The PK Perspective

Location: Loch Turret    Sun 4th July 1400 ish

As my photo bud is working lots and looking after 2 kids when he’s not working I dragged my mother out for photo trip instead. The advantage of going out with mother is that she supplies lunch too, we originally said we would have a picnic but when Sunday morning came it was dull and wet and windy so we agreed to to Gloagburn farm instead, YUM! Gloagburn is between Perth and Crieff at Timbermore and does wonderful home cooking using organic ingredients off of their farm. As we munched on our lovely food and discussed the weeks ongoings the heavens opened and to say it poured down is an understatement. It was rain of a more biblical nature and just as we considered making us an arc it calmed down and left behind it a lovely sunny and warm day. So after lunch we decided to venture out into the world and headed away from the dark bruised clouds that were fleeing to Perth. The sun was shining over Crieff so we went that way instead and on the spur of a moment went to Loch Turret just beyond. I have been there I few times but always in the autumn and winter and have been met with snow, mist and a very full loch. But this time, in summer, it was very different. The glen was lush with greenery and the loch itself was somewhat shrunken revealing little stony beaches underneath its edges. It was beautiful with the sun shining over the hills and sparkling blue water.

Legoesk hydro building

The whole place was maybe a bit too perfect and had an unreal feel about it like someone had painted it on . The colours were bright and harsh in the Scottish light, but the most unreal thing is the Hydro building. The loch is a dammed river and is looked after by Scottish water. At the base of the Dam which looks like a steep green hill is a building which home the pumps and on this day had an alarm going off. It is a stone building of grey and red and with the steep hill behind it and the blue sky above it looks like it is made of lego or some child had painted it on. Very odd! After deciding that the alarm was not a signal that the dam was going to burst open we headed up to the loch and a view point which was sign posted but we never actually found.

The loch looking lovely before the storm

As the day was now so wonderful, though still a bit breezy we walked along the path at the side of the loch, a path which turned in to a small river at times due to the mornings rain. We got about a mile down it when it gave up being a path and turned into a grassy track and eventually into nothing but heather on a hillside. We did find a stream tumbling down to the loch and a little waterfall which I at a couple of shots of with a low ISO and  Shutter speed  although they were a bit blurry as in order to get them with the wide angle (I didn’t have another lens with me) I had to lean over a very slippy stone which was too slippy to stand on and balance the camera on the edge of it at arms length, surprising I managed to get any good ones really! After this stream we thought we should head back as the path was no longer obvious and the sky was darkening. Back up through the heather we went to the path/ river which we had followed up and after passing a few tourists in t shirts and no jackets (fools they are, do they not know about Scottish weather) the sky turned a deep dark navy and the sun disappeared behind some very heavy clouds which closed in around the hills and cried their woes to us. Like someone had ripped them open the clouds threw their contents at us and I was very glad I had brought my waterproof jacket which is big enough to zip up over me and my camera. It seems we did not beat the storm after all.

With thunder rumbling in the distance we speed back around the loch and over the dam to the car and reached it well and truly drenched. And although the scene was pretty spectacular with a moody sky over loch and glen I was not getting my camera out of my jacket and subjecting it to the buckets of water that were being hurled at us. The drive back down the one track road was interesting with the rain bouncing off of its uneven surface and obscuring our view. At the bottom of the glen is the glen Turret distillery and we sought sanctuary there with it’s giant Grouse until the rain eased and revealed yet again a beautiful sunny day with a blue sky and cheerful white, fluffy clouds. If it wasn’t for the soaked ground and drenched people you would think it had always been a lovely day. Good old Scottish weather, just like its people and a bit on the unpredictable side and often full of surprises!

Perthshire – Campsie Linn and Dunning:   Sun 20th June 2010

Our poor Groucho

Although last Sunday was fathers day I actually spent the day with mother. Firstly because Father was not actually available and secondly as mother had had a really bad week that ended in her cat Groucho (named after Groucho Marx as both had a little black tash) having to be put down due to kidney failure. Poor Grouch! She was getting on a bit, that’s the cat and not mum, but none of us expected her to go so early as our previous cats have lived to around 20 and Groucho was only about 11. She was a very noisy cat possibly due to my sister talking and singing to her when she was a kitten (though my sister had no excuse as she was in her 20s!) and she was a little feisty to put it politely, but all in all she was a good cat and loyal when it suited her.  May she rest in peace in little cat heaven where she can eat Paris buns to her hearts content and sit on Indie (our old cat) whenever she wants.

