evening | alan frost photography

Evening light over the Applecross Peninsular

There are times when I am out and about when a scene unfolds before me and stops me in my tracks. This happened a few days ago in Wester Ross in Scotland. The early evening sunlight came through breaks in the clouds to create glorious shafts of light and illuminated the middle ground. One problem; no camera on me to capture the beauty of the light. A cardinal sin for any photographer.

Fortunately I was only five minutes walk from the cottage where we had been staying. I rushed back, picked up my camera and some graduated neutral density filters. I knew I would need them to hold back the strong light above the mountain ridge; I just hoped that by the time I returned to a good viewpoint the ‘light show’ was still being played. It was, and I combined the 3 stop and a 2 stop graduated ND filter to balance the exposure. Even then the image required some careful processing to create the result you see here.

For the record I am looking towards Beinn Bhan, the highest mountain on the Applecross Peninsular in Wester Ross, Scotland.

Do click on the picture to view a larger version which will open in a new window.

East Head – At the end of the day

At the end of last week I met up with a few fellow photographers at East Head down in West Wittering. It’s a place I seem to be visiting on quite a regular basis at the moment, although I am more likely to be there in the morning walking the dog, as opposed to the end of the day.

I had already decided that the lighting conditions would probably suit some colour work and not black and white. I could always convert to mono later if I wanted to do so. I am so used to ‘seeing’ in black and white that taking images in colour and processing them later does throw up some new challenges for me, and there are plenty of times when I feel I am having to learn a whole new set of skills. Composition, overall tone and texture are still important but colour balance and how colours work with each other, is very different to monochrome.

So here are four images taken that evening. Given that when I arrived it was pouring with rain, I consider myself fortunate to have come back home with anything at all! The four of us had a lot of fun and we will have all photographed this location in a different way. The day ended up in an excellent pub with food and drink and a commitment to repeat a most enjoyable evening somewhere else in the not too distant future. Can’t wait!