Glow again in close up

At the kitchen garden end of Harlow Carr Gardens, the illuminations were more 'staged', with flowers made of lights and fairy lights twined around the arches and fences. Still pretty, but with a different feel from the coloured floodlights in the rest of the garden. By this time, it was getting quite busy and I kept having to wait ages for people to pass. It was properly dark so I was using very long exposures with my tripod. People tended to amble along quite slowly so I kept getting 'ghosts' in the pics!

At one point the path was too narrow to use my tripod, so I tried some ICM (intentional camera movement) shots. I quite like the one below. 'ICM trees' are a bit of a cliché nowadays but the lighting gives a fresher feel to the image, I think.

This, below, is an ICM image too. When I was checking the histogram for the exposure in my processing software, it gave me deep blue 'warning lights' where the deepest shadow was. I like the contrast of the cool and warm tones so I took a screenshot, to make an abstract with a difference!  

Early morning on the rocks

Harris, day four
I managed to drag myself out of bed on the fourth day to participate in the dawn shoot. (I'll never be a real landscape photographer!) We scrambled about on the rocks at Rubha Romagraich, not far from where we'd been the evening before. I like the photo below, even though it's an annoying composition and I want to move the hill.

The sun came up behind us, throwing a soft light on to the outline of Ceapabhal.

I also liked the effect and the colours in this ICM image:

The sunset show, day two

Harris, day two
Tràigh na Cleabhaigh produced the most wonderful, dramatic twilight show. Here it could be enjoyed looking both west as the sun sank over the sea and east to the rosy-hued clouds. Slow shutter speeds seemed to bring out the colours rather beautifully.

Tràigh Iar

Harris, day one
Don't bother looking at my posts for a few days if you get bored of sky, sea, sand and rocks... because basically that is all there is to the Isle of Harris. Sky, sea, sand and rocks of the highest order though, one has to say. It's not an environment that I'm familiar with, living so far from the coast, and initially I felt rather frustrated at my lack of ability to 'see' photographic compositions beyond the most obvious. It was, however, exhilarating simply to be there and experience it - the clear air, the amazing colours, the sound of the waves. Harris is famed for its turquoise sea and light sand. You could be forgiven for thinking you were in the tropics, if only it were a little warmer. To my surprise, the sea even looked turquoise when the sky was dull, so it can't simply be to do with the light.

Our first afternoon was spent on the beach at Tràigh Iar, a pretty little crescent with views over to the Isle of Taransay.

I spent a bit of time experimenting with my ND filter to blur the movement of the water and also played around with some camera movement, both quite satisfying. The soft blur seems, perhaps paradoxically, to suit the scenery.

I've spent as long again trying out different ways of processing of my photos and that is very much a work in progress. Subtle alterations can really make a difference so I can see I'm going to keep going back and tweaking them.