CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Yesterday morning I got up at 3:30am to drive north to The Trossachs National Park with the intention of climbing to the top of Ben A'an to photograph the sunrise.  I was joined on the trip by friend and fellow photographer Alistair Spence. Ben A'an is a 454m high hill situated next to Loch Katrine and Loch Achray. On the south side Ben A’an is forested. Even though Ben A’an is not a high mountain the views are excellent. From the peak you can see Loch Katrine, Loch Achray, and Ben Venue which is just next to Ben A’an. The translation of “Ben A’an" means “Small Pointed Peak”. When we arrived it was still two hours before dawn and, with the lack of light pollution, the stars were very bright in the night sky above the car park.  We packed our kit and then began the steep climb to the summit.  The track is well marked but very boggy due to the snow and ice melt. The sun rose in the east over the hills beyond Loch Achray, bathing the landscape...

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. ...

Today was another opportunity to visit one of the many beaches along the East Lothian coast to the west of Dunbar and North Berwick.  Longniddry Bents, a long sandy and rocky beach situated to the north of Longniddry, stretching for approximately 4.5 km.  On the beach an old wreck is visible at low tide.  There is no information on the name of the ship or how long it has been on the beach.  It has obviously been there for a long time as all that is left is the keel and a few spars, but it is a mecca for photographers who come to Longniddry Bents to capture long exposure images as the tide laps around the old timbers. As this was a family walk, and not a photo expedition, I contented myself with some shots of the wreck using the X-T1 and the XF18mm f2 Fujinon. Longniddry Bents is close to nature reserves and there are a lot of birds to be seen feeding when the tide is out. It is a great beach for blustery walks during the winter as well as family visits in t...

A lot has been written about the V3.0 Firmware update for the X-T1 that was made available for free by Fujifilm on the 18th December, so much so I am not going to do a blow by blow report on each change that Fujifilm introduced for the camera that was launched at the start of 2014.  I will say that the update has introduced some interesting additions and some that are actually useful. The one change that I was very interested in was the electronic shutter that allows shutter speeds up to 1/32000th second, a lot faster than the existing 1/4000th second using the mechanical shutter.  Because I love using the fast prime lenses (35mm f1.4 and 56mm f1.2) I, like many other Fuji photographers either had to step the aperture down in bright conditions (negating the main reason for owning these lenses) or fit an ND filter, which I do have for both these fast lenses.  Allowing the camera to shoot at 1/32000 means that I don't have to do either of these things in the futur...

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...