Morning Reflections in Tobermory - A Winning Image

Earlier this year I entered a Facebook competition run by photographic retailer Jessops to find the five best regional images from around the UK - South of England, North of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.  I entered my favourite shot from our trip to Mull in December and was judged to be the best entry for Scotland.

 

 

Yesterday Jessops put up the five regional winners and asked visitors to vote for their favourite and 'Morning Reflections' received the most votes and the image is now the cover picture for the Jessops Facebook page.

 

The picture was taken on a very cold 27 December 2011.  I got up just before dawn and headed down to the harbour.  The scene was so peaceful, with just a couple of other people up and about (the rest were probably sleeping off their Christmas hangovers).  While we have visited Mull on several occassions in the past few years, this was our first winter trip.  If this had been May or August the scene would have been very different with more people on the island and boats in the harbour.

 

Anyway enjoying the peace and quiet I headed out to the end of the small quay and set up my tripod to capture the dawn light on my Nikon D90 and 18-50 f2.8 lens.  I was ready to go when the sun started to filter through the clouds over the Sound of Mull (to the right of me in the picture) and I set about capturing the scene.  I fitted a 0.6 ND Grad and also a 0.9 ND filter to give me a shutter speed of 30 seconds @ f 11.  I managed to fire off three shots before the light changed but it was the first of these that gave me the best shot.

 

I stayed and shot the sunrise for the next hour but I knew the shot of the harbour front had made the early start worth it.  I put the RAW image into Photoshop but all I had to do was tweek the curves and contrast and that was it - the final shot was more or less how it came out of the camera.  I was very pleased to have an image of a well photographed scene that was somehow very different from the standard.

 

My prize for winning the Jessops UK in Pictures competition was a canvas print  and the 70cm x 50cm print now sits on my wall just to remind me everyday of the most beautiful place in the world.  I travel a lot with my job but Mull is my favourite place and I look forward to our next trip in May.

'Morning Reflections' is available as a limited edition canvas print.  For more details visit the MacLean Photographic online shop HERE.

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