The PK Perspective

Campsie Linn:  Thurs 12th August 2100 ish

I was minding my own business and having a good dance along to my wii game when Ian texted, suggesting we do a twilight shoot, like right then. So it was off with old combats and on with some warmer clothes and out the door to a proper photo trip. Yieahy! The sun was just starting to set so we headed west along the river in the hope of catching it set over the water. After a small trip down a odd back road we ended up at Campsie Linn. This is usually a quiet area as is not the easiest place to get to and many don’t know of it, but this night the small car park was full and the road packed with parked cars. Very Odd. We decided not to investigate and headed down the other road to the fishing area close by. A short walk brought us out at the river side and we set up to capture what light there was.

I had remembered my tripod for a change which is a good thing as slow shutter speeds were needed to capture the light and movement in the water and clouds. So with low ISO and high aperture the shutter was about 15-20 secs. My wide-angled lens is too big for my filters so I was unable to block out more light for lower speeds. I did however get some fabulous shots with it due the nature of the all encompassing lens. As the light started to fade we could see flaming lanterns exist the trees at the Linn itself and rising on thermals to grant their wishes, which was maybe a little odd for a summers evening in Scotland. Unfortunately with the wide lens they were just blips on the horizon. As the light got more and more dim the shutter speeds got lower and with a bit of experiment we found that with my camera on “bulb” mode I could use the remote shutter release to get longer exposures by pressing the button once to open the shutter and then pressing it again to shut it. This meant very long shutter speeds with no holding down shutter buttons or cables, very handy. However there is nothing like long shutter speeds to let you see how dirty your lens actually is.

Just after darkness really stared to settle in, the bats came down and the Linn camp had ended their night in a fiery water display, no idea what they were up to. Our shutter speeds were down to 10 mins and the batteries were starting to complain, but i did get a lovely shot before my battery gave up entirely. However the lens and sensor weren’t very happy with such long shutters and it took a lot of photoshop work to pull out the impurities. After the battery went we decided to call it a night as we could hardly see our way back, so we packed up our stuff and hiked carefully back down the river to the car. The low shutter speeds meant that we didn’t get as many shots as usual as each shot took longer and there was no postponing the sunset, but I am happy with the shots I did get and it was excellent to be out on a proper photo trip again.

10min Exposure, Lovely but left impurities.

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.

Location: Stanley, Perthshire | Time: 1330 01/03/2010

Sarah and the Ice

Don’t ya love deliveries? – “between 0800 and 1600 we expect you to sit in your house and do nothing until our precious delivery man shows up at your door”. On saying that he showed up at 1330 which gave Sarah and I time to nip out and get some photos nearby. Stanley Linn was the location and I’d never been before!

It’s located by heading right after the zebra crossing in Stanley (approach from Luncarty) then turning left at the end of the road. Then you turn right again on to a single track lane. At the very bottom is a place to ditch the car.

You are greeted by two fishing vessels (small wooden boats with outboard motors) and a few houses owned by people who are considerably richer than me. The area looked like it had suffered a lot of river damage recently and the bridge that Sarah claims was there… wasn’t!

A few skips and jumps later got us across the rocks and off down the small beach which was littered with little duck footprints. It’s easy to see why as the little blighters were everywhere. Hoi Sin anyone?

I took the executive decision to only carry my long lens and leave the bag in the car. It didn’t pay off as every scene I came to was screaming for the wide angle treatment! As always I carried on regardless and got a couple of worthwhile shots but time was short due to my daily 3pm nursery pickup deadline.

The sun was out! Yieahy! But time was short due to pram deliveries and local rock stars visiting! I suggested we go to Stanley Linn as I lived in Stanley for a couple of years when I was younger and knew its little secrets.  Again I felt old as what was is no longer and even the bridge had disappeared and the open spaces were filled by new buildings and odd non native trees. But the beach is still there and I lead the way down the Linn to what is a pond in the summer, but at this time of year is just part of the river.

Ice on the water

As we were well away from the warmth of the city and civilization in general the water was still frozen in bits and after amusing myself with throwing great slices of ice over the frozen pond (do love doing that) I decided to get a few arty shots of the patterns in the ice as unlike Ian I did have a wide angled lens. Of course my problem was I needed to be pretty much standing on the ice to get the shot. But that never stopped me before. I even placed the camera on the ice at one point, very gently, and got a great shot.

We moved on and hopped across the shallower part of the inlet to where I was scarred for life many years ago (in the literal sense).  A short walk through the woods brought us to where the divers dive from in summer and where Shem (the dog) learned to swim and jump in from rocks. As it was half frozen we decided not to venture in the still pool today. But I did climb down to it to get a photo or two of the tree and island a short jump away, well ok maybe a long jump! But all very lovely and wintery and actually quite warm in the sun, at least positive numbers for a change! Then our time was up and it was back in time to collect the little one from nursery. All in all a short but sweet little trip.

Diving pool and Island