craigniblock

Road to Glencoe

Dec, 2015

Views

1295

Likes

+233

Awards

Action Award

Legendary Award

Featured

Contest Finalist in Covers Photo Contest Vol 33

Staff Winter Selection 2015

Peer Award

+41

Top Choice

+16

Superb Composition

+14

Absolute Masterpiece

Outstanding Creativity

Magnificent Capture

All Star

Genius

Emotions

Impressed

Top Ranks

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 20 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 20 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 20 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 30 rank

Top 20 rank week 2

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 30 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Welcome to Viewbug.

Awesome shot, Congrats! シ

so simple, I love it

See all

Same photographer See all Behind The Lens

After watching the sun set on Ponte Umberto, I strolled along the water for a short bit, and managed to capture a blue hour shot of this famous place.

This is a pretty popular viewpoint near Glencoe, and one I stopped at on my way to Skye. The sky itself was pretty ominous, but I think it helped add

An attempt at a fairly minimalist look for these HK buildings

Another shot of the Vasco da Gama bridge. I usually aim to post only one or two photos from any given shoot, but the sky evolved in such an interesti

I am just back from visiting Sicily - what an awesome place! I stayed in Ortigia and Taormina, which were both beautiful - didn't take too many

Having got a shot that I was happy with, I packed up my kit and started to head back down. However, as I got to the particular point of this shot, I

Second shot from a recent trip to Lisbon. The sun was just about to disappear due to the clouds, and I was about to leave - however, this fisherman t

This photo was inspired after watching Elia Locardi's video tutorials. He visited Rome, and this vantage point was definitely one of the place I

After the lights went off here, I waited around to see what sunrise would bring. Sadly it was pretty cloudy - this was the last photo I got before th

Rome is a great place to stroll around, with opportunities everywhere for photography. This was taken whilst out and about with no real purpose, and

I had a couple of days in Copenhagen trying to sort out a coffee supplier for my new coffee shop, and couldn't miss the opportunity to photograph

First time out attempting to photograph the northern lights. There was only a few minutes of shooting time, but it was totally worth it - a beautiful

This is the final one from my trip to Lisbon. I usually hate posting more than two images of a certain thing, as it tends to indicate indecisiveness

Playing around with focus blurring for firework shots this summer in Edinburgh.

On a recent trip to Aberdeen, I managed to stop off at this awesome location and get a couple of drone shots - such a cool place!

The walk at this time of year can be a little brutal - it was pretty cold and windy - but totally worth it for this famous view. Lots of people have

Behind The Lens

Location

The photo was taken on the road towards Glencoe, which is in Scotland. The road - the A64 - is one of the most scenic ones I have come across, with an incredible amount of places where you will want to stop the car and take a photograph. I set up everything on the side of the road where I was parked, and ran on to the road when there was a clear stretch without traffic. Two different angles were tried, with this being the preferred one.

Time

This was at the end of a long and tricky day of shooting (I had rather clumsily slipped and fallen into a stream earlier in the day - thankfully my camera survived!). The sun was setting at a location nearby, and once I had secured the shot I wanted there, I drove ten minutes to catch the setting sun at this particular location.

Lighting

I knew the road surface would reflect the sunlight nicely, which is what I wanted from the image. The light was also soft enough that it provided a pleasant bit of lighting on some of the ground further back, but plenty of the image would still be kept in atmospheric shadow.

Equipment

This was taken with a Leica M240 that I was borrowing for the trip from a friend (I own a Sony), a Leica Summilux 35mm lens that I own (I normally use the converter for it to work on the Sony), and a rather battered tripod that couldn't stand up to the Scottish weather (it has since been replaced).

Inspiration

There are many wonderful photographs of roads stretching off into the distance, with wild or barren landscapes surrounding them. A lot of these are taken in the US, and I wanted to do something similar to these, but in Scotland. It is an ongoing project of mine, where I am looking to take lots of road shots throughout the country - there is something wonderful about these kind of shots, as it gives both the sense of having come from somewhere, of going somewhere (journey before destination?), and it also can showcase wonderful landscapes. I like many different styles of post-processing, but I wanted to process this particular photo differently to a lot of other road shots I like, in order to impart a different mood and atmosphere.

Editing

I think my post-processing is constantly evolving, both in terms of methods and the end look I want to achieve. However, I try to keep things reasonably simple. Basic tweaks were done in Lightroom, before I went to Photoshop to remove a few unwanted distractions (bollards) from the image. I then went back to Lightroom and looked at all the presets I have for some inspiration and ideas. I don't ever use the presets in my final image, but I find they can be useful in helping me figure out how I want the end image to look. Some split toning a and various other tweaks resulted in the final image - I now use Color Efex Pro 4 on all my images, but wasn't using it at the time I processed thus particular one.

In my camera bag

I'm fairly new to photography, and the desire to have the latest models and gadgets is something I (and probably most photographers) constantly have to fight (setting up a new business recently has certainly helped to curtail this!). The bag itself has to be comfortable and practical (I mainly use a Think Tank Shapeshifter), and in it I have a Sony A7rII, a Sony 16-35mm lens, a used Leica 35mm Summilux 1.4 lens, a used Leica Elmarit 90mm 2.8 lens, and the Sony/Leica converter for the lens. Along with that I have a tripod (currently borrowing fro friends until I settle on a new one), lens cleaners, a Triggertrap cable for long exposure shots, and of course gloves and other warm items to combat the weather here in the UK!

Feedback

First, be aware of traffic, and don't get run over! The weather is incredibly variable in Scotland, particularly the further north you get. As a result, the odds of getting this image to turn out the way I wanted were low, and I had plans for what I would do with this shot if the sun wasn't out and there were lots of grey clouds instead (a Scottish speciality!). That being said, I had done research on locations before visiting, and spent my first day scouting locations, and making note of the best places to be for sunrise/sunset, an figuring out if I could capture the setting sun in various locations along a few mile stretch. This scouting, along with using The Photographer's Emphemeris, and of course the patience required when shooting landscapes, resulted in me getting the shot I wanted. One other useful thing is to set your tripod (or camera if you have no tripod) at various heights for a shot like this. Sometime getting really low will be the best option, but on this occasion I found that a higher angle can the shot the best balance and perspective.

See more amazing photos, follow craigniblock

craigniblock

craigniblock

Road to Glencoe

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow craigniblock

Share photos. Enter contests to win great prizes. Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.

Share photos. Enter contests to win great prizes.
Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.