Colourful Jerdune

In a followup to the monochrome blog entry Derelict Jerdune, here is Jerdune in all it’s colour and glory.

A wander to the Clyde Tiger

A lunchtime wander exploring the Clyde Tiger on the North bank of the River Clyde with some of my work colleagues.

Beech whippet

The first weekend of the summer with scorching sunshine. After a day roasting in the garden on the Saturday polished off with lots of wine over a bbq, what else could one do except head to the nearest beach on the Sunday. Well, maybe not the nearest, but Portencross Beach is our favorite, and certainly one of the best within easy driving distance, reasonably quiet with spectecular views across the water to Arran and on a clear day even to Ailsa Craig.

The tide was well out, making the beach enormously wide, with wonderful stretches of rocks containing puddles, and bright green sea weed. Only the second time we have been on a beach with Lola, and boy, did she love it. Mooching through the seaweed, paddling through the puddles and waves, chasing and being chased by other dogs, rolling on a dead seagull and harassing typical Glaswegians for blackened sausages from their bbq.

These few images hopefully illustrate the whale of a time Lola had. She was so tired after running ragged that she slept all the way home in the back of the car, which is very unusual, and was even quiet during our second bbq of the weekend. I admit this is a blog entry with whippet overload, but hey, the images are wonderful if I may say so myself.
It was very hazy, and without polaroids, Arran was not even visible. I will have a look through the landscape and intimate landscape images taken that day, and dedicate a future blog to these if they are worthwhile sharing.

Clyde tiger

The Clyde Tiger is a very impressive mural to promote the Chines Year of the Tiger. It was created by The McFaul Studio and forms part of the Tiger Beer’s “Tiger Lucky Eight” promotion. The mural can be found along the Clyde Walkway on the North side of the Clyde just East of the King George V Bridge, and can be spotted from any train crossing the Clyde on their approach to Central Station.

Although I had walked along Clyde Street a few times in the preceding weeks, I would not have spotted this mural if it wasn’t for a tweet from a fellow photographer. So after checking it out on Thursday with a test shot, I headed back at lunchtime on Friday with my tilt and shift lens and tripod. The main image is constructed from two images, one shifted left and one shifted right, using my tilt and shift lens, then stitched into the letterbox format measuring a massive 30 million pixels.

I will add a page to my Insight pages soon with the detailed steps I went through on site and in post processing to get this great image.

Convert virtual reality of the Clyde tiger to html and insert

This virtual reality hopefully gives you a good appreciation of the location of the mural and it’s size. Below are a few more images, noting that the second one was taken with a fish eye lens, and the last one similar to the first one, but with some titl to attempt to blur the foreground and background. Unfortunately, I didn’t get it quite right, as it hasn’t worked out the way I wanted it to be, so I’ll have to get back there next week to try again.

Spring details

As promised in my previous blog entry Life is a blur here are a few intimate landscape images, or visual poetry if I may plagerise Colin Prior, from our Sunday afternoon’s wander through Mugdock Wood. I love this time of the year, with lovely detail and colours in young budding plants and flowers. The main image of a tiny purple pine cone offset by the young green needles is my favourite.

Life is a blur

After a glorious Saturday spent mostly reading the third novel in Stieg Larson’s Millenium trillogy in the sun in our garden, Sunday morning was a bit of a let down with heavy clouds and the odd light shower. So we decided to head into the woods for a wander off the beaten track after lunch. We had hoped for fields of blue, but unfortunately, the bluebells in Scotland appear to be out at least a week later than the England bluebells shown in glory on the web by others in the past week.

Thankfully the weather had improved quite a bit, so we ended up wandering through the woods with a mixture of sun and cloud. We started of from Drumclog Car Park, but headed due North across tracks through the woods rather than following the main track to the West. On reaching the edge of the woods, where the ground dips down to the swampy grass fields, we headed West, but when the opportunity came, we crossed the fields to the other side, crossing little streams meandering through the fields.

On reaching the path that leads down from Mugdock Castle to the West highland Way, just above the old gamekeepers cottage, we followed this well paved path down to the West Highland Way and Allander Water. A welcome opportunity for Lola to have a paddle in the river before heading back up along the tracks through the woods and back to the car park.

The light was wonderful and provided good opportunities for landscape photography. The images of the afternoon ranged from landscapes (vistas) to visual poetry (intimate landscapes) and abstract photography. In the absence of enough bluebells for a typical blue landscape image, I decided to experiment and make the most of the few bluebells in bloom. Using a slow shutter speed and moving the camera downwards while pressing the shutter button, I created some pleasing abstract results.

I used the same technique to take some abstract images of flowering broom and birches framed by fresh green grasses. I am pleased with the results, especially the mian image of the birches. The last image included is a reject, where I failed to get the camera movement and pressing of the shutter button coordinated. hopefully this will give you an impression of the few bluebells amongst the green grasses that form the basis of the abstract bluebell images.

A future blog entry will likely include the landscape and visual poetry images from this delightful wander.

Walking the edge

Our usual Saturday afternoon walk is always and eventful time for our little Lola. People and dogs galore, and with a bit of luck she can steal some bread from the children feeding the ducks in the river. Nothing is better than splashing in the river, fetching sticks, running circles around ‘slow’ friends and chasing or getting chased by ‘fast’ friends.

The weather was dry but very overcast this afternoon. Trees are budding, but strangely enough and lots of blossoms coming out in the West End gardens, but no blossoms out along the River Kelvin yet. So I just spend an hour throwing sticks and shooting Lola running into the river and clambering back onto the river bank. Then Cara, a bouncy Visla, joined us for the usual dog chases.

