I’ll try and stop worrying about what people think about my images.

I’ll need to stop worrying about what people think about my images. It gives me a bit of anxiety over something out of my control. Its pretty much in my personality trait. But, I have been a lot better lately, as photography for me is about enjoyment, getting away from the real world, and it puts me at ease and makes me happy.

After all, my images are my art, nobody else can produce images like me, and I should feel proud of that. No way would I take a self portrait and put it up on my website, if I chose not to show my work, it would not exist. I was brave today, and went to my home studio under one light (Soft box) and a backdrop. I put my camera on a tripod, took several shots on a 10 second timer, until I felt that I captured something that was meaningful and personal to me to share.

I will try something different the next time, maybe an interesting subject other than a portrait image. In the near future I will have a portfolio up on my website. But first of all I need to learn this craft.

My first image with a copyright and watermark.

Today was another learning curve. Find out how to watermark and copyright my images, thanks Karen (work colleague). Well, it took me 4-5 hours to find out how to do this in Lightroom. I have learned a lot over the past week, and need to get this website as best as it can be. Also to protect my images from being used and edited without my permission.

I took this image of my wife Lesley this evening in the spare room, It was the same set up as yesterday. I used my old Nikon D510 DSLR and a 50mm prime lens ( Yongnuo) which is very sharp for taking portraits. My settings were, focal length - 50mm, f4 aperture, 1/125s shutter speed, ISO 200. I felt the exposure was good with the soft box light set up. I took around 30-40 images, and most were done ad hoc, and I got Lesley to pose, and made her comfortable, and every now and then stopped to show the images I took.

This image was edited in the Snapseed app on my mobile (I normally use Light room). I cropped the original image in ever so slightly, then converted it to black and white, then used a noir filter at the end. I feel this image portrays emotion , calmness and thought, The leading line at the wrist through a diagonal direction looked really nice, with a dark shadow on her right side added another moody feeling. Her denim jacket, added texture to the image and there is a lot of negative space either side of her face and the left shoulder. I liked this a lot, one of my best portrait images to date.

A nice black and white, noir portrait taken this evening at my home studio,

Home studio - simple design and a first portrait image.

I set up a simple home studio this evening and had my beautiful wife to pose for me. I used a 50mm prime 1.8 lens. Settings were f4, 1/100s. I used a large collapsible Neewer back drop, small stool, a 50x70cm Raleno soft box. I like what I did, and its a pretty clean image. I will do more of these, and would like to take family portraits too. This is set up in the spare room. I closed all the curtains, and made sure all light was eliminated except for the soft box.

I’m happy with the result, and look forward to doing more for sure, a nice starting point for my new website.

A nice catch light on the nearest eye and a fall off with focus towards her left eye. Shot at f4.

Don’t just look towards your scene, have look over your shoulder as well!

Well, I was taking an image out to sea, and by chance I looked over my shoulder as the sky darkened, and captured this moody sky! By looking around, it can give you something so much better to come away with. A lesson learned, if there is nothing really nice to capture, just pause for a second, look around you, and you may come away with an incredible image. This image was shot in November 2023.

Seafield Beach - Kirkcaldy, Fife - November 2023.

A sun rise to make me feel alive.

Seeing a beautiful sunrise, and the reflection of the sun as it rises makes me feel alive. I love to capture these moments in time, save the image on my hard drive, then publish what I had seen and experienced.

The image needs to feel a certain way (uplifting, spectacular, calming, colourful, peaceful). Through my eyes, it needs a meaning, a kind of balance from the real and unreal world that we live in. It needs to tell a story, then I click the shutter button.

Seeing a beautiful sunrise, is not by chance however, a little bit of planning can help. Now the sun rises are getting earlier day by day, as we move into the summer months.

I use a few apps to help me decide on where to go. Photo Ephemeris helps me locate where the sun will rise and what time. Clear outside will give me an understanding on what the cloud cover will be, there is no point going to a location with complete cloud cover from the horizon to the highest point. The wind map from MSN will aid me, if I will be using my drone to to get images from above. The Met Office app is useful for general weather conditions. With all the information I can make a choice on where to go or not go to capture a nice sun rise.

I prefer sun rises as I am an early bird, and to date, I have witnessed many of these magical and timeless moments.

Sun rise at Aberdour, Fife, in March this year.

I Started my photography website today!

I have just started my photography website today, after a couple of weeks getting it set up through Squarespace. I have never ventured into this before, even though I have been a photography hobbyist for ten years or so.

I have been involved with weddings, and sports events in the past. Weddings were the toughest for sure. I did like however being the main photographer for my sons local football team, Hillfield Swifts for two years.

I would just at the minute like to showcase my images. I have an old camera, a Nikon D510, and I have a new DJI Mavic Mini 4 Pro drone.

I have an interest in landscape photography at present, and I like putting together, short videos with my drone, which I will put up on this website. I will see if this lovely hobby develops me as a photographer, and I will endeavour to produce lovely images with a personal feeling or meaning. I am delving into the unknown as to where it will take me with regards to building up my website with images and drone footage.

I have been thinking about starting to do portraits again, either on location, or in my home studio which I am setting up. I have basic kit to practice with, and gain more knowledge and experience.

Future photography trips; Mirror Man (structure) at Loch Earn, Arria (mermaid structure) in Cumbernauld, and Robert the Bruce statue at Bannockburn. My plan is to take images of them and publish them on this site.

My favourite times to take images and drone footage are during the golden hours.

Lets see where I go from here…….

An old photo from around 2012 from a boxing event, which I was the main photographer.

Forth Rail Bridge, I almost lost my drone.

I went out early this morning with Betsy to capture some video and images. I left the house and was in South Queensferry by 0525. I did a bit of filming and I was lucky to come back with my drone. I set the drone up on Hawes Pier with the battery pretty empty. It RTH and landed just on the edge of the pier, another half meter, it would have gone down in the River Forth, I was really lucky going home with the drone.

I have learned not to set the drone up near hazards such as rivers and send it up 10-20m away from hazards, I did managed to capture nice images and put together a video which is on my you tube channel. I look forward to going out again this week.

Hawes Pier - Before sunrise

Seafield Beach, Kirkcaldy.

This morning was an early start with Betsy. I left the house just past 5am, and headed off to Cowdenbeath interchange to park near by, to capture the wind turbines at dawn. Unfortunately the path to the wind turbines from the road had CCTV and did not chance walking along, then get caught by security guards, just for a photo.

Anyway, I drove straight to Seafield Beach in Kirkcaldy for dawn. I captured some nice drone video and images as Betsy ran about the beach. Its a really nice spot for photography and is part of the Fife Coastal Path.

Dawn - Seafield Beach.

Edinburgh sunset 30 March 2025.

Beautiful back light on our capital, Edinburgh

Yesterday I went to Edinburgh and completed a long mountain bike ride around Arthur Seat. After the training ride, I went and explored the stunning sites around this extinct volcano. I took the drone up into the sky and got a few videos, but I will need to back and get more during the golden hours, before I put a vide together. The wind gradually dropped during the afternoon and managed to grab this nice image from the drone, and edited this on Snapseed, the mobile app. The sun set just to the right of Edinburgh Castle. I took this from Salisbury Crags.

Low tide North Queensferry.

I was looking at capturing an image from above, looking at an interesting subject, and textures. I took this image during the golden hour yesterday at North Queensferry with the tide out. I liked the textures of the mud and the old pontoon bridge, with the boat by its side. The image is a square crop.