New Years Day

Well, more accurately New Years very early morning. 

Welcome to 2018, another year begins where tradition allows us all to make clean starts, begin good meaning resolutions and plan out the year ahead. Wikipedia tells me that some of the origins of New Year resolutions were started by the Babylonians who made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts. The Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.

I thought a lot in December about what I would like to pledge a resolution or two to in 2018. Inevitably I came up with resolutions that would fail within the first week or two. I found that setting achievable goals that would be difficult but not impossible, at the same time as being beneficial for myself, would be decisive in any degree of success.

Last year was difficult at times for various reasons so I am looking forward to my 'clean slate' of 2018. I hope that I can replicate the good times of last year and miss out the not so good times.

So, my New Year started at The Vennel, a lane that leads to and from The Grassmarket in Edinburgh, with friends old and new. Needless to say, I was there for the view of the fireworks. The first photograph was taken when the clock struck 12am, a nice little 3 second exposure :-) Click for the thumbnail for larger versions.

This was the first time that I have taken photographs of fireworks so it was fun working out which settings worked best while working under a little bit of pressure as the show only lasted 9 minutes. I used my Canon 5D for these shots and have a couple more that I will post on Instagram later. I also used an application called Halide for shots that i took on my iPhone and I was really impressed with how well it worked last night. I'll think about posting these later.

Also, a quick mention to @jack_zxr, @katie_smith80, @itslour and @alycoste for providing a great atmosphere and hilarity to the start of the year.

Happy New Year

New Years Day

As New Year's Day was so nice there was time to go for a walk to work up an appetite for dinner. I decided to go to Dollar. Dollar is a small town in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. It is one of the Hillfoots Villages, situated between the Ochil Hills range to the north and the River Devon to the south. 

The walk was from the town of Dollar through Dollar Glen to Castle Campbell. The castle was originally known as Castle Gloom, possibly deriving from the Scottish gaelic:  glom, meaning a chasm, and referring to the narrow gorges to either side of the site.