Piscina Natural de Hermigua

Piscina Natural de Hermigua, the natural swimming pool at Hermigua, is one of our favourite and one of our most visited spots on La Gomera. The natural sea water pool is not only wonderful for a refreshing swim on a hot day, but is also set amongst the most spectecular scenery. The pool is flanked by steep cliffs on the South, impressive pillars that are reminicent of the island’s banana era to the East, grande waves crashing against the rocks to the North and stunning views to Playa Hermigua, cliffs at Santa Catalina and picturesque Agulo to the West.

These images hopefully give you an appreciation of the pool and it’s location, although they do not fully convey the scale and sheer wildness of the place. My next blog entry will be showing the views to the West, a typical Gomeran view of towering cliffs with hamlets and cultivated terrace clinging to them.

The towers are a leftover from the early twenty century when the banana trade on La Gomera was flourishing. Metal constructions on top of the cranes enabled the loading of bananas onto cargo ships anchored in the deep waters out in sea, safe from the treaterous rocks.

For anyone going to La Gomera, this is a must visit spot. One word of caution though. With high winds and/or rough seas, the pool and adjacent area is a no go zone. I will pursue a future blog entry showing the rough side of the sea from previous visits.

Casa Bencomo

Casa Bencomo is one of the traditional townhouses built around a central courtyard, typically found in the old heart of San Sebastian. Standing on the corner of Calle Real (one of the three main streets) and the square in front of Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (the great church of San Sebastian), the townhouse commands a more prominent position than most other townhouses.

So it was very welcoming to see that after standing empty for many years, the townhouse is finally being restored and renovated. It transpires that the council is restoring the outside of the townhouse to preserve it’s original looks and, unfortunately, renovating the inside to facilitate a library. It is a pity the inside is not restored to it’s original state. Then again, preserving the building is better than for it to remain derelict and slowly degenerating to rubble as is often the case.

The first twelve images were taken during our visit to La Gomera in Ferbuary 2006 when the doors to the central courtyard were open and we got a chance to venture inside to explore the derelict building. With hindsight, I wish we had spent longer inside, as opportunities to access such abandoned and derelict townhouses is proving to be a rare opportunity.

The final four images of Casa Bencomo were taken during various visits to La Gomera since then. The first image taken a year and a half later, on 30th September 2007, shows Casa Bencomo boarded up and it’s prominent location on the corner of the square and Calle Real.

The second image was taken another year and a half later, on 9th March 2009, showing very little change apart from a few more billboards on the doors and a few more broken panes in the first floor windows. It also illustrates the pace of life and change in La Gomera, with little change year on year.

The final two images were taken on our last visit another year later, on 20th March 2010, clearly showing the restoration and renovation work in progress. These images also show the mix of materials used, ranging from concrete and breeze block to strengthen and rebuild the walls to high quality timber for the new roofs.

Avolo geology

The road to Puntallana from Punta de Avolo along the sheer, towering cliffs tumbling down to the sea from Banda de Avolo to Baya de Avolo is an absolute gem for anyone interested in geology and/or saturated colours. Even though, we have walked this road at each of our visits to la Gomera over the past years, the walk still leaves us in awe of this spectecular place.

The road itself is very precarious, clinging to and widing alongside the steep cliffs, and is closed to traffic at present. Rockfall and flushing rain water have damaged the protecting wall and washed away some of the wooden barriers in places. A walk along the road from the end of the tarmac at punta de Avolo to the start of the winding decent to the flats at Puntallana is more than worthwhile.

Due to the carving out of the road at the side of the steep cliffs, the geology of this area is laid bare and very visible. The bands of sandstone ranging in colour from bright red and bright orange to a more purple red and even yellow. Combined with fastastically formed/shaped grey quartz and black volcanic rock that flank the sandstone, and at places even cross the sandstone bands in the form of dykes, the sights are absolutely stunning.

The following sixteen images show the photographic opportunities for striking intimate landscapes or, as others would call it, visual poetry. The colours shown in these images are realistic but often do not do the actual bright saturated colours one can appreciate along this road full justice.

To appreciate the setting of these intimate landscape images, I have included the following eight images. Hopefully these give an appreciation of the road and its precarious nature, although these images do not do the scale of the cliffs and their steepness any justice.

Man, this is way too difficult

While out playing in the back lane with Lola, I tried to get some action shots of Lola jumping for the ball. So I tried to throw the ball with my left hand and shoot with my right hand. Man, this is way too difficult. I kept throwing the ball against the wall or in the bushes.

The one above and the four below are the best one of about a dozen I took.

Fun in the mud

Our first walk along the River Kelvin after our two week holiday in the sun and Lola’s 18 day sleep over in Largs. Lola has lost a little weight (and is looking in good shape!), but has not lost her interest in fun, running and ripping sticks to bits. Although it was overcast, it was still a very nice afternoon for a wander along the Kelvin Walkway. The heavy rain overnight had turned the place to a mud bath, but all the more fun.

Lola was having a ball, running with dogs, running circles around other dogs, splashing through the mud and waters, fun digging in an existing hole and ripping reeds and sticks to bits.

While Lola was having fun in the nud, I spotted this little dipper flying from stone to stone on the side of the river. I managed to take a few shots, albeit not the best, as I had to crop a tiny portion of the original taken with my 70-200mm. In fact these are at 100% size, by cropping 800×533 pixels from the original 21mp image. Quite pleased. Need to keep my eyes peeled and bring my bigger guns the next time.

In the end… home to a warm shower.