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.

Another 4.30am rise yesterday. As the weather forecast was promising fog and mist early in the morning, I thought I would take a trip up to Aberfoyle for the sunrise.  I managed to capture this shot as the sun tried to break through the mist.

The next shot was taken looking over Loch Achray towards St Johns Church.  The swirling mist made the church appear and disappear minute by minute.  This has created a nice natural vignette to the image.

Day 6 Continued…..

After the nice early evening light at the fairy pools, the clouds started to roll in so we didnt want to travel too far for a sunset.  We decided to have a look at the area around the narrows of Raasay, a small peninsula called An Aird.  While Cameron decided to wander along to An Aird itself, I decide that the bay before it called Camas a Mhor-Bheoil looked a bit more promising.  I walked down to the edge of the rocks and started looking for a good vantage point.  After exploring the area for an hour or so the sun started to set, but the sunset was pretty poor with the heavy clouds and the slight spits of rain as well.  I did manage to get a couple of images that I liked though.

Day 6

A 5am rise saw us head for the Otter Haven at Kylerhea.  After parking the car, a forest track leads to the viewing cabin.  Unfortunately the cabin is some distance away from the waters edge. This meant that there was no chance of close-up photography even if we did spot any otters.  We saw loads of seals playing around and basking on the rocks and the cabins binoculars came in handy to watch them.  Cameron did manage to get some videos of the seals by stacking teleconvertors onto his 500mm though.

In the afternoon we headed for Glen Brittle and the Fairy Pools.  These are a series of crystal clear, aqua pools along Coire na Creiche.  A short walk of around a mile takes you to the start of the waterfalls and pools along the Allt Coir’ a Mhadaidh burn.  We waited a while for the clouds to lift and the sun to reappear lighting up the Cuillin’s behind with early evening sunshine.

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.

Todays archive post is from last years trip to Jersey.  This is Corbiere Lighthouse, one of Jersey’s most photographed locations.  This shot was just recently processed by myself during a browse through my old raw files.

I thought it was worth the effort to bring this back from the archive.

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 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.

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.

Todays archive post is once again from an area that I have visited a few times.  This is Loch Trool, near Newton Stewart in Dumfires and Galloway.  This was taken after sunrise with the sun just breaking through the clouds and the early morning mist hanging around the still Loch.