CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Here is another image from the MacLean Photographic archives, this time a shot of Tobermory harbour from our last trip to the Isle of Mull in May 2013. We are regular visitors to the Isle of Mull but since we moved to Dunbar in August 2013 we haven't had the opportunity to visit the island, which is something that will need to be remedied in 2015 and was the reason I was searching through my many archive images of Mull. This image was taken late evening and is just typical of the light that can be found on Mull.  The sky had been grey and lifeless but a change in the weather allowed the sun to peep through and add a bit of colour to the scene, which I assisted by using a grad filter on the camera. Tobermory Harbour front is one of the most photographed scenes in Scotland with the colourful houses - the Mishnish Hotel had been repainted back to yellow from a dark grey over the previous winter - and boats moored up, though on this particular day the waterfront was pretty ...

When I'm presented with a beautiful scene, whether it is a harbour front or a wide landscape, it is very easy to get sucked into the big picture and shoot the wider shot.  Of course there is nothing wrong with this but I try to look for the little details as well that might make an interesting picture. Take this shot of a boat tied up in Tobermory Harbour on the Isle of Mull.  I've taken hundreds of shots of the colourful houses and shop fronts and of the bay looking out towards the Sound of Mull but sometimes you have to stop and look for the details. The rope was providing the perfect lead in line for the image and the boat was side on.  Standing in front of the brightly coloured Mishnish Hotel and using the Fuji X100 with the wide angle converter, I used lined the shot up along the mooring rope and placed the boat at the very top of the frame.  In post processing I converted the image to black and white in Silver Efex Pro2 and blurred the edges slightly to...

On the first morning of our stay on Mull I got up early to go for what has become a traditional walk on the path towards the lighthouse on the entrance to Tobermory Bay.  However I didn't get very far on this morning because the sight of thousands of bluebells and wild garlic flowers had me reaching for my camera. Here are some of the images I captured - All images taken on a Nikon D700 or Nikon D800 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE NEW 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 WITHO...

When we visit the Isle of Mull we usually stay in the island's capital of Tobermory and last week was no exception.  Tobermory is considered by many to be the prettiest harbour in the whole of Scotland and you wont get any arguments from me. Photographically speaking my biggest problem with Tobermory is finding different angles to shoot from the usual picture postcard images and here is some of the 2013 collection. All images taken on a Nikon D700, Nikon D800 or Fujifilm Finepix X100 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE NEW 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

Our time on the Isle of Mull has come to an end, much too quickly!  However we have come away with so many great images after a week of glorious weather on the West Coast of Scotland that has seen sunshine on most days over the past five days. We'll sort out the images and post some on the blog in the coming days.  However it now the final countdown for the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans. On Friday I head to France for the official test on Sunday 9 June and then the race itself on the 22/23 June. Here is one final image from Mull, a beautiful sky over the bay here in Tobermory.  We are already planning our next visit to this beautiful island.  However check back this week to catch up on some of our Isle of Mull adventures. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE NEW GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an adv...

Continuing the countdown to our next trip to the Isle of Mull, it is now just three weeks until we travel to Tobermory, the Scottish island's capital. Tobermory was built as a fishing port in the late 18th century and is now the main town on Mull. It is a picture-postcard of a place with the brightly painted buildings along the main street to the pier and the high woodland-fringed hills surrounding the bay. The town has a good variety of shops, hotels, and other accommodation as well as being the administrative centre for the island. The harbour is always busy with fishing boats, yachts and the ferry to and from Kilchoan. For more information CLICK HERE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ...

Continuing to look forward to our next trip to the Isle of Mull in less than six weeks time I went through the images from our previous five trips to Mull and discovered this shot from the early morning excursion in December 2011 down to the harbour in Tobermory. Nikon D90 - Sigma 10-20mm - 1/8s @ f8 - ISO100 - Tripod I converted the image using Silver Efex Pro2 and completed the transformation with a bit of dodging and burning on the key points of the picture.  I'm very happy with the result. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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' MORE IMAGES CAN BE VIEWED ON  FLICKR  AND ON OUR  WEBSITE 

There was a bit of good news this morning when the March issue of Outdoor Photography magazine arrived in the post, one of my images that I had submitted for their 'Night' photography competition had been picked for the top 10 submitted images. The shot was of Calve Island off the Isle of Mull in Tobermory Bay and was taken at dawn just over a year ago.  It was taken on a Nikon D90 and a Sigma 18-50 f2.8 lens, exposure was 30 seconds at f11 and I used a tripod. While there is no prize for a runner up the fact that they chose this image is reward enough as the photography in this publication is outstanding with many of the contributors are my favourite landscape and wildlife photographers.  And there is a link to my website, so a bit of free publicity as well.   If you don't subscribe, the March issue of Outdoor Photography will be in the shops in a couple of days. The two pages from the March issue of Photography Magazine ---------------------...