Glasgow – Selkie’s Photography

Weather

It never quite plays ball when you want it to…. I went to Glencoe last year. Hoped the weather would stay with the glorious sunshine I drove up in. It was warm and I genuinely considered ordering an ice cream when I stopped at Inveruglas. Not that I felt I needed to stop driving but there’s such a nice view down Loch Lomond.

Did it stay like that… Did it heck. The clouds rolled in when we got to the Clachaig Inn and then stayed stuck there. Went out to Glen Etive the next day and the mountains were hidden all day behind clouds. It was June so I don’t feel like I was asking for much getting to get some decent views. Glencoe and Glen Etive are home so some of the best views in Scotland. Even the big Hollywood movies turn up there from time to time. The now iconic image of Daniel Craig’s Bond standing next to his DB7 in Skyfall was shot in Glen Etive. Actually, now I think about it, the clouds were hanging about the mountains then too. I made an effort to try and not allow it to take away from the trip but it, eventually, did.

I know my current set up isn’t waterproof. Ok, the 24-105mm lens IS proofed as it belongs to Canon’s pro range but the body would suffer if I did it too much. The body has been pretty soaked before, I should really stop doing that. I once stood for an entire afternoon getting shots of a parade in Glasgow and never paid too much attention to the drizzle till I got home. Maybe one day I’ll win the lottery and upgrate to a full mirrorless setup, or be able to get a Canon 6D Mark 2. The 6D I see as the end of the line for me with DSLR bodies; going full frame and weatherproof at the same time. However, back to the subject, clouds don’t always mean rain. It’s living with the grey of winter that really gets me down photography wise, as it doesnt seem like there’s much colour out there.

I suppose the lesson here is to work with what you have, even if what you have doesn’t seem like much. Photoshop’s sky replacement is never going to fix those clouds. I’m sure I coud use it to change something, purple clouds maybe? I’ve been accused of messing with the sky before. The intense blue of the sky from Mount Tiede in Tenerife was no fake, I assure you. Just this real sky from high above the little fluffy clouds over an otherworldly terrain that has played the part of alien planets in film and TV. It’s a dark sky location for star gazing for a reason and just generally beautiful. BUT we can’t always be in the blue skies and warm temperatures of Tenerife.

“I can see the curve of the Earth from here!”

So where am I going with this little wander down memory lane? Two big takeaways – one…. Stop letting the weather stop the camera getting out. Take the grey with the summer colour and work with it. Second…. Never Photoshop a sky. Keep it real. I did this anyway but I’m not for changing. We don’t always have beautiful blue skies and fluffy white clouds here in Scotland so why lie about it?

Return to the Murals

So ages ago, OK it was 2 years ago, I went out and found some of the Glasgow murals. I’ll admit that they can be hard to shoot to be honest. One of my lecturers recently pointed out that you are taking a photo of art and it’s not always successful, because art is beautiful in its own right. However it’s always a good day out when I go shooting with the Sunday crowd.

I try to take something a little different but it’s tricky. These murals have probably been snapped by 50% of those walking by and plenty go looking for them and there’s even a guide website now. None of this will stop me going after a full set and they do keep adding to them. The Billy Connolly ones are pretty recent additions to the collection.

These are from the larger mural of Scottish wildlife that I had a previous go at on the Bank Holiday Hunt. This time I was quite taken with the arch in the stonework that underlies the mural and has been worked into the design.

SQA Higher Photography

In a decision that I made what seems like many moons ago, really it was only last year, I started studying at night school for my Higher. The work builds up into a year-long project and an exam. Of course covid-19 stepped in and the exam was cancelled, so I have no idea how that would have worked out. The project, however, is half finished and the photos mostly unshared. I kept the photos quiet while I was working but it’s time to share what I did work on.

So it was called People Make Glasgow…. Oh that sounds familiar, you say? Yes, I’ll admit it was a shameless theft of the toursim catchphrase. It did give rise to an interesting set of images as I went out to find “people”. I didn’t manage to get the final set of images so I’ll share some for my favourites from the shoots I did manage to complete. The whole project was about 2 shoots short of a full set.

2 of the shoots were attempts at street photography. The city centre at night – Halloween night to be exact, and Pollok Park and SEC craft fair. I got quite into these shoots.

The next shoot was a marathon of a single day. Riverside Museum in the morning and the Style Mile Christmas Carnival in the afternoon. This yielded a lot of images and a fair few that would probably have made it into the final line up. It was brilliant trying to catch images as the parade went past in manual mode, that was a challenge.

Over the month of December I centred on the Christmas markets in George Square. It was a challenge to get images handheld in the darkness.

My mojo kinda left me after Christmas for a bit and the next thing the world had changed from under us. I took my camera with me to work at an office in the city centre for the final week before the lockdown started. Then it was empty streets and lines outside supermarkets and pharmacies. For a project that had people at heart it got very complicated.

Eventually word came through that we wouldn’t be submitting anything of the project for external assessment. So it has been gatering dust since.

The results arrived last week under a storm of issues. The SQA were taking the teachers/tutors grades and downgrading some of them based on the outcomes of the place where you studied. I got very lucky, my grade remained what my tutor submitted. I got an A.