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MOONdays

The poor old 'Nik'... it just can't keep up the standard it had back at TAKE FIFTEEN...

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Saturday Symmetry

One of Dunoon's many Victorian fences... Taken with the 'Nik' on standard auto.

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"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
(Isaac Asimov)

Double-bloom begonia.  Taken with the 'Nik' on macro mode.

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Over at the Thursday Challenge the prompt for this week is LEAVES - which of course has a lot of scope!!!

(Have just rec'd my new camera and it is in 'practice' mode at the moment so have gone to the archives for this one.)

This imposing Sydney Blue Gum throws its leaves high above all the others around, making a tracery against the sky; whilst the ones beneath, leave their traces upon its trunk.





















Taken with the 'Nik' on manual mode, B&W, ISO100.

The one on left was taken with the Minolta on Lord Howe Island, an apparently dead tree producing leaves; and the second was taken with the 'Nik' just a couple of weeks ago.  It is not a night shot.  That was half past the midday hour. The general lighting of that sky, though, made what remained of the autumnal growth seem bright!



Now, it is also LAST THURSDAY and round here that means going a bit wild with the photo processing......

In fact, no tampering with the piccies as such, just putting another collection of 'leaves' together for a tile of interest.These were all taken with the Uniden  and are from Australia.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO MY U.S. 'TAKERS'!!!

(c) Yamini Ali MacLean

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Wings on Wednesday -

YAM's take on the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright hilarious in respect to photographing birds.

The fledgling Herring Gull which was so enjoying the wind earlier this month.  Third in the 'gull drift' sub-set. Taken with the 'Nik' on auto and post processed in Fotor for drama.

...is anyone else a fan of Richard Bach's "Jonathon Livingston..."?

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Shipping by...

Until I can build up a stock with the new camera, will use up that which has been stored from the 'Nik'.

Built 1986, SC Nordic is a pallet carrier of around 4700 tonnes, 110m length and out of Torshavn, Faroe Islands.

...we do get the occasional clear weather day here on the Clyde-side!!!

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Monday's Critters

This is dismal... the dear old 'Nik' on macro mode and failing... badly.  Known as 'slaters' here, the woodlouse is a frequent visitor in my bath - must come up the drains. 

A new camera is in my possession.  There is a learning curve, adjustment to new equipment to be done.  You will see results e'er long...

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SUNdays

Through my window a couple of weeks back.  I just grabbed the 'Nik' on standard mode and clicked.  No adjustments.  

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Saturday Symmetry

This is what thatching looks like on old Scottish crofts!

Taken with the 'Nik' on macro mode. 

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"No man can pass into Eternity, for he is already in it!"
(F W Farrar)

Taken with the 'Nik' on macro mode.

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Thursday Challenge has asked that we post something ARCHITECTURAL. Anyone who has hung around here long enough knows that is a very very very favourite subject of YAM's!!!

I was keeping this one for my Saturday Symmetry posts... but it was itching to show off here!!!

















Close up on the Aberdeen Port Authority building, take with the 'Nik' in monochrome, manual mode at 200ISO.

That reflective panel is something else!!! The lamp posts show how whacky this is.  I love it.

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Wings on Wednesday -

YAM's take on the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright hilarious in respect to photographing birds.

Next in the 'gull drift' subset... no alterations made to this one.  Taken with the 'Nik' on auto.

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Shipping by...
Views from the window...

Very late in the day... (the extended lens is really showing its wear now...am researching an upgrade).  Had the 'Nik' on dusk/dawn setting to capture as much light as possible.

The CANOPUS is a container vessel, average weight 7500 tonnes, length 140m and built 2004. Flag, Marshal Islands.  This was the very first ship I tracked with the Marine Traffic site which Bill (Spuduka) pointed me to. I hold him responsible for my new addiction! I spotted Canopus over at Coleraine in Ireland and that she was headed for Greenock, so kept tabs ... she showed up a little tardily, perhaps 20 minutes behind what the tracker suggested, but that as much has to do with the angle from my window as anything.

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Monday's Critters

Diving deep in the archives again... 

