Quick on the draw: testing the Nikon D90

Out walking the dog last week, I went through the short tunnel that links the east of the bay with Dysart Harbour and was met with a fly past of pigeons. When disturbed, they were swooping in circles around the harbour and returning to a spot where someone had left them some food. I took a few pictures, attempting to follow them. This early one came out the best, which in retrospect seemed to work out nicely as it captured the immediacy and surprise of seeing them. Most of the wings make nice shapes. In the other pictures too many of them are caught looking contorted or like tins of flying beans.

Taking a break

                                     Nikon D90, Nikon 35mm f1.8 AFD


The snow had been pretty and relentless at the same time. For a number of days we got regular snow showers and just when we thought things had cleared we got a continuous 8 hour blizzard which brought Scotland to a standstill. The boys had a fantastic time and because we were limited in where we could go we went the same park each day for sledging. They made friends with a kid up the road and they spent most of the time out on their sledges. Apart from this short break they kept moving so they weren't feeling the cold. Being the chief toffee dispenser and general pack horse, I did.

Winter Light (part II)

It's now at one of my favourite times of the year for making and taking photographs. Up here in the north, as the winter solstice approaches, the arc of the sun is getting increasingly shallow. I get a living room full of low, strong light (when it isn't cloudy). The light moves fast when you take time to work with it and I like to play with the long cast of shadows. Here is a link back to a post from nearly 3 years ago:

http://awinterlens.blogspot.com/2008/01/winter-light_16.html
I've had the cutlery set out again...it's almost an excercise, like doing your scales, just to spend time with simple everday objects and light. I was quite pleased with the discovery of the carving fork but I'm not sure the blue linen tablecloth was the best background.

Dysart Harbour

Shell UK Award 2010

I've posted this image before but hot off the press...I've won a Shell UK Award in the Fife Open Art Exhibition, for the second year in a row. Best of all (apart from the kudos and the cheque) is this year's picture was MADE ON FILM (using the Rolleiflex) and printed myself. This is a scanned version of the negative which is quite different from the darkroom print. I kind of like both but the darkroom print is more subdued and has more texture in the snow, and this came out of the scan in an 'ultra-bright' finish.
Unframed prints can be purchased for £65 c. 8" x 8"

The Kiss

It's nearly the Equinox I believe and time to come back to A Winter Lens for a while. I quite like having the 2 blogs, it's a bit like having two houses. I left asummerlens.blogpost with a kiss so I'll start Winter with the same...

Palma Cathedral

This was taken on a Holga from the roof top of the Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum, which is definitely worth a visit if you are visiting Mallorca. It has many works by Miro and Picasso and the architecture of the old and new is amazing.

Barry Island Baby

I love out of season seaside towns - I grew up in one, although it was sometimes in season - and Barry Island met my need for that dirty realist charm very nicely. Seaside towns speak to me, whispering in my ear “I am what you could have been” along with the sea breeze.

Deia, Mallorca

There are those occasional moments in your life where you find a place that you just know, or rather feel, could be the place for you. The drive from Andratx, heading north east along the coast to Deia was stunning. And Deia itself was beautiful too so I took a few photos. I was envious of the few riders out on their road bikes in the gentle winter sun.

Urban Graffiti

Urban graffiti can be a bit of a hackneyed photo opportunity - surely it's too easy to make a good photo out of somebody else's picture. But when you find something you like there's a sense of pleasure in preserving a piece of someone's creativity before it inevitably gets erased. Isn't that what is behind a lot of photography anyway - capturing a moment in time that can't be repeated?

Watching the firth flow

I've often wondered about what a firth is and now I know

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firth

The Firth of Forth is a bit of a tongue twister at times but not as good as the East Fife Four, Forfar Five football result. This picture was taken at West Wemyss just along the coast and quite what they were gathering for was a mystery, which is nice.

Bramcote Park

I've been re-energised by some lovely comments about my previous post so I've been working on some images that I took in Bramcote Park in Nottingham. My friend Simon took me foraging for mushrooms and the morning's autumn sunlight was breaking through the woods - it was one of those beautiful days that you feel lucky just to witness. Going out of doors was the right thing to do. As a mushroom hunter in autumnal undergrowth, I found myself limited by my red/green colour blindness - at one point I was excitedly poiting at something that turned out to be half of a rotting, dog bitten tennis ball. I decided my talents were better spent on taking photos.

A view from Dysart

Hear The Wind Sing

We took the boys out on a red squirrel hunt on Saturday. The weather was foul, but the afternoon was great and they just loved it. There were no guns involved - when I say 'hunt' I really mean more of an educational expedition to look at red squirrel habitats and learn more about their behaviour. It was run by http://www.fifecoastandcountrysidetrust.co.uk/ - we were the only 4 people on it which seemed a bit sad but it meant we had the countryside rangers all to ourselves. Anyway, as I was wandering through the forest I noticed the way that the wind was blowing certain trees around - Norwegian Spruces, Rowans - so I put the camera on the ground and pointed it up. Using a slow shutter speed I hoped to capture the feeling of the wind. I'll be pursuing this in more detail but thought I'd kick off this year's winterlens with a couple of images on this theme. Coinidentally, a colleague lent me What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami so I took the liberty of using the title of one of his other books as a title. Sensibly, the red squirrels kept themselves indoors.

Spoon

Another one from the cutlery set

Fork

This is one of a series of images exploring light and shadow. If I have any advice to offer it's this: make your subject the best it can be. This is old, silver plated Sheffield steel. For me, there is no better cutlery.

breaking the waves

I can stand for ages at the shoreline, just looking and listening to the waves come in and out. Some days the sea finds a rhythm that I like and the waves break better on the stones.

City Craw

(Night)

The space between things