CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Monochrome is as old as photography itself and it is a genre that I love to indulge in as much as possible.  I always shoot my images in colour, recording the picture in RAW so I can then convert the image in post production, but I always see it in black and white in my minds eye at the time I took the picture.  Some photographers set their cameras to record the image in black and white but I don't. The image at the top of this blog was taken a couple of days before Christmas and the strong contrasts as the sun broke though the clouds made this a perfect candidate for converting to mono using NIK Silver Efex Pro2 software in Photoshop Elements. The image below is of the snow covered Rannoch Moor in the Highlands taken just after sunrise. The following three images were taken this summer on our trip to the Outer Hebrides and while there were plenty of subtle colours in each of the images the conversion to mono has given the pictures something else. ...

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2015.  This year has been a great one for everyone at MacLean Photographic.   This was a shot I took on the X-Pro1 + 35mm f1.4 in October for our 2014 Christmas cards.  We built a sandman on White Sands beach and found shells, pebbles, seaweed and some driftwood to make the eyes, nose, buttons and arms.  My trusty woolly hat finished the ensemble. I'm sure a few people did a double take while walking their dogs along the beach but we didn't care.  It was quite enjoyable building a sandman but I think we may get the opportunity soon to build a snowman in Dunbar.  Here's hoping! The MacLean Photographic blog will be taking a break for a few days for the festivities and the next post will be on the 27 December. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PA...

For many photographers, myself included, find Street photography the most difficult genre to get right.  In 2014 I had several opportunities to practice this year, in London, Sao Paulo and Tokyo. In London last June I was in Oxford Street when I came across a protest march down Regents Street with 50,000 people demonstrating against government cuts.  I stopped to get some images of the march as it passed.  More Images  HERE On Easter Monday Dunbar hosted the John Muir Festival to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Dunbar's famous son who became the founding father of the National Parks in the USA.  There was plenty of opportunities to grab some faces in the crowd during the festivities HERE  and HERE The race track is also a good place for people images, especially during the pitlane walkabout.  The first image below was taken during the European Le Mans Series event at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.  The secon...

Since August 2013 we have lived in Scotland and 2014 was the first full year of living north of the border.  The year began with a day trip to photograph the snowy Highlands - Rannoch Moor, Glen Coe, Glen Etive.   Of course most the images from Scotland in 2014 have been taken nearer to home in East Lothian and the Belhaven Bay bridge is one of my favourite subjects as it is a short 5-minute walk from our house.  This image is of the bridge under the moonlight. The East Lothian coast is a mixture of wide sandy beaches and rocky shoreline.  The beach at Yellowcraig is typical of this stretch of coastline. Cove Harbour is just a few miles south east of Dunbar and is a quaint fishing village that you can almost step back in time. A bit further along the coast from Cove is the old abandoned church of St Helen's.  Perched on the top of the cliffs this ruined church, with its upturned grave markers, is a eerie place to visit, even on a sunny d...