Look back

I was recently asked to send a friend some photographs that I have taken in the past. It was an interesting task as I focussed on photographs that I took in 2013, during my Project 365, where I posted a new photograph each day to my Flickr account.

I was amazed how I could remember each photograph and what I was thinking and doing when they were taken. I could associated each photograph with a memory, who I was with and what I had been doing that day.

I have added some of these photographs below with the memory associated with it, in no particular order.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I took this photograph on a team away day when I was consulting for Shell International Exploration and Production. The team I worked with was made up of Jelte, Herman, Ingrid, Jo, Jenny, Santiago and Fabian.
We had a great day out wandering from Amsterdam Centraal Station to the Rijksmuseum and then out for dinner at the Conservatorium Hotel. Needless to say the food, wine and company was spectacular. I remember getting a lot of photographs that day, but this is the one that I liked the most.

 

The Hague Centraal Station. I sat for hours at the bottom of these stairs waiting on a gap from people walking up and down to the Raandstad Rail Trams. They arrived and departed every five minutes but I was determined to get the shot that I wanted without people in it. It was a long exposure so when people were in the shot they 'blurred' and I didn't like that. Finally around 12:30am a gap in appeared and I got the shot that I wanted.

 

This was a Sunday afternoon in late autumn after spending most of the afternoon in Coffee Company, on Korte Pouten, which was just off the Plain. I just happened to have my camera with me (in those days it never left my side), and snapped this on the way home. I spent a lot of time that afternoon talking to Kiko about life, the universe and everything in between.

 

Courchevel. Ski and Snowboard trip with Megan, Mike, Marcela, Graham and Lisa (Moneypenny). This was a week of fun on the snow in February. We hired a chalet for a week and it was some of the most fun I have had snowboarding. I also cracked a rib. In fact, I think I have a picture of the x-ray somewhere. My most vivid memories of this trip was coming off the slope and getting back the chalet and having an ice cold beer, that had been chilling in the snow all day. There was always 'lively' debate about who had the most impressive wipe out night after a few beers. Mike and I always said that we were going out partying every night, which never really materialised due to the crazy amount of energy expended during the day.

 

The CCTV building in Beijing, China. I took this photograph from the building in which I was working. Beijing doesn't get many clear days but this day was very nice. Just a after sunrise, taken on my iPhone (the best camera you have is the one you have with you). I was in China working for a week and then did some travelling with my friend Sisi. When I think of this trip this is what comes to mind. It was a trip that changed me on a fundamental level and I am ever grateful that I was sent on it. Oh, I also think of Tsingtao and Sisi laughing at me trying to order it in Mandarin. I am so thankful to Sisi for showing me around her hometown, having someone local in a such a large city was so good. She was also great a haggling in the Silk Market for me!

 

This is probably one in a set of the most painful photographs ever taken. My camera gear was stolen on the train from Den Haag to Schiphol. I almost didn't go on the trip after that, but thankfully Mike, Marcela, Megan and Lisa (Moneypenny) convinced me to go. I did enjoy it, it was a very fun trip after all, even though I was taking all my photos (including this one) with my iPhone.
It has to be one of the most photographed waterfalls in the world, and to be honest, its 'over-exposure' makes me think it is much less impressive than it used to be. There is no fun in driving up to something like this, shooting a few photos and driving off again. There should be a mandatory 20 mile hike to get to something this impressive. Maybe that's just me.

 

A spur of the moment trip to Budapest, Hungary. Was asked if I fancied going to Budapest on a Wednesday and was flying by Friday afternoon. Megan was going on her own and wanted some company and as I was photographing pretty much everything at that point she knew it would be too tempting for me to say no. I had so much fun, learned how to drive a Segway, ate more Goulash than I thought was possible and walked so many km around Budapest taking photographs. I got a lot of nice photographs of Budapest but this was my favourite, Chain Bridge. It was a bridge that I had seen in a lot of movies and I never actually thought that it would be someplace that I would go so I am really grateful for Megan thinking of me. 

