CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

East Lothian is known as the Bread Basket of Scotland and agriculture plays a big part in the local economy.  Today was the East Lothian Ploughing Association Tractor Ploughing Match at Hedderwick Hill in West Barns and so I decided to grab my camera bag and head down to grab some atmospheric shots of the vintage tractors and competitors. I used to cover some of the ploughing matches for the Grantham Journal in Lincolnshire when I was a staff photographer at the paper but I haven't been to one of these events since 1999.  However I do remember that the images I came back with for the reports in the Journal were always some of my favourites as there is plenty of colour and human interest. Unlike my time at the paper the images I took today were for my own pleasure so there was no pressure to come up with an image my editor would be happy with but I still approached it with the same attitude.   I decided to fixed the 56mm f1.2 to my X-T1 and put the 3 stop ND fi...

East Lothian is known as the bread basket of Scotland and agriculture is the dominant force in the counties economy, in fact 88% of the land is devoted to the industry.  East Lothian was in the forefront of the Agricultural Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries when landowners reclaimed land, enclosed fields, introduced crop rotations and created planned estate villages such as Ormiston. At this time of year tractors are everywhere on the local roads as the crops are gathered and the fields ploughed and planted for the next crop.  This shot was taken near Doon Hill and the shot caught my eye due to the fact Bass Rock could be clearly seen in the background, linking the land and the sea which are the two major forces in this part of the world. The shot was taken on my Nikon D800 using the Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens on the long end to pull in the background. This shot was taken in the same field of a second tractor with a plough set fitted that was parked up w...