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SUNdays

I am able to sit in my lounge and track the afternoon and evening sun without having to budge. This was taken from my chair, through the double glazing with the 'Nik' on auto but stopped back two notches on the exposure, cutting glare; the lens extended to about 10x optical zoom.

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Saturday Symmetry

A recent jaunt across to Aberdeen to meet up with a blogpal brought some good photo opps!  Adding to the boundary series, this is the fencing of Duthie Park.

Taken with the 'Nik' on auto.

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FOR THE FALLEN

Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time.

They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires and our hopes profound

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own and they are known

As the stars are known to the night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

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Over at Thursday Challenge last week, things went a bit awry... I posted pink only to discover the goal post had moved! PINK it is again then... this time I recalled there were quite a few pink scenes involving the sun and the Mumbai smog... first from the Uniden...

...and this one taken up in the Himalaya - the 'Nik' on sunset mode...









...and let's not forget the many, many flowers... Which brightens up the week at TAKE...

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Wings on Wednesday - YAM's take on the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright hilarious in photographing birds.

The first in a series I am calling 'Gull Drift'... as that is pretty much all I have been seeing lately! (Live with it Bill...&*>) This was early on the morning I was heading off to Aberdeen, down by the ferry.  A herring gull fledgeling enjoying the bracing breeze. 

Taken with the 'Nik' on auto then processed in Fotor with 'Old Timer' filter.

(Have kept things  a little sombre this week, in Remembrance.)

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Shipping by...
Viewed from the window...

The ID shall have to remain in the mists... For Remembrance Day.

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Monday's Critters

A model of a cattle transport boat. This was a common sight - and there are one or two places remaining around the Hebridean Islands where small holders find it necessary to ferry their livestock across some water!!! A case of the grass being greener over there...














Taken with the 'Nik' on museum mode and 'tizzied' with Fotor into sepia with edge... Dunoon Castle House Museum.

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SUNdays

Mumbai skies series - how quickly it changed!





















Taken with the 'Nik' on auto everything.




(Repost from a year ago.)

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Saturday Symmetry

Stairs simply ARE symmetry, wouldn't you agree?  Taken with the Uniden.

this 17th century flight of stone steps is at Cramond, North of Edinburgh, Scotland.  The 'grafitti' you see  is nearly as old and if you look closely you will observe the Commandments!!

(A repost from June 2013)

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"...Look thee unto the fields.  Consider the flowers thereof.  They toil not neither do they spin, yet I say unto you, Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed as one of these!"  (Matt; 6:28-29)

The Minolta digicam was a great wee gadget.  The zoom was powerful.  No this is not a macro! 

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AARRGGGHH... Either I didn't see some small print on the previous week, or things changed suddenly - but TC changed the week for this theme... am keeping it in place though and they can have a double whammy next week!!! 

PINK!!! Over at Thursday Challenge, the prompt is for something PINK....ugh, thought I, not a colour I favour on the whole.

Then realised that on a recent train trip when approaching the Forth Rail Bridge, the caste of colour in the gloomy weather combined with angle through the carriage window had just a hint of pink.  It didn't take much to tweak that out a bit more, then play around with the tilt ...

...thus an otherwise wasted shot found some purpose!!!

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Wings on Wednesday - 
YAM's take on the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright hilarious in photographing birds.

Another from the archives; one of the early shots with the 'Nik' on stretched lens and sports mode.

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Shipping by...
...not from the window this week; but over the hill and round a bit...

This is the Loch Dunvegan, roll on - roll off ferry for the Colintraive-Rhubodhach jump; that is mainland to Isle of Bute at the island's North end. Barely gets the ramps up before it has to drop them again, but without it the trip would be long indeed!

Taken with the 'Nik' on auto.

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Monday's Critters

Value for money this one! The frame was sent to me two decades back as a birthday gift from little sister.  I could see no other photo fitting it than this one of some Hereford calves... well travelled cattle have been flown from Scotland to Australia and now back again where it sits in the autumn sunshine of Dunoon.

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SUNdays

The day was late, the sun about set... turning away from it a little created a very different mood on a tide-out Wash, Norfolk.

Taken with the 'Nik' on sunset mode.

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Saturday Symmetry

Handwoven kitchen gift recently rec'd ... Taken with the 'Nik' on macro mode.