Best Day Out In Scotland

Robert Louis Stevenson had a grudge against the Scottish weather, in particular here on the east coast, which he described as having 'one of the vilest climates under heaven'. Here is a shot taken at the end of July looking across to the promenade in Kirkcaldy. RLS got the summer spot on: 'shifty and ungenial'. The cold sea fog is called the haar and it appears out of the east, a spiteful gift from the north sea when the sun shines and dares to warm our faces. I've got it into my head that we must somehow anger the sun god, to whom I am particularly worshipful.

I've never taken a polaroid, so there

But I have been trying out pics with the Fuji Instax 200. A bit of an odd experience to be truthful. The camera is huge and unwieldly and the viewfinder offers a vague idea of what might be in the frame, perched as it is on the extreme end of the body. It was originally advertised as a camera to take to parties but I don't know of anyone with a handbag big enough. Difficult to lose I suppose. The exposure capability of the meter is minimal so the flash kept firing (memo to self, tape over the flash). It popped out a few that I liked.

the art of cheap cameras (1)

Here are some pictures from the first roll of film taken with my 'new' point and shoot, a Rollei Prego with a fixed 35mm lens. It cost £5.01 from Ebay and has no instructions and smells of pipe tobacco. But hey, it's a point and shoot. Having said that it does have some rather nifty little modes, like the ability to take a photo overy 30 secs, 10 mins or 30 mins. The film is Agfa apx100 in xtol for those of you that are interested, and I've made a few photoshop tweaks. My favourite is the one of the church and collapsed shed. Somehow the roof stayed in tact.

I am in search of the camera I can have with me at all times and thought I'd try a few out so the Rollei is the first and is on trial. I'm already a fan as I have a Rolleiflex TLR which is nothing short of fantastic. In spite of partly embracing digital I still get annoyed by 0's and 1's inability to restrain tonal ranges. A lot of my images are taken by the sea and digital just seems to blow out. My ideal scenario - a small, palm sized, film PAS with a class lens and a shutter with no lag.

Junior Church

I was taking some pictures of a lovely, snow covered church at Inverduie, by Aviemore. It was one of those moments where you see a scene from the car, stop to take a photo; but it doesn't work out. This caravan, tucked away behind the church, interested me more.

Spring Equinox

It just goes to show that creating labels for yourself doesn't work! I had decided that my 2 blogs (asummerlens and awinter lens) should have cut off points, and they should be the dates of the Spring and Autumn Equinox (is this a plural? Equinox's sounds wrong...).

So here is the first image that I want to post a day after the Spring Equinox. It's completely wintery, more wintery than anything on awinterlens. We were up at the top of Cairngorm celebrating my partner's 40th birthday.