Ayrshire Landscape Photography - Robert Strachan » ayrshire

Fiery Sky

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:46:25 +0000

My first landscape image for a couple of months. I managed to get out for a sunset a couple of nights ago to one of my favourite locations, Portencross. Luckily for me this is only 15 minutes from my house.

I like the way this image contrasts the red of the sky with the white of the waves breaking around the foreground rocks.

Saltcoats Sunset

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:50:39 +0000

Another nice day on Saturday. As the afternoon wore on the conditions looked good for some shots. I decided to head out for an hour or so down to the beach at Saltcoats to try and capture the sunset.
In the end I was rewarded with a bank of cloud moving in, which was turned an angry shade of red for about 5 minutes after the sun had set behind the Isle of Arran. Another trip well worthwhile, especially when it’s only a couple of minutes down the road.

Isle of Arran Panoramas

admin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:38:52 +0000

Two images taken on a crisp Christmas Day. The recent snowfalls had covered Arran in a good layer of snow. With my wife busy making the Christmas dinner and my son having disappeared upstairs to his xbox, I decided to get out for an hour to try and get some pictures. This is Ardrossan North Shore looking towards Arran.

This is a view from Ardrossan Harbour looking through the breakwater towards Arran.

Turnberry Sunset

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:15:44 +0000

A couple of weeks ago during one of our trips to Ken Dee marshes we decided on the way home to stop off at Turnberry lighthouse. This lighthouse was designed by Thomas Stevenson and was completed in 1873 on the site of the remains of Turnberry castle.

We reached the edge of Turnberry golf course about an hour before sunset. We parked the car and had a 10 minute walk to the lighthouse. The cloud had moved in as the afternoon wore on, so the chance of a good sunset was dwindling rapidly. This was my first time at this location so even though the light was poor, I wanted to try and make the most of it. I went down into the bay beside the castle and managed to get shots with some good colour in the sky from a slight break in the clouds above the lighthouse.

Further exploration of this bay led me to this wonderful row of granite rock. This made an excellent foreground for a good mono conversion using the dull grey sky to it’s maximum effect. The lighthouse had also just turned on it’s light, this was ideal and it was only a matter of waiting till the light was in view before taking the shot.

I moved back up to the lighthouse and went onto the ruins of the castle. I was hoping for any break in the clouds to show something of the sunset. Luckily for a minute or two the clouds parted to get a glimpse of the pink sky. It was just a matter of getting into position before the pink clouds disappeared to get the shot.

All in all; it was quite a good first visit, even though the sunset we expected never materialised. I will definitely be making a return here in the future when I have more time to explore the area fully.

Ardrossan Sunsets

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:56:20 +0000

Another trip through the archive. This post was inspired by a recent comment regarding Ardrossan sunsets. I realised that a lot of them were either sitting on my hard drive or on my pbase site. So here are another 2 or 3 old images from the great summer of 2006.

The Old Ship.

Stoney Ground.

Golden sunset.

Portencross again

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:17:33 +0000

Another trip to Portencross this morning. My main reason for the trip was to take some more images with the 10 stop ND, especially as the cloud formations were quite interesting. This image is from the pier (obviously). I played around with exposure times and the Hitech 10 stop ND allowed me to get the exposure to 61 seconds for this shot. Unfortunately, even though the sun was behind me, I had a few issues with flare and a slight magenta colour cast. It’s a pity as the effect is really good, but it’s hit and miss whether you can get a shot that doesn’t suffer from flare and colour casts.

The low early morning sun seemed to make the sailboat glow especially with the great sky above it.

Another from the other night

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Another shot from Sundays sunset at Portencross. This is the landscape format version of the previous image. I think I now prefer this one to the portrait version.

Portencross Sunset

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:19:01 +0000

Yesterday was a fine sunny day. As the day wore on, it looked like there was a chance of a good sunset. I went to one of my favourite locations, Portencross in Ayrshire. As it turned out, the sunset wasnt the best but I still managed to get an image I was reasonably pleased with.

Dunure Castle

admin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:05:29 +0000

Todays archive post is from 2008. This is Dunure Castle, near Ayr in Ayrshire. The rays of the setting sun highlighted the castle and cast the stone in an orange light that glowed until the sun set.

Stormy Sea

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:01:31 +0000

Todays archive post is called ‘Stormy Sea’. A wild, windy morning at Dunure produced quite a swell on the waves.