CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

After two days stuck behind my computer writing editorial copy, a beautiful still evening  had me grabbing my camera bag and heading out to Barns Ness for a bit of fresh air and photography.  The reward was a beautiful scene across the bay at White Sands as the sun set behind my right shoulder. Using a 3 stop ND filter and a 3 stop Lee ND Grad I managed to slow the shutter down to 8.5 seconds so the calm sea turned completely flat.  Placing the lighthouse in the top third of the frame produced a pleasing composition which is very simple and effective. I have plenty more images from the 30-minutes I spent out at Barns Ness and now I have recharged my batteries to continue writing for the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series season which starts in a couple of weeks at the Circuit Paul Ricard in the south of France. Image taken on a Fujifilm X-T1 + a Fujinon XF55-200mm f3.5/4.8R LM OIS with an exposure of 8.5 seconds @ f22. ...

I love a good sunset as much as the next landscape photographer and given the opportunity I will grab my gear and head out to the beaches here in East Lothian and set the camera on the tripod to get the last golden glow of the setting sun. What amazes me is how many photographers pack up as soon as the sun has dropped below the horizon thinking that the photographic opportunities are done.  In fact the best light is often just before the dawn or just after the sun has set and a lot of photographers are missing a golden opportunity (pun intended!) The best way to capture the twilight you need to be set up in good time as the sun is dropping towards the horizon and you'll need to have your camera strapped to a sturdy tripod and to use a cable release as the shutter speeds start to get longer very quickly once the light has gone. Once the sun drops below the horizon you'll notice the colours shift from bright oranges and reds to purple to blue before turning black. ...

This evening, at the end of a beautiful sunny and warm day in East Lothian, we had a family BBQ on White Sands beach.  Of course I took one of my cameras, the X-Pro1 to be precise, to take some shots of the beach as the sun set in the west towards Dunbar.   The clouds had started to bubble up so I put the 10-24mm wide angle zoom on the X-Pro1 and fitted the Lee 10x ND 'Big Stopper' filter + the 0.9 soft grad ND filter to give me a long 30 second exposure.  The shot above, taken at 30s @ f16 iso200, was the result. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

Over the past few days I have been working on a car feature for the FIA World Endurance Championship website and have been photographing an Audi R8 V8 quattro in and around Dunbar (more on that in the next few days).   On Wednesday morning I got up early to take the car to White Sands, Barns Ness and Dunbar Harbour to take some shots of the car in these beautiful locations but when I looked out of the window there was thick fog and I could hardly see the house across the road.  I nearly got back into bed but something at the back of my mind said 'get out there, it will be fine'.   So I got into the car and headed down to White Sands in the still 'pea souper' conditions.  However as I headed down the single track road to the beach I could see blue sky starting to appear above the beach.   I  parked the car and started to take some detail shots of the car and some moody 'in the mist' images (see main shot) but it wasn't what I wanted.   I wa...

Since we moved to Dunbar in August White Sands beach has become one of our favourite places to go for a stroll on the sand and take pictures. I decided to try a different technique where I used a slowish shutter speed and moved the camera during the exposure to create a little movement in the landscape. This shot was taken on the Fujinon XF14mm f2.8R using a shutter speed of 1/30s and an aperture of f16 (ISO200).  The result is a bit of movement but enough of the image is still sharp.  A Bleach Bypass filter was applied in Color Efex during post processing to give it more of a wintery feel.   What do you think?   Image taken on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujinon XF14mm f2.8R lens   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we...

Some wonderful shapes and textures in the sand and rocks was the result of an early morning walk on the beach at Barns Ness. First stop was to get a shot of the Barns Ness lighthouse as the sun came up behind the clouds to the right of the camera. The strong sunlight provided some dramatic lighting in the clouds an in the large rock pools on the beach. The next shot was taken low down near one of the rock pools.  The low sunlight providing some strong colours in the rock and the water.  I decided to crop this as a panoramic image to improve the composition. The next shot was taken down by the shoreline and a Lee 10x ND filter was used to give a 3.5 minute exposure which has resulted in the water being smoothed out across the rock pool and also the waves have disappeared in the background. Finally a low down shot of the ripples in the sand on the beach gives a lot of foreground interest to the shot of White Sands beach. Images taken on a Fujifilm...

The weather on the east coast of Scotland has been sunny but a bit breezy of late.  A walk on the beach at White Sands yesterday was best described as 'bracing'.  The beach changes with every tide and this is not just due to the waves, the wind plays a large part as well. While we walked along the sand the wind picked up and streams of sand were being blown across the beach. I decided to try and capture these patterns on the X100 and I think this image has done the scene justice. Fujifilm X100 - 23mm f2 - 1/90 @ f8 - ISO200 I also aimed the camera towards the sand dunes into the wind and into the sun to give a backlit scene. Fujifilm X100 - 23mm f2 - 1/350 @ f8 - ISO200 The blown sand had caused the shells at the waters edge to be coated in sand and the wet beach had formed a beautiful textured finish which I tried to capture with this image. Fujifilm X100 - 23mm f2 - 1/40 @ f8 - ISO200 --------------------------------------------------...

Armed with my trustyFuji X100, WCL-X100 wide angle converter, ND grad filter and a tipod we headed down to White Sands for yesterday evening's sunset.  Long exposures have added movement in the surf and also in the clouds. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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'

After a week in Brazil it was a very sunny day in Scotland to welcome me home so it was down to the beach this evening for a quick BBQ with the family and a few snaps of the sunset reflected in the rock pools.   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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'

Our first full day as Scottish residents was spent with the usual unpacking of boxes and trips to Ikea and Asda to stock up the house and the food cupboards.  After a busy day we decided to head down to the beach at White Sands to remind ourselves why we moved to Dunbar.  We walked round the headland towards Barns Ness and the lighthouse on the point. This will be one of my regular photographic haunts in the coming years.  Barns Ness White Sands Images taken on the Fujifilm Finepix X100 and 23mm f2 Fujinon 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...