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.