I did everything I could to capture a beautiful sunrise. It never happened!

Last night I checked the weather forecast (cloud cover, wind, sunrise, and the weather in general. It looked promising!

My alarm went off at 0431, got up had a quick coffee and banana, got betsy in the car, collected my camara gear and drone, then headed off to South Queensferry at early dawn. On walking towards the location under the Forth Rail Bridge, it looked good, pretty clear, and walked into the deep blue and pinkie sky. As I was getting to the old world war 2 ammunition pier, there was a bit of low stratus cloud. I seen a good opportunity to take an image of the pier, with a lovely rising waning crescent moon above the low clouds, as I looked south towards South Queensferry.

I got my tripod ready with my Nikon D510 DSLR and the lens used was the Nikon 18-105mm F3.5-5.6. I don’t use this lens often enough. It came in handy today. The image below was taken at 66mm, F11, 3s exposure, I set this to aperture priority. It was taken at the side of the concrete block. The tide was out, and to the right side of the pier, was a rocky and pebbly beach. I took this around 30 minutes from sun set, sun set at this location was at 0550hrs.

A lovely waning rising crescent moon above the oil tanker on the Firth of Forth.

I went down and walked carefully along the rocky beach to a point where I should get the sunrise behind the pier. Unfortunately more stratus clouds drifted towards our location, and was unfortunately not going to see a sunrise this morning.

I did however, enjoy being out and seeing the colours in the sky with Betsy. I am learning that as a photographer, don’t be disappointed when things don’t come to plan, but enjoy being outside with the camera, learning new things. Even take different images from the one planned. I am still outside with the camera.

Below is an image of the pier, without the expected sunrise behind this magnificent decaying structure. This was taken around 5-10 minutes after sunrise. I used the same lens, Nikon 18-105mm F3.5-5.6. 24mm, F16, 1/60s. Aperture priority mode.

I hope you all enjoy this short blog?

The low stratus clouds prevented me seeing a sunrise this morning, but still, I still managed to capture two meaningful images, that now is shared to you all.

A very cold January with my drone at Loch Leven, Kinross.

On a very cold, windless morning (2nd January 2025), I left my home to capture a beautiful dawn. I headed off to Kinross to Loch Leven in Fife. I got to the car park which was covered in frost and made my way to the shore line at the end of Kirk Gate road, close to the cemetery.

I made sure my three battery’s were fully charged, as the cold winter months drain the power a lot quicker than normal. Just getting up early and seeing a beautiful dawn, with an amazing sunrise is an experience that I just love. In the winter months here in Scotland, dawn can be early as 0730, and with sun rises just before 0900hrs.

I hope this short video (2 minutes long) gives it justice, as the colours were incredible, deep blues, pinks and oranges. My fingers were numb flying my drone carefully that morning. The drone was about a month old, it’s the DJI Mavic Mini 4 Pro. I do love sunrises, and I plan carefully where the sun will rise will be, and what time. Also, the wind conditions, as unfortunately I can not fly my drone in strong winds.

I also love the sunrises on beaches, and in the mountains. Sometimes I will have my camera and do long exposures during the dawn and sunrise, or even sunsets. I will get up early and stay up late to see this and capture images that means something to me.

Enjoy.

St Monans - Fife coast, Scotland.

St Monans is a quaint fishing village between Elie and Pittenweem on the Fife coast. From there you can see the Isle of May and Bas Rock islands across the Firth of Forth. It is worth a trip to St Monans, as its quaint and quirky.

There is plenty of photo opportunities to be had at any time of the day. Betsy (Cockapoo) and I went there yesterday evening to capture something meaningful. I wrote down, and drew in my small notebook of what I would like to capture well before leaving the house, this included the tide times, wind forecast, sunset time, and general weather conditions. I went to the breakwater with Betsy, but it was a bit sketchy to have her there while I took a long exposure image at around sun set.

I moved on, and I did take a long exposure image of a fishing boat in the harbour as the tide went out, not quite what I wanted, but it was meaningful to me. Then, I just looked and walked about, and came across a small beach which looked out to the breakwater. The sun had set, but there was still enough light. I moved away from my camera and set up my drone (DJI Mavic Mini 4 Pro). As it was flying I moved in towards the break water, I composed the image manually, then took a few shots. I felt I captured something minimalist (the clouds did not help, a cloudless evening would have made it more minimalist). Being patient paid off, and I knew going home I would come away with something.

We have to be patient as photographers, and I understand this. To be creative at anything, we need to be patient, there is no shortcuts. If you did not get your dream image, you can still get one, just pause for a second, and feel something inside you as you look around - you will get it.

St Monans harbour - 2 minute long exposure.

St Monans break water - sun set. Captured from my drone.

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.