Anyway to order to cheer up mother we went for a picnic at Campsie Linn which is the other side of the river Tay than Stanley Linn. As the Tay was so low we walked easily over to the island which was littered with smashed sandstone on the grey and white riverbed, like a big rock monster had come along and pooed across it! I assume in actuality the force of the river in full flow had dragged the sandstone down and into the harder pebbles. The day was hot but not bright and I only got a few shots but we had a nice lunch which included fresh raspberries from the Strawberry Shop just outside Old Scone. Yum Yum! After a wee explore of the island we headed across country to Dunning.

Ancient Pictish Cross with amazing carvings

In the middle of Dunning and at the heart of its random road system stands St Serfs church which dates back to the 13th Century, though most the building you can see now is somewhat newer than that. This beautiful church with some of the most amazing stained glass windows I’ve seen (especially as the church is so small) also houses the Dupplin Cross which is a very impressive Pictish carved cross which dates from 800AD. It was originally sited a few miles along the road at Forteviot but the local land owner there got fed up of people walking on his land to see it and got it removed, lovely man!!!! The cross is dedicated in latin to the local Pictish King Caustantin, and is one of the best examples of Pictish engraving there is. It’s panels are engraved with legends, biblical stories and signs of unity and considering it is made of sandstone and has spent 1200 years  standing on a Scottish hillside has aged very well indeed, with most of the panel designs being easily seen and identified. It symbolises a great king who united the Picts and the Scots and overcame the Nordic Vikings and ruled justly over the land. It also has various Christian beliefs on it including the celtic triangle of the holy trinity and references to King David. Thankfully Historic Scotland, who’s care  the cross is in, do not mind photographs being taken of the cross or the church. So camera out for me then. The cross is lit by dim lights but I found the flash took out a lot of detail and made it look very flat so I turned the camera to Raw and manual and took the shots with a shutter of about 60th as I had no tripod for lower and an ISO 1600 with a low aperture. This gave me a few good moody shots. I also got some shots of the stained glass windows using a lower ISO as by now the sun was streaming in. And although Jesus had odd feet on one pane (all a bit De Vinci  code with hidden meanings) I got some  lovely shots of the patterns on the glass and the light they shed on the old walls.

Both Church and cross are incredibly interesting places and quite photogenic and the Historic Scotland man very helpful and informative and I would highly recommend a visit. But if that is not your cup of tea then the town of Dunning is quite lovely too and although most of it was burnt down in raids a few 100 years ago along with the church there is one other older building, a cottage. It is said that when the raiders came and set fire to the village the woman who lived in this cottage set a torch burning at the window and the raiders thought they had already torched the house so left it alone, clever girl!!! Also there is the monument to Maggie Wall who is believed to be the last woman to be burnt at the stake for being a witch. There is no record of this but I’m lead to believe that her skull was excavated and the story holds. The painted inscription on this monument which is interestingly topped with a cross  tells us she was burnt in 1657. Mother and I visited this little witch sanctuary before we headed back to Perth and after talking to a very chatty sheep we added our coin of respect and a daisy to the various other items left in memory of a woman unjustly treated in a turbulent time. Poor girl was probably just a normal clever woman and hence must have been a witch in the eyes of a male dominated society.

Once we got back in to Perth it was unfortunately time for me to go to work so I had to leave mum to her own means, but I had managed to cheer her up a bit and distract her from memories of poor Groucho.

Corinna hotel  Sat 19th June

There’s a condition at work which we call “nightshift brain”and this is when during or after working waking nightshifts your brain gives up its higher levels of functioning due to the tiredness, isolation and general messing about of the body clock. The phenomenon can last for a good few days after the last nightshift. Now due to doing 4 waking nights, finishing on the wed morning, then doing a sleepover shift (which is a late shift, sleep at the service then do an early the next day) on Friday, by Saturday my brain had pretty much given out. This all made my shoot of the wonderful R.P.G on Saturday a bit of a challenge.