 

So, I am going to leave it here with six photographs. By no way my favourite ever photos, or my best, but they do have some of the best memories, taken with friends that are now spread around the world from Hawaii to The Netherlands and everywhere in between. I hope they are all as well as I am.

 

Incholm Abbey

I finally made it to Incholm Island and the Abbey last Saturday. It was actually on my list of places to see, but I totally forgot until the @alycoste invited me for a boat tour of the Forth River with a landing on the Island. So close to where I live yet I still have so much to see that's a stones throw away from me. I think I often forget that!

The shot to the right is of Alayne, who was kind enough to pose for me while I tried to do some artsy stuff... 

The island is dominated by Scotland's best preserved monastic buildings. It was established in 1235 when Augustinian canons built a priory, which was later given full Abbey status. The Abbey has an amazingly dramatic location and looks beautiful from the boat when passing on the south side. I can only imagine how great it most look in a storm, or with deep snow! Fortunately we had great weather on the island even though it was raining when we left South Queensferry.

The boat trip also went round the bridges; The Forth Rail Bridge, The Road Bridge and of course the new Queensferry Crossing. Have you any idea how difficult it is to take a good shot of bridges  when on a boat? Well, I do. Hence the lack of shots below! :-)

Ok, I got one and you can see it here.

October

Maple Leaf

September, I just got to know you and now you are gone. 

For those that poo-pooed my "it's autumn" post at the start of September, for sure it's autumn now, look at that leaf, you don't get that colour from an Indian summer. Or maybe you do, I don't know, I'm not a botanist, but the 7 degrees this morning tells me that winter is on it's way!

October looks busy for me, lots of training courses on (Python, QGIS, PGAdmin) and new projects; building an interactive map using Leaflet (a javascript library) for this website. I am going to update it with locations of where I have taken photographs. I am thinking that it would probably be easier to use a database of locations than program every location into the code, which would also allow me to have a date, meta data and a link to the photograph. Eugh, suddenly my brain is bursting with the thought of how much work that would be. Perhaps I'll use it for new photographs from the time I get the map running and use the GeoJSON that it supports out of the box. Maps...so much fun.

I spent Saturday night at the Forth Bridges (yes, again) took some photographs and had coffee at the Hawes Inn. The coffee was required because it was cold because it's Autumn. I got three shots that I like that I have included below. I like the photograph that shows the three bridges that I managed to capture using a wide angle lens. I like the way that there is still some light on the left side of the photo that eventually fades to black at the right side of the photo, there are also a few stars that can be seen (faintly). This is also the first time I have visited South Queensferry since the Queensferry Crossing has been opened.

 

 

The creative process

I have a process that I like to go through before I go out to take photographs. I like to clean and make sure my lenses have no marks on them and do the same for any filter that I am taking with me. I make sure I have a charged battery for the camera and that the memory card has been wiped clean and that I have a couple of spare ones in my bag. I know also check that I have at least one tripod with me since an ill fated trip to Loch Lomond. There are a couple of other things in my bag, but as long as I have the essentials above I am good to go.

I like to think about where it is I am going and what I would like to capture, already visualising it in my mind, thinking about best positions to take shots and looking at other people shots if it is a place that has been photographed a lot, primarily to see if I can get to a different angle or area to shoot from, to make the photograph my own. Uniqueness is hard to attain, often impossible.

So that's my creative process. It works about 1% of the time. In fact, I often wonder about why I still do it, for almost every time that I go out to take photographs it is the shot I didn't plan on taking that usually turns out to be the one I am happiest with. The throwaway shot that I often take without thinking about that I will work harder with in post processing. Apparently my brain and thinking is getting in the way of my creative process. It happened twice today, once in Stirling when all I had with me was my iPhone ("the best camera you have is the one you have with you") and once this evening when I was out at the Helix Park to photograph the Kelpies.

Of course, I am not sure that I would get these 'throwaway shots' if I hadn't been thinking and going through my thought process beforehand. Here are the two shots I got today. The photo of Autumn is taken in portrait mode in the iPhone. The long exposure shot of the Canal Lock was taken on my DSLR just after sunset.

