CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Tuesday is set up day at an FIA World Endurance Championship event and this week we are at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.  The structures in the paddock are starting to go up and some of the teams have started to arrive to begin the long process to get ready for the first track session on Friday morning. The day was very grey, with light rain, but it stopped late afternoon and gave me the opportunity to get out into the paddock with the Fuji X-T1 and 55-200mm lens -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MAC...

Contrary to what you see on this blog, the weather in this part of Scotland is not always sunny, but Dunbar is statistically one of the sunniest places in the UK.   However we live near the sea and that means the occasional bout of sea fog.  Now some people put down their cameras on days like this and I think they are missing out on the opportunity to capture something different. Landscapes look so different when shrouded in fog or mist as these two shots taken on the Dunbar coastal path show.  Taking them as dramatic mono images, adding a bit of grain to give that gritty edge to the images in post production, has given me a completely different view than when taking images from the same spots on a sunny day. Cloudy or foggy days are also great for macro and close up images because of the diffused light.  Also on a misty or foggy day the plants are usually covered in water drops, such as this ivy growing on the wall on the coastal path. So next t...

Last month I posted some images of a feature I was writing for the FIA WEC Silverstone programme on the Aston Martin Vantage S V12.  Eight pages of the programme were dedicated for this feature and now that it has been published I can now share it here on the blog. Two days with the Vantage S was spent near the Aston Martin HQ at Gaydon, Aston Martin Racing HQ in Banbury and then up to Silverstone.  Day two was spent in the Malvern Hills getting some great dynamic shots of the car on some magnificent country roads.   John Rourke of Adrenal Media was taking the images while I was composing my prose while I drove the car around, but all of the shots here are ones that I took during a wonderful two days with an Aston Martin. THE BEST OF BRITISH Italy has Ferrari, Germany has Porsche and Britain has Aston Martin; these manufacturers are very much part of the national identity for each of these countries.  The Aston Martin brand, which celebrated its 100th anni...

When Fujifilm announced the X-T1 in February I wasn't sure if it was the camera I wanted to complement my existing X-Pro1 and X100 because of it's DSLR layout.  Yes, this is a full on X-Series Compact System Camera, but it is the first with a central EVF (Electronic View Finder) and a DSLR, rather than Rangefinder, design.  Fast forward and on Tuesday 15 April  I purchased the X-T1 and VG-XT1 grip and now here is my first thoughts on owning and using the latest pro level camera from Fujifilm. Ever since getting the X-Pro1 in October 2013 I have been struggling with the reasons to keep the full frame Nikon D800 and four lenses (I sold the D700 and two lenses to pay for the X-Pro1 and four primes).   Don't get me wrong, the D800 is a stunning camera and it's 36mp full frame sensor produces the goods when I can be bothered to pack it into the camera bag.  And that's the rub, the weight of the Nikon and its associated lenses, are not worth the hassle when I...

This was taken on Easter Monday during the John Muir Festival. I spotted these two walkers standing on the bank above Dunbar Harbour and took the shot on the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujinon 14mm f2.8 lens. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION If you like what you see on this blog please visit our  Facebook  page and click 'like'

Dunbar is home to the most accessible Kittiwake colony in the UK, with 600 pairs nesting in the ruined walls of the castle that dominates the western end of the harbour.   Kittiwakes nest in colonies, usually on the edge of sheer cliffs, which is why Dunbar Castle is an ideal site for the birds with its high, sandstone, walls that are weathered and worn over the centuries to form ledges that the birds can build their nests of mud and vegetation. Kittiwakes get their name from the ringing clamour they make.   CLICK HERE for more on the Dunbar Harbour Kittiwake colony All the images were shot on a Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujinon 55-200 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank ...

This week I have been able to capture some candid portraits at two events.  The first was the John Muir Festival in Dunbar on Easter Monday and the second was the press conference for the FIA World Endurance Championship at Autoworld in Brussels. I prefer to remove the colour from portraits like this to give them a reportage feel.  I suppose this harks back to my days as a newspaper photographer when images like these had a harder, grittier edge in mono.  Of course we used to shoot on film and then develop and print the images ourselves.  For these shots I used Silver Efex Pro 2 software to create the look I wanted, which is much easier than it was in the darkroom. The first four images were taken in Dunbar High Street on Monday during the John Muir Festival (see blog on this event HERE ) The second set of four images were taken during the FIA WEC press conference in Brussels on Wednesday (see blog this event HERE ). All the images we...