Although I was faultly RPG weren't

They were again playing the Corinna Hotel in all it’s dodgy glory.  This time they had a warm up act, Patrol, who were just finishing when I turned up. They did sound very good and everyone gave them a glowing review. Sorry I missed you guys! As always the light was shocking there but this time I had come with a plan. I had used coloured acetone to make filters that fit on the flash, ingenious! They would of worked really well too if I didn’t have so many problems with the flash gun. I had put in cheap batteries which the flash just ate through at an amazing rate and only with very fresh batteries did it work to it’s best. Lesson leaned though, you get what you pay for! This along with my faulty brain that set the camera up with ISO 100 instead of 1600 and at no point figured this out until the next day, made for a challenging shoot. But through the technical difficulties and the rather rowdy crowds (my thanks to Pauline and Sandra who acted as my bouncers and stopped me getting stood on even though it put them in the line of danger) I managed to get some great shots.  Again I also used rear flash and slow shutter approach and as the band and crowd were quite lively I got some good movement shots. I did need to do quite a bit of photoshop work to lighten them up though, knew I should of worked in RAW format so I could play around with exposure and that and due to the low ISO and hence darker shots I did tend to transfer a lot of shots in to black & white to get the contrast and detail I wanted.

Although I was not at my best, RPG were. They played their hearts out and put up with the drunks wondering onto the stage area and were gratified with proper screaming fans and demands for more. It sounded like and felt like being at a proper concert, apart from the venue. I’m sure if they did a CD it would do very well, who says you have to be in your youth to make it big in the music world!!!!

Fife coast- Crail to Leven     Fri 11th June afternoon

As my usual photo buddy is busy being a dad to a most beautiful little boy I dragged my friend Louise along on a wee photo trip instead. She wanted to meet up for lunch anyway so we agreed to have a wee picnic at the beach. Louise is a fantastic cook so I jumped at the chance of some of her homemade soup. After picking her up in Dundee we headed over the bridge and round the coast to the Firth of Forth. Our 1st stop was Crail where we sat like a couple of old women on a bench at the sea front drinking our soup from proper mugs. We were the envy of the passing pensioners. As we chatted and ate the tide slowly crept in and the old sea water paddling pool in front of us succumbed to high, cold water. As the clouds had blown over and it was getting a bit colder so we walked along the front then back to the car and on to Anstruther where we could maybe catch the sun again.

Lovely Beach at Leven

Anstruther was a lot brighter and we took a walk around the harbour after laughing at the prices of a fish supper at the renowned chippy. Being Veggie I have never had a fish supper from it but I am told although it is pricey it is very good.  Again there was no fancy photo work to be had and I worked in fine format on Aperture priority to control DOF, and got a few nice shots of the harbour with the picturesque village behind it. Anstruther (pronounced Ain-ster in fife) is a lovely little village set around the old harbour with its houses nudging each other for space and in a collection of coastal Scottish colours. After shooting the lighthouse at the end of the harbour we decided we deserved some ice cream and, although Louise tried to throw hers away in the enjoyment of them, we finished off some lovely cones at the harbour front before moving on to Leven.

Now Leven is a bit of an odd place and is really quite run down and the town centre has little to offer but the beach is lovely and the sun shone through the clouds for us as we walked along its golden sands. We passed the time taking photos and discussing Louise’s upcoming wedding and hen night, which I can’t share with you as is top secret girl stuff!!! Once my mother had phoned looking for her car I had borrowed, we headed back up the beach. Unfortunately The view back up the beach is not so pleasant as you are walking towards an industrial looking harbour and almost urban looking town, all grey with an edge of dirt and harshness to it. Then it was a drive back through the countryside to drop Louise off in Dundee then home to Perth for a slightly cheaper chippy. All in all a lovely day with good company and although I didn’t get loads of shots I’m sure I will return again.

Aberdeenshire Coast- Gourdon & Inverbervie   Sat 5.06.10 afternoon

As I had not just had a new baby and hence was not up to my eyeballs in nappies and surviving on next to no sleep, I decided to enjoy the lovely weather and the end of my holiday off of work. I arranged to meet father and have a bit more sedate trip than last time. Father is an artist and a pretty good one and when I was young we used to go out sketching together so at Christmas I got him a new sketch pad and graphite pencils so we could go out sketching again. Although my sketching is not even a patch on fathers I remembered how I used to enjoy our sketching trips so we headed out with pencils, paper and camera.