Canal Lock

Autumn Calling

I like the Canal Lock for several reasons. As some may know I am a fan of the long exposure shots, and I think that this worked particularly well in this shot, the cloud movement towards the shots and the mist created from the water pouring over the top of the lock gives it a surreal look while retaining the crispness of the wood, concrete and debris around the that the lock gate. Usually pylons (to the right of the shot) annoy me, but I like the contrast of a modern eyesore with a historical mode of transport.  Of course if you go down to the Kelpies the pylons are an eyesore and getting a shot without pylons or pylon lines is very difficult.

Autumn calling was taken on the back walk down from Stirling Castle into the city centre. I just happened to look back at where I had come from and took around twenty different shots of this staircase and took a long time choosing which one I liked best. I was a bit surprised by the reaction both on Instagram and Facebook, a lot of comments (which I totally appreciate). I like this shot due to the appearance of green as well as the golden brown leaves of Autumn. It's apparent that Autumn is coming but not totally here yet. The shot was taken on portrait mode on the iPhone and it was focussed on the golden leaf in the centre of the shot, which created some blur in the background. I thought it was appropriate photograph as the autumnal equinox had just passed.

Read this...

Read this if you want to be Instagram Famous

I have spoken highly in the past about books written by Henry Carroll, his series of Read this...

...if you want to take great photographs.
...if you want to take great photographs of people.
...if you want to take great photographs of places.

They are great books, not super technical and full of great advice for the beginner and the accomplished photographer alike. They don't take forever to read (a solid afternoon of reading) and they all cost around £10 / $10.

While I was "screen" shopping on amazon last week I was rather surprised to see "Read this if you want to be instagram famous". My instant thought was how long can it take someone to write about getting famous on Instagram it's easy, you need either:

- to be female and post lots of bikini shots.
- have a great female model and take lots of bikini shots.

This may sound a touch politically incorrect but check the stats, and you'll see I am right, trust me, I'm a data scientist. Needless to say I purchased it and had amazon deliver it on prime because I couldn't wait to see what it had to say.

The book is interesting, introduced by Henry Carroll, it features roughly 65 instagrammers that have influential accounts. Each page has a concept, for example time it right / be straight shooter, then an instagrammers story that fits the concept. Each person featured discusses how and why they started and their experiences in building up a following.

Much to my annoyance the first person featured is @daniellepeazer who appears in most of her posts in a bikini or her underwear or my favourite post of her just out of the shower and has to post a photo because she is dying to tell you that her "hair is washed and smelling amazing" (24,088 likes at time of writing). She has a following of 1.2 million people. So that works out to be about a 2% like rate. I found it annoying because it basically re-inforced my politically incorrect statement above. You can make the obvious conclusion that I am jealous and you would be right, I would love to have 1.2 million people follow me for showing off my body :-)

I am not going to spend the entire post converting like rates on Instagram, I do (possibly) have better things to do. Back to the book review...

In it's 150 pages there are "technical tangent" pages which are very useful for those that are just starting to post on Instagram as well as veterans of the medium. The pages on perfecting your profile, selecting an effective handle, avatar and biography have good little nuggets of information. I also particularly enjoyed the composition pages on what makes an effective Instagram post. Other technical tangents include effective use of #hashtags and why having a caption and commenting on photos can build a following. For those that have high ambitions there is also a technical tangent on becoming a suggested user! Sections on marketing yourself or brands are interesting and it also gives information on what rates people charge for promotions on their accounts.

The book is written in an easily accessible way, it is not technical, but does provide a lot of ideas and should provoke some thoughts for the average user. Priced at £10 / $10 I think it is definitely worth the money if you have some ambition of building a following on Instagram or are in need of some inspiration for your account. One of the things I liked about the book as well, from a purely cosmetic sense, is that it is square just like Instagram posts should be (according to the purists) even though all Henry Carroll's past books have been rectangular. :-)

Your thoughts? I am @willadam or comment below.