Photographically, it was overcast and the light was anything but magical; once again I have sold my soul to the demons of monochrome to help me focus on the form and majesty of the boat lift. Often, strong shapes look better defined in black and white as distracting colour elements are removed.

Here’s the lift from the front. (Sigma 10-20)

If the light is dull, it’s nice to pick out interesting details of the structure. It’s kind of like macro photography on a grand scale.

For this angle on the boat lift, the clouds parted enough to allow a brief use of colour; don’t be deceived into thinking the light made an honest photographer of me, the blue saturation has been thrashed to within an inch of its life here to force some colour drama. The yellow and orange has also been pushed to add warmth to the steel structure, emphasising the hints of rust.

These ones show the aqueduct that carries barges from the Union Canal to the boat lift. They are classic Falkirk Wheel views, and I’m sure the world has plenty of them already; its fun for a portrait guy like me to reproduce the standard landscape stuff for a bit of practice. Humour me please. The second and third using my 17-85 on telephoto to compress the upright supports.

I would certainly urge a look if you are in Central Scotland; beautiful engineering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel

This is the mouth of Loch Sween where my friend and colleague Dick Edie lives. Dick and I share a love of photography and we both use Flickr. Truth be told, I’m not very active now but as I throttled back, Dick started using it more. The common thread is that we were both part of the mighty, Seven Days of Shooting group in which weekly themes were translated into daily challenges which really brought your photography and creativity on. Anyway, Jim Hulme from Brisbane, AU, is a leading light in that community and is visiting his relatives in England at present. Dick kindly invited Jim to his wonderful home in Achnamara in Argyll, and thoughtfully asked if I wanted to join them; I did! (Sigma 10-20)

(Dick in the foreground on the beach) 70-300 mm lens

Here’s Dick, the perfect breakfast host in his “can I get you another egg” mode; the way to my heart anyway! (Sigma 28mm)

Dick took us to the Atlantic mouth of the Crinan Canal near his home. This was a puffer, (strictly a “VIC”) that Dick had photographed and I had seen travelling along Loch Fyne earlier this week. The sun was high and bright, which can be uninspiring for pictures, but the smoke from the puffer seemed to me to add interest along with the still, reflective water. (Canon 50 mm 1.4  prime)

OK, I have hung my hat on the portraiture hook, but I am so pleased with the curving harbour leading the eye to this colourfest of a boat from ullapool. (50 mm f1.4 prime)

Our gorgeous and charming co-host for the visit was Jacqui; I can attest that she cooks, and bakes in a way that would make Nigella Lawson weep. Truthfully I wanted the yellow of the boat to complement the green of Jaqui’s T-Shirt, but I made the error of keeping the aperture too wide. If doing it again I would choose f5.6 or 6.3 to get a little more detail in the boat to balance the picture  as Jaqui was deliberately placed on the right of the picture thinking that the yellow stern provided balance in composition. Thankfully Jaqui’s eyes and warm expression carry the picture anyway. (Canon 50mm f1.4)

Having only spoken on Skype with this wonderful man from Queensland, meeting him in person was a real thrill. I will be sad when he returns to Oz. He is a really likeable man, with a killer mix of humour and warmth, and despite the endless modesty, a striking man too. (Canon 50mm f1.4)

See what I mean!

Here are the Flickr Stalwarts in their full glory, both taking sensible precautions against the uncharacteristically hot Scottish sun today. (Canon 50mm f1.4)

However Jim could only behave for a little while while being photographed, eventually the playfulness/ misbehaviour has to break through. If Mrs Jim is looking at this, could you slap him for me on his return please! Dick is modelling headgear by Buff TM).

On my way home from this wonderful time in which Dick showed us Herons and Otters, I saw these disarmingly cute geese just strolling along the road as though it was their walkway. (Canon 70-300) This was the self timer  picture from last night using my 7D and Dick’s tripod and automatic mode for the first time in ages. This uses fill flash and I coped with the burned out sky by combining two lightroom exposures in Photomatix to let the happy quartet be seen with some detail of the Isle of Jura in the background. Safe home Jim. Thanks Dick and Jacqui

OK, I know the picture of the Trotternish Ridge and the Storr on Skye is a bit of a cliché, but who can resist. It was a bit grey and overcast, so increase contrast and black and white conversion focuses on what matters in this ridge; the prehistoric, folded landscape. For those who are interested, the spike in the centre is an old sea stack called the Old Man of Storr, it is about 160 feet high, and must once have been at sea level. Skye is easily one of my favourite places. Taken from the summit of Ben Tianavaig.

The following 3 are on the descent facing the magnificent Red Cuillins and looking over the sound of Raasay. For a mere 1500 feet hill, this must have one of the loveliest and most dramatic ridges.

Did I mention it was really cold?

Raining again all day, so I went to Glasgow instead. This is the view from the roof of the Buchanan Galleries car park. They have surrounded the roof with a high screen so that you need to use “live view” and hold the camera above the screen. I haven’t seen a nice sunset here for a month at least!

From the sailing club pontoon on Loch Leven looking east to the Pap of Glencoe with its little bonnet of cloud on the right.

The view over the Black Mount area from one of the roadside lochans on the Rannoch Moor.

Anyone who has walked the West Highland Way will know this view well. Ben Dorain, with it’s particularly steep sides simply towers over the West Highland Railway and the road north. I have climbed this a few times myself and can verify its classic Munro status. A great mountain.

This is the view from the CN Tower, and it’s through smudged glass with the Sigma 10-20 wide zoom. Lens hood hard against the glass to cut reflections.

This is the tower itself:

The railway line coming out of the station. Nice to imagine this train heading north to the polar regions….

Toronto is a supermodern city. This street scene gives a flavour of its wide roads and high rise surroundings:

And everywhere you turn a corner you might catch a glimpse of the 1/2 kilometre high sentinel that is the CN tower:

All my friends seem to love castles and old stone buildings with a passion. Me, I adore modern and Toronto does modern big style. I love the abstraction the glass and steel creates as it reflects the blue of the sky:

I’ll post some people pictures shortly from the trip.

Anyway, we visited the “Eslie the greater” stone circle in a stunning setting above Banchory. Here are a few pictures:

This is the “Eslie the greater” stone circle.

I’m afraid I made the guys pose while using the timer so that I could leap into the posefest!

Finally the incorrigible portraitist came out in me. I made my beloved Bruv and Sisylaw tough out the cold wind to indulge my need for a dramatic background romancefest:

Just one more, I know it isn’t perfect, but I like this one with Linda’s eyes closed. I think I prefer the portrait format in compositional terms:

While at the conference in Oban last week I tried a quick handheld HDR image of the fire escape and inner view of the hotel we stayed in. The range of dark low down and brightness high up in the image made it difficult to get a good exposure without HDR. The beauty of the 40D is that its 6 frame per second allows you to set auto exposure bracketing and then hold the shutter long enough for 3 exposures. That takes 1/2 a second, so with a steady hand you get virtually no movement between the exposures. I blended and tonemapped them in “photomatix”. I think there’s something creepy about this?

Oddly I decided that taking my camera wasn’t important and that I should just chat with people and enjoy their company without concentrating on taking pictures. At the end of the night however, I took just 4 snapshots. Not exactly dedicated photography! I’ll only post 1 picture. There are three people from 100 portraits in it; see if you can guess who. I’d like to thank Lisa in the foreground though who organised the venue.