My Camera Stories

My photos and the stories behind them

Category: travel

  • What are those big yellow things dominating the Leith skyline?

    TL;DR – They’re wind turbine jacket foundations. They were made in China by COOEC–Fluor Heavy Industries, and shipped here on the heavy transport ship Hua Yang Long. They are being stored temporarily in the Port of Leith before being installed in the Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm – about 15km off the coast of Angus.…

  • Mindfulness: one of photography’s hidden benefits

    Mindfulness can be an important part of photography. Yes, I’ve gone out to enjoy using my camera. Yes, I’m enjoying spending time with friends and looking forward to enjoying a coffee together. But alongside all the obvious skills of photography – considering the light, composing the scene, capturing the decisive moment – observation is the…

  • Enhancing Air Show photos from the Lumix DMC-FZ150 with DxO Photolab

    In 2013 I was using the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150. It was a good camera. The small sensor was sensibly tuned for low noise with its 12 megapixel output. The Lumix colours were punchy without going over the top. The image stabilization allowed low light use without a tripod. All in all, one of the best…

  • Police van on Whitehall

    I’ve lived in cities all my life, but living in Edinburgh is a completely different experience from the hustle and busyness of London’s West End. I was in London for a few days on business so my free time was restricted to an hour or so in the evening, before a rushed dinner with my…

  • A change of perspective

    Many visitors to Tuscany bypass the town of Pietrasanta. There is no single, iconic sight associated with the town. The appeal comes from small galleries and workshops. Temporary exhibitions of sculpture, usually featuring the local Carrara marble. And partly, perhaps, that’s because there’s no direct train from the main tourist hubs – from Florence, Cinque…

  • When white balance gets it wrong

    If you’re anything like me, most of the time you don’t even think about white balance. Set your camera to auto, shoot away … and the results are exactly what you expect. Sometimes your camera gets the white balance wrong, and that’s OK because DxO, or ACDSee, or whatever you use to tweak your photos…

  • Elphin Chicken Day

    Chickens are funny, right? So when I saw a sign on the waterfront at Ullapool, advertising Elphin Chicken Day, I was immediately intrigued. So what is it? Well, according to the Facebook page, it’s a day of community fun. That means cakes, games, chickens. Who wouldn’t want to go? Sadly in 2018 when this photo…

  • The surprisingly simple story of how Greyfriars Bobby got his shiny nose

    TL,DR – tourists rubbing his nose for luck. Because I hate it when websites have clickbaity titles and make you read through a whole load of irrelevancies before giving you the story.  I’ve always been very happy with this photo of the Greyfriars Bobby statue, photographed in 2006. Look closely at Bobby’s nose, and compare…

  • Where are your photos from 20 years ago?

    Do you know where your photos from 20 years ago are?  The big social network of the day was MySpace. Theoretically it still exists, but a botched server migration in 2015 led to the loss of most user data – over 12 years of content – so if you were hoping to find your Christmas…

  • Capturing atmosphere with expired Kodak TMAX P3200

    In 2005 I was still shooting film. Oh, I had a digital camera – the very capable Fujifilm Finepix E550 – but it was a compact, and I still loved the precision that came from the manual controls on my Canon EOS SLR.  It was a very fine balancing act. I was saving for a…

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