2017 Part 3

The last four photos from Sep - Dec were probably the hardest to choose as I seemed to get better shots into the autumn and winter months, probably due to the increase of photography trips in these months.

September

I like this photograph of the Highland Cow primarily because it was a fun afternoon walking around Stirling taking shots of the castle and by luck more than planning the Highland cows were grazing near the fence, they were very friendly and are probably used to the celebrity status that they have acquired, there is always a couple of busloads of tourist at this location during the summer.

 

October

This was taken on spontaneous journey where I left with no particular destination. I got to Dundee not long before sunset and I wasn't going to bother stopping as the weather was particularly nasty. Thankfully I decided to walk along the side of the Tay River to the Tay Bridge. I was particularly happy with this shot once I had edited it, and it got an amazing response on Instagram, amassing over 6000 likes in total. Probably my favourite shot of the year, or maybe the shot from November.

 

November

A return to The Hague in November. I didn't get to take as many photographs as I would have liked to during this quick trip but I did spend a Friday afternoon at Scheveningen, walking from the harbour entrance along to the pier. I also spent a lot of time on darkness descending so I could get this shot. Long exposure at the sea, this turned out a lot better than I could have imagined and it is definitely one of my favourite shots of the year.

 

December

This shot from Calton Hill almost wasn't taken, but it turned out to be one of the best shots I got in Edinburgh on this particular trip. I had been shooting Arthurs Hill and some of the other monuments that day, and wandered along to this side of the hill and quickly snapped off a couple of shots without really thinking about them much. I was really happy after I edited this shot a little. 

 

So that's it, another year down (well at time of writing almost). I have started planning some trips for next year and am excited at the opportunities to travel overseas and out of Europe that are coming up. 

Thanks for reading! 

2017 Part 2

Part 2 of my favourite photographs from 2017. I sometimes forget how many photographs I take and it can take time to go through them. I also seem to have good months and bad months in terms of quality. May seemed to be a particularly good month but alas I am only posting one per month.

May

My first visit to the "Still" sculpture at St. Fillans on Loch Earn. This was an impromptu trip where I decided around 7pm to drive to St Fillans as I had nothing better to do. It was a warm night and the midge were biting hard but I persevered until I had a few shots that I was happy with, before, during and after sunset. This was the photograph I took after sunset with just the dusk tones left. I am still a little sad that this sculpture has been taken away.

 

June

Summer saw me take a few impromptu trips, this time all the way to Corpach, near Fort William. I had been meaning to visit this location for a long time and after driving to Glencoe that day I decided to keep going until I got to Corpach. I had no idea where the boat was and had to phone a friend to get directions. It was around this time i the year that I really started to like 'dusky' tones in my photography. 

 

July

Cramond Beach, these are anti-boat pylons that a lot of people mistake fro anti-submarine pylons. I have to bite my tongue when people call them anti-submarine. A remnant of the Second World war they are now starting to fall apart. The island in the distance is Cramond Island which can be reached via the causeway that the photograph is taken from. The tide comes in fast here and people do get stuck on the island overnight due to this. 

 

August

Blackness Castle. If there is one thing that Scotland does not lack, it is castles. Blackness is surprisingly close to where I am living right now and I was surprised that I had never visited before this time. This is an HDR image, I wanted the colour in the sky as well as the detail of the seaweed and the castle in it. It's not a great photograph but I was pleased with the HDR processing on it. Something learned is always useful.

2017 Part 1

I thought it would be a good idea to flick through the photographs that I had been taking through 2017 as this year is drawing to a close. I have selected one of my favourite photographs from each month with a small description of where it came from. Most of them will also be found in my instagram feed.

 

Jens in Mourning.

 It was taken at the Glasgow Necropolis. It was one of the first (of many) instameets that I went on this year. This was the first time that I had been to Glasgow to take photographs, it was a very long day and I think I came back with over 300 photographs, but this was my favourite. It's a bit dark, but then it was a cemetery. The person in it is Jens @jensinscotland. 

 

 

But Why?

February saw a number of friends meeting up in Edinburgh, all instagrammers of course. Although we started up in the town centre we ended up in Leith. I caught this shot of @alycoste and @davidgulliver_photography at Newhaven Harbour. The way I caught Alayne's hand made me think she was asking for an explanation from David. I didn't really notice this until the day after. Amusingly the first two photographs from the year actually had people in the shots which usually isn't my style.

 

The Cloisters.

Another visit to Glasgow in March, this time with @davidgulliver_photography  and @ashcharlton. There were a number of shots that I liked from this trip, especially the light trails from Charing Cross, but ultimately this was my favourite from the cloisters at Glasgow University. It took a while to get the photograph without any people in it. So many shots are about patience more than anything else.

 

The Working Palace

The first of my many trips to my second home this year allowed me to take a lot of photographs of places that I hadn't shot since 2013. This is the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, also know as the working palace. See the comment above about patience... I live close to this palace and it has various ceremonies each year which can be nice to watch. Noordeinde is also my favourite street in The Hague, so much to see and do.

The Festival Fringe

Little known detail about the Edinburgh International Festival and The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: they are two different festivals. It surprises me that people still clump the madness of Edinburgh at this time of year all into "The Edinburgh Festival". So what's the difference? The main difference is the programming policies. The Edinburgh International Festival principally promotes opera, music, dance and theatre and participation in the International Festival is by invitation only, issued by the Festival Director. The Festival Fringe has no selection process in its programming and is an open access festival for performers; anyone can present any type of work and pay a fee to the Fringe for services such as box office and inclusion in the brochure.

I thought I would give a flavour of the people and street shows I saw on a recent walk around some of the Fringe this week. It's absolute carnage trying to move around the city at this time of the year and I think this is the busiest I have ever experienced Edinburgh.

St Giles Cathedral
Food offerings abundant
Promoting Shows
Street Performing
Street Performances
The crowds of The Fringe
Donate for a big surprise
Sculpted
Transport
Red Point
Beard and Hat Comedian
Guitar playing
Self Promoting
Flamenco dancing and painting