Holy Boat

Yesterday I skipped the Carling Cup to visit a location I'd first looked at back in November. When I last visited it was torrential driving rain but made a note to come back on a better day. Earlier that afternoon I'd taken my youngest children to Loch Leven and noted how still it was and how the cloudscape was in a state of flux. Therefore an ideal day for inland lochs or reservoirs.

Hence later that afternoon I returned to Glensherrup. Immediately upon my arrival was a gorgeous scene. A single boat silhouetted with fisherman against the water with dramatic skies. However before I can get my camera out the boat drifted into an area of shadow and the chance had gone. The conditions looked very favourable though with transient light as clouds drifted across the sun.

As often is the case my favourite photograph was the last one I took on location. I am not sure why this happens, but that's how it is. To take the photograph I dragged an eight foot long pipe out the way and removed two old bait tubs from the boat itself. I am not sure if the boat has got a hole in it but I was attracted by the strong colours, floating oars and reflection of the sky inside the boat.

Since I was using the equivalent of a 16mm ultrawide angle lens, I hand held a graduated filter against the polariser to avoid vignetting of the corners. Three photographs were taken but this one had the best cloudscape. I packed up once the sky became a featureless bank of grey. As my other recent blog images this photograph was processed in Lightroom.

Great Riches

Yesterday I visited the village of Falkland. The following three blog articles show some photographs I took during my brief stay. Although I was only in Falkland for 45 minutes I took many detail shots in the soft morning light which I particularly fond of.



Not speaking

Yesterday I got permission to enter Falkland Palace to have a look at the North Facade. The west facade is covered in scaffolding so unsuitable as a backdrop for wedding photographs. Whilst I was there I liked these stone faces.

The following images were taken in Falkland Village in Fife. This is a fascinating little village and I enjoyed 30 minutes photographing little details in the soft morning light. The photographs would not have worked if the sun had been strong.



Violins Bought & Sold

Yesterday I visited Falkland as I have a wedding enquiry for Falkland Palace. This village has an amazing Violin shop as well as many interesting architectural features. A few photographs follow and I particularly like the door detail I spotted.



Lightroom's Here

Yesterday I received my license key for Lightroom 1.0. This is one of the most eagerly awaited products for professional photographers for many years and my initial impressions are I like it a lot and may be using it as my standard tool to process my photographs.

Over the following week I will be programming presets to try and recreate the lovely natural colour, especially skin tones that Digital Photo Professional gives me, as the standard colour engine within Lightroom gives me too much red and magenta in skin tones.

Balgeddie House Hotel

Today I met up with Corinna and Kevin to do a mini shoot ahead of their wedding in September at Balgeddie House Hotel near Glenrothes.

I am really looking forward to this wedding as the south face of the hotel turns a vivid red in late September. One thing we looked at was locations in case the weather was wet.

We found some interesting little spaces for photographs - A window, a mirror, a little alcove and an internal staircase. It's amazing how lines, reflections and shapes can make for compelling photographs.

Another feature of the hotel which is fantastic for photographs is a cherry tree but unfortunately the hotel are cutting it down for an extension.







Joe Cornish Workshop

Last Monday I was on a workshop with Joe Cornish.

Joe is one of my favourite photographers in the world. Although the weather was poor - overcast and rainy, Joe Cornish described how great photographs are still possible.

Attached are some of my favourites from the day. I highly recommend Joe Cornish's courses, he is great company and a great teacher, he's pretty handy with a camera too!

To see some of Joe Cornish's work please visit Joe Cornish Galleries





A little laughter

A wee walk to the village store with my daughter today and a little practice with a fast prime lens.

I shoot a lot of my portraiture with a wide aperture as throwing the background out of focus gives a 3D like effect.

Here are a few images from the walk. The laughter is because she was trying to run over my foot with her bicycle.

The Fallen Stone

Tonight I witnessed the moon rise above the Lomond Hills whilst taking a long exposure (almost one hour) of one of the Orwell Stones.

I chose the west stone as there was little light pollution in the distance and I wanted to avoid lens flare from the moon.

This stone fell a number of years ago and remains over 4000 years old were discovered underneath. The stone is now set in concrete.

Gremlins

The blog server seems to be playing up and some images are not displaying properly. My e-mail server has also experienced problems so I have changed my e-mail address to info@martinpettinger.com

Apologies to those who tried to contact me via my old e-mail address on Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully the new robust server in the United States will eliminate these problems.