, too.  It’s been rather enjoyable and am happy with the results, however not something I’m looking to continue with..

My good friend Dave has been looking to go out with his new pocket camera for ages… and he stays quite close to this abandoned old church, so it seemed like a sensible place to revisit with him.  I forgot that the area is always full of drunken neds, screaming and shouting, although fortunately we weren’t spotted by any of them.

Anyway, hope this isn’t as infrequent as all the others…

Am back again, hoping to stop letting Real Life get in the way of some decent photography!

Took this last week with Mike.  When I did the West Highland Way in 1999, this was a idyllic little cottage on the side of the path… at some point since then it’s fallen into ruin.  There’s definitely been a fire, and a LOT of stuff was smashed up by neds and idiots…

Such a shame, to see this fall into this kind of state.  Maybe I should buy it and move out there, and live in a tent until we get a roof.

In other news, we sold our Mini, as despite being a great focal point, it was just costing too much money.  Plus I was convinced I was going to lose my licence at some point with it

So, here’s a shot taken by my mate Mike!  I set the camera up on the tripod, got it all ready, then shot past in the car while he pressed the button.  Admittedly there was a fair bit of skill in the timing, however I still see the shot as mine
Anyway, will be back soon(ish).