Through the window of your skyes
Oct, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I noticed this gateway with a view while on holiday in Scotland, this was on the Isle of Skye in Armadale. This was the main entrance to the Armadale Castle, which is now in ruins and visitable.Time
It was somewhere in the morning when we visited the castle ruins, before that we had walked around the gardens to see the various sites. The orientation is kind of south-east. So as you can see I was lucky with the sun being almost exactly in the perfect position for the light to fall in through the door like that.Lighting
Having such a bright day, I noticed right away the stark contrast between the "reception hall" in which I was standing and the outside view through the gate. I knew right away this would be a great candidate to experiment with HDR so I wanted to take three shots with different exposures to merge them later on.Equipment
As I was walking around making landscape photos all day, I had my 10-18mm lens on my Sony NEX 3N camera. Luckily I also had my tripod with me to stabilise the camera while making my three shots.Inspiration
I've always been a great fan of natural framing, and the great weather in Scotland combined with this natural frame just felt a logical combination. It makes me feel like I myself lived there and am looking out through the window of their eyes. Hence the title Through The Window Of Your Skyes, a play on the title of a Cuby & The Blizzards song combined with the pun on the Isle of Skye.Editing
I love post-processing, I believe it is what makes the difference between just a photo and a great photo. I started off learning about HDR around this time, and used it a lot in my Scotland photos. This one is no exception, but probably this is one of those shots in which it worked best. The really dark courtyard compared to the really bright horizon did mean I had to work hard in post, as my camera could only take three bracketed shots. I doubted if I had covered enough lightsteps to make it work well, but unfortunately I couldn't stay too long due to larger groups coming in at that time. I'm glad I did get enough, and managed to work this out that very same evening.In my camera bag
I try to limit myself sometimes by only bringing one or two lenses. When I made this trip I only had three lenses for my Sony NEX-3N; the 16-50mm kitlens, the 10-18mm wide angle lens that I used here and the 55-210mm zoom lens. Nowadays I also have the use of two great prime lenses (35mm and 50mm).Feedback
I always look for natural boundries, I love looking through things at other things. It always makes me happy when I can find such a place. It is difficult, because sometimes the border isn't interesting enough, and sometimes the subject beyond your border isn't interesting enough. But when the two combine, it is just magic. I have learned it is useful to look at just about everything when walking around, whether it is in a forest or in a building, the most amazing things are generally hidden in plain sight and most people walk by them because they remain too focussed on just one or two things. Same with this shot, most people would have remained outside, and watched at the ruins from there. I decided to step inside and look out because I had already noticed the lovely view out there. While I could have taken the landscape shot outside, it feels more grounded and tells more of a story now that I've taken it from the inside. It really pays to look for that kind of little things to add or do. A few steps in the right direction is all it takes most of the times.
