CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

One of my favourite spots for photography is the beach at Seacliffe just along the East Lothian coast from our base in Dunbar. Seacliffe is one of the closest points to Bass Rock and at this time of year is a great spot to watch the thousands of Gannets swirling above the rock or diving into the Firth of Forth to catch their fish supper. With one eye on the tide I clambered out onto the rocks to capture some long exposures as the waves crashed against the rocky shoreline. Using the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the XF10-24mm f4 Fujinon lens fitted with a Lee 10x ND 'Big Stopper' and a 0.9 ND soft grad filters, all strapped to the Manfrotto tripod, I captured this image with an exposure of 131 seconds @ f16 ISO100. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this...

This was another shot from the morning at Seacliffe yesterday.  We spotted this rock in the surf as the tide was going out and the pristine sand with the swirls around the rock made for the perfect foreground interest looking out across the Firth of Forth to Bass Rock. Using the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and 10-24mm f4 lens set to 19mm (29mm in 35mm terms) I set the camera low down to get as much of the foreground into the shot.  With the aperture set to f11 there is plenty of front to back sharpness in the image. The image was converted to back and white in Nik Silver EFEX Pro2 software and then tweaked in Photoshop to get the finished picture. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. -------------------------------------------------...

Today I held another MacLean Photographic Back to Basics workshop out at Seacliffe beach and the Scottish weather gods played fair once again and gave us a nice sunny morning to shoot. While I was teaching composition and the use of filters to control the exposure in the camera I took some shots on the X-Pro2 to demonstrate what I was talking about.   The shot at the top of the page is of the small harbour in the foreground and looking across the bay to Tantallon Castle on the cliffs. The shot below is of the small stream running down the beach to the sea. Both shots were taken on the Fujifilm XF10-24mm f4 lens and converted to monochrome in Silver Efex Pro2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. -----------------------...

This shot was taken at Seacliffe, which is along the coast between Dunbar and North Berwick and has spectacular views out into the Firth of Forth and Bass Rock.  The beach is a present of beautiful golden sand which is flanked on each side by cliffs and rocks. This shot was taken during the summer on a warm, sunny day just as the sun was setting to my left.  Using the Fujifilm X-T1 and XF10-24mm f4 I took a long exposure of the scene out towards Bass Rock. This shot makes it into my Top 10 because, for me, it sums up the beauty of the East Lothian coast and the reason why we have chosen to make our home here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

Last week at the first race of the 2015 season at Silverstone was a bit 'full on' but this was to be expected as I have worked in motorsport for many years and every year it is the same.  Now we have the first race of the year under our belt then the rest should be a bit easier.   Since I got back to Dunbar on Monday I have been working on the post race information and also preparing for the next race in Belgium on the 2nd May.  So yesterday evening, with the sun shining, I downed tools and grabbed the camera bag for a much needed walk on the beach at Seacliffe. The evening light was wonderful with the low sun behind Tantallon Castle throwing deep shadows mixed in with golden light hitting Bass Rock just off the coast in the Firth of Forth. I set the X-T1 to take long exposure images as the sun slowly set to my left and while I waited I just sat taking in the view and watching the Gannets fish in the sea.  Sometimes you have to just slow down and app...

While out walking on the beach at Seacliffe at the weekend we came across this strange rock lying on the sand.  The surface of the rock is covered by lots of round indentations, like something has worn the surface in those areas.  I don't know what caused this to happen but the result, which looks like Swiss cheese or an irregularly shaped golf ball, is very interesting. The geology on the East Lothian coast is fascinating with so many different types of rocks and evidence of fossilised remains of mud flows , which are a testament to the volcanic activity in this area millions of years ago. On the rocky parks of the East Lothian coast there are rock formations that have been sculpted by the wind and tides and perfectly smooth holes where pebbles have been moved around by the waves and tides to wear away the rock. The one thing that is for sure is the East Lothian coast is never boring and we are always discovering new things on every walk. Images taken on a ...

A beautiful sunny winters day had us heading to Seacliffe for a walk on the beach.  The waves were crashing onto the rocks around the Gegan, a large outcrop of red sandstone at the western end of the sandy beach, which made a dramatic foreground to the ruins of Tantallon Castle perched on the cliffs overlooking the Firth of Forth. There was a slight sea mist hanging around the East Lothian coastline that produced a slightly diffused light in the middle to long distance playing over the landscape as the sun sank lower in the sky late into the afternoon. I took several shots from several locations along the beach using the Fujifilm X-T1 fitted with the 56mm f1.2, 35mm f1.4 and 18mm f2 lenses. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ----------------...

This is the scene at Seacliffe beach looking out towards Bass Rock and what a difference a month makes! All the Gannets have now flown to their winter nesting grounds and The Bass is now brown instead of snowy white for a few months.  The top shot was taken this month and the image below was taken in September. We look forward to the Gannets returning in the spring when we will be taking another boat trip out to Bass Rock in 2015. Both images were taken on the Fujifilm X-T1 and the Fujinon 55-200mm f3.5/f4.8 telephoto lens. We are now heading off again for the final trips of 2014. Starting tomorrow we have eight days in Brazil for the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship in Sao Paulo. We then fly to Doha, the capital of Qatar, where the FIA Awards Gala is being held this year on Friday 5 December, before flying back to London for the Autosport Awards on Sunday 7 December. --------------------------------------------------------------------------...

At this time of year getting up to catch a sunrise isn't as big a chore as it is in the summer thanks to the sun coming up over the horizon at a more reasonable 07:35.  This morning the promise of clear skies had me heading out to Seacliffe  because the combination of a reasonable sunrise time and a low tide gave me the opportunity to get some closer shots of the Firth of Forth Outer Marker, which is normally inaccessible due to the tide with Bass Rock in the background. When I arrived at Seacliffe the horizon was just a purple glow so I decided to walk to the waters edge and set up the tripod to capture the scene out towards Bass Rock and Tantallon Castle.  I decided to get some movement in the surf by selecting a slow shutter speed of around 1/4 second.  This meant setting up in the surf and I quickly discovered that my right boot isn't waterproof like the left one, but I ignored my wet sock and continued shooting with the surf lapping around my ankles. ...

A trip out to Seacliff beach and standing on the Gegan, a rocky outcrop that juts out into the sea, the view across the bay to Tantallon Castle was amazing in the spring like sunshine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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'

This is another shot I took on the beach at Seacliffe with views out towards Bass Rock and the Firth of Forth.  The image was post processed in Color Efex Pro4 using the Bleach Bypass filter. Image taken on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujinon 18mm f2 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'