I really miss the seaside so we headed up the cost again and thankfully that was where the fabulous weather was. Father wanted to sketch a harbour we had visited somewhere on the Aberdeenshire coast, but us being us we couldn’t remember where it was, after all most the time we are lost. So we figured out it was above Montrose but not as far as Stonehaven so we set out to find the allusive harbour town. Father remembered the little tidal harbour and a walk along the beach to a coast guard house, of course that describes most of the little towns along that stretch of coast. After a few false starts I randomly turned off at Gourdon which had a harbour sign and there it was, the mysterious little harbour he hadn’t dreamt of after all. We parked up and found ourselves a spot on the harbour side and sketched away. I was dreadfully out of practice but got better as i went along.

As always fathers looked great even when he only spent a few mins on them. Once father had decided he was too old to sit on the stone harbour we moved on to the coast guard house and had a go at that. I decided to put down my sketch pad and pick up my camera for a while as that is where my talent lies I feel. There wasn’t much fancy photo work to be done however with such great strong light and lovely scenery. I used aperture priority as I usually do so I could control the depth of field and with the bright sun was way down to ISO 100 leaving me with a lovely fast shutter.

quick sketches of little old cottage

After a wee while we headed up the coast to Inverbervie which was only 3 miles or so away. Here we found an old cottage behind a very Victorian coal yard that was complete with rusty machines and piles of fresh coal.

It was like sometime around 1900 everyone went home and noone  returned, ever!! A fabulous place but strangely not very photogenic, maybe because they didn’t have digital cameras then! If I had gone with a peephole or brownie one I’m sure I would of got some great shots (doubted that what they were called but when put that into Google get loads of stupid gumpf trying to sell stuff and a few things I wished I hadn’t seen! stupid internet is too big sometimes!). Anyway as father disappeared up some steps to find out where they went- no wonder we keep getting lost- I dawndered over to the cottage and a quick sketch and took a few shots. Great old cottage completely boarded up and falling slowly in to a state of disrepair, a bit like an old man with a broken leg. Oddly it still had neatly tied up black bin bags outside waiting for the dustman, maybe the spiders and beasties liked to keep the place clean.

After dad had a wee doodle of the place once he had found his way back from the random steps, we went to investigate the double bridges over the Bervie water. The new bridge which is now the main route up north was built in 1935 and the old one which has fake painted on windows was built on 1799 and is now only used by pedestrians and also arches over not only the river but also the central pier of its own predecessor. Lots of history in one little place and a very nice photogenic place with beautiful sweeping arches and curves over the water and the edge of the coast.

Although Inverbervie is really just a wee nowhere town now it is a lovely place and has a pretty impressive history including where the designer of the ‘cutty sark’ was born and it was made a royal burgh by king David II after he was stranded there due to bad weather.

Once we had walked over a very odd style and tiptoed passed some sheep to get as close to the bridges as possible and my wide lens showed its worth again, we decided it was time to head back. I dropped father off in Carnoustie to get ready for his church dinner, apparently more important than taking me to dinner, then headed home myself. All in all a good day if a bit less exciting than my cliff climbing the week before, but still very enjoyable in what in my opinion is the most beautiful part of this wonderful country.

After four long days worth of contractions, my wife gave birth to our son, Sean, on Thursday 3rd June 2010. He was delivered with no pain relief whatsoever and popped out at 12.44pm – just in time for some lunch! She went into proper labour about 11pm the night before but after not sleeping for 3 days straight, there wasn’t much fight left.

Sean at home and sleeping off the trauma of... sleeping

However things perked up considerably when the midwife FINALLY decided to do a dilation test after 7 hours in the ward. At 9cm we were hurried downstairs to the labour suite and the midwife was surprised to find Lisa walking there!

The birth itself was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve been lucky to be a part of. The whole experience brought us together closer than I could ever imagine and am happy to report that “she couldn’t have done it without me” – a far cry from the useless plank I thought I would be.

Post-birth saw the missis going for a shower and returning to the labour suite looking like nothing had happened. After our first child resulting in a C-Section the recovery time was huge compared to the couple of hours it took to get over what looked to me like severe body trauma. The human body, and primal instinct, is truly remarkable!

26 hours after the birth we are all sitting at home as a family and about to go for a wee walk round the village. Times are good!