Sunday, Busy Sunday...

Its been an incredibly busy weekend here in Scotland, and I am absolutely exhausted if truth be told. Firstly there was the 6 nations Rugby on Saturday, where unfortunately Scotland lost to England (as they normally do, but they live in hope !), then of course this was followed by various games of Football in the Premier league, the highlight of which was Swansea's thrashing of West Bromwich Albion....2-1 !

Dunnottar Castle

Saturday is currently being followed by an equally busy and knackering Sunday, starting with Wales beating Ireland in the Rugby..... a cracking result if I may say so, not that i am biased in any way by being Welsh (large grin across my face at this point), and this has now been followed by Manchester Utd (boo hiss) pulling back a 3 goal deficit against Chelsea to draw in the game they were playing. Next on the Agenda its the darts (just kidding), and then the Superbowl, where heavily pumped and steroid filled individuals, with more body armour than the average soldier in Afghanistan is currently wearing, throw themselves at each other head first, while one member of their team throws a small lozenge shaped ball at a very fast moving individual in his team 400 yards away or something. If that individual is unlucky to catch this projectile, he is generally rewarded by a couple of the Defenders hitting him so hard, that not only does he not know what time of day it is, after he has recovered (If he in fact does), but he actually lose's any comprehension of what week it was before the impact occurred. Its a wonderful spectacle (the game that is, not the Guy getting hit....honest), and being a Brit I am completely sold on the whole experience, which means that I will be staying up, and getting progressively more inebriated until the very early hours, and then eventually go to bed and miss out on Monday....Go Giants Go ! Its a damn hard life trying to watch all this sport.

Queen Vic's well

However, before I see the game, I actually do have to get off this lardy ass of mine, get something to eat, publish this crap, and make an intelligent comment on the photos I have downloaded....easier said than done is all I can say......but here goes anyway.
For the last couple of years I have been doing a small Calendar for what is essentially a captive audience....my family, and what few friends i have! 2011's theme was Postcard Scotland, and the photos are taken from that. The first is of Dunnottar Castle, which lies just to the south of Stonehaven. The photo was taken in the evening sun, which just caught the fortifications in its golden light. Again, in post processing I had to bring out of the under exposed dark outcrop on which it sits. The 2nd is Queen Victoria's Well situated in the Glacial valley of Glen Clova in the Angus Glens. This Well was constructed by the local populace when they heard that Queen Victoria was going to pass through on one of her travels from the Balmoral Estate....whether she did actually drink, or take a rest on her journey at this edifice is not really known, and I am not sure if anyone these days actually gives a toss anyway, but it makes for an interesting foreground for a Photographer.

Right....I'm off for the Superbowl, catch you all later.....

What to photograph from a Boat in the middle of Nowhere.

Well what can i say, its certainly been an interesting few days exploring the blog, playing with the design, trying to understand the new buttons and gizmo's etc and basically catching up a little.....it all makes you feel a little inadequate. I thought frikking technology was meant to make your life easier for Christs sake; feck knows what would happen if i turned on one of these new "dynamic" templates they (Blogger), offer by mistake. There must be a heck of a lot of seriously clever people out there to design this shit is all I can say, or there's a lot of people with a fair amount of time on their hands.....nice work if you can get it, or in my case understand it.

So what have I been doing these last 2 years you may (or most probably not) ask yourselves, firstly, no I have not been spending time at Her Majesty's Pleasure, but thanks for asking anyway....I have however continued to sail around in this wonderful world of Seismic that I have unfortunately found Myself unable to escape from. But hey, who would, when you can travel to such exotic locations as Gabon (Corrupt and ruled by a Dictator) , Cabinda (Completely corrupt and ruled by who the Feck knows), Guinea Conakry (Trainee corrupt as the Officials still smile as they rob you blind), and finally Norway (Tax Thieving Bastards). Norway gets the special mention, as they consider Foreigners who have the misfortune of sailing in their waters, should for that privilege pay their Countries NI contributions, which are set at something like 130% of your salary. Remember that when you vote for the buggers at next years Eurovision Contest, that's if you rather sadly watch it of course.

Anyway, photography....You are on a Boat, you don't see land, there's not a lot of Wildlife, especially if you are in the North Sea....so what the hell do you photograph apart from the Muppets you work with. Sunsets and Sunrises thats what. For me its a bit of a challenge, as you are on a moving boat ,so shutter speed has to be quite fast (that's as technical as I get), there's no point having a tripod either as you are going up and down; and to try and get a half way decent shot of some spectacular clouds and light you normally are shooting at either end of the day and therefore the ISO is up, which can create a graininess, which sometimes adds to the feel of the Photo.

The 1st Photo should be titled "Polution can be pretty" and is of an FPSO at Sunset about 100 miles offshore Aberdeen, on a fairly rare calm day. The 2nd is an early morning shot in the Moray Firth when we were sheltering from some bad weather....Yup the Bird was a fluke, and No it wasn't added in later as I am not clever enough for that shite; and the final picture was taken at the end of some fairly heavy weather we had had, which made for a pretty dramatic skyscape....just a pity the Tanker is not on the left of the picture, as that would have helped the composition a little.