Timber ponds in the Clyde

A little bit of local history with this set of images of the timber ponds found off the shores of the Clyde at Langbank and Finlaystone, just East of Port Glasgow.

Timber Ponds were set up along the southern shore of the River Clyde in the early days of wooden ship builing, occupying the area between Port Glasgow and Langbank. The industry required vast quantities of thoroughly seasoned timber, and with shipyards occupying most of the shore line from central Greenock to eastern Port Glasgow, demand was prodigious.

The ponds prevented the timber from floating away and allowed the logs to be organised according to type, length of seasoning, and ownership. Extreme weather could result in the logs breaking free of the ponds, closing the river until they were recovered. Remnants of the timber ponds still exist in the lines of vertical wooden posts sticking out of the mud, and rectangular areas can still be seen in aerial views of the surrounding riverbed.

Imported from North America, timber crossed the Atlantic from Quebec to Port Glasgow. In 1825 this trade amounted to some 19,000 tons, and reached almost 28,000 tons by 1834. The timber was unloaded at the mid-harbour, then chained together with rafters and floated to the ponds. At their peak, the ponds extended as far as the Gare Loch, but the arrival of pre-cut timber and steel construction by 1914 meant that few remained in use.

Current practice is to place green, unseasoned timber in vast kilns, gradually reducing the moisture content until the sawn material is stable. This technology was not available in earlier years, when ancient practice was to leave the unsawn logs to lie on the tidal mudflats and season, for months or even years.

And there’s a Taggart connection too with Jardine’s body being recovered from these mud flats.

Snow in the woods

To build up an appetite and burn off some calories before Christmas dinner, we decided to go for a forest walk. We drove up to Drumclog car park beside the Milngavie reservoirs and headed into Mugdock Wood for a long walk that includes a stretch of the West Highland Way. From the car park, we walked along the main path until the first sharp bend and then ventured into the forest following tracks meandering through the dense forest and alongside the valley to the North.
After a long and winding journey, we eventually reached the West Highland Way and wandered South along this walker’s equivalent of a motorway. It was not as busy as usual, but still plenty of walkers about, with and without dogs. Maybe most people did not want to miss the Queen’s speech. So fun and a few chases through the undergrowth for Lola with her newly found four legged friends. When we reached the main cross roads of walking routes, we headed left, back up hill towards Drumclog.
The scenery throughout the walk was fantastic and photogenetic, although it was bitterly cold and the light was very dim. I am very pleased with quite a few of the shots I took during the walk, so you will find more than the usual below. The first half was all about trees and closeups, and the second half was more about vistas.
Although I had the tripod with me, I took most shots handheld with the camera set at ISO 800, still providing me with enough light to ensure a sufficient depth of field. The quality of images taken with my 5D Mk II at ISO 800 again proved to be exceptional in terms of image quality, even when inspecting these at full resolution. I find that, provided shots are exposed correctly and do not require recovering of shadow detail during post processing, shooting at ISO 800 does not jeopardise image quality.

A dog’s Christmas

You may wonder if Christmas is any different for Lola than an ordinary Sunday, or in other words, is it possible to spoil Lola even more than normal? Indeed, she was spoiled rotten, ripping her own presents open, ripping through the leftover wrappings of our presents, playing with deafening squeeky toys before lunch and getting lots of treats.

The wrapped presents were much more successful than the two soft squeeky toys. The Christmas sock and Santa lasted minutes before the stuffing was being pulled out. Someone suggested that whippets would make excellent dog toy testers. I completely disagree, as no single toy would pass quality control any more. One tiny fault with the stitching and it is ripped open before you can blink with the stuffing scattered all over the house.

All in all, a great morning with a lot of fun. And we got some nice presents ourselves as well.

Winter wonderland at Mugdock

After a play in the garden and the back lane, followed by a nice Sunday lunch, we headed up to Mugdock for a good long afternoon’s walk. There was a fair amount of snow about, but not as much as we expected, especially compared to heavy snowfall in other parts of the country. The loch was completely frozen over, with a nice, uninterrupted covering of snow on top. What a contrast to last week’s atmospheric frosty and misty weather, as the shot of the crannoch taken on both walks clearly shows.

Lola was running around through the grasses and chasing other dogs as well as being chased by other dogs. She really loves the snow and was in her element. Surprisingly, she seemed to appreciate her coat and, even though it was a fair bit too large, she was not restricted in her movements and ran ragged as usual.

On reaching the castle we headed out further across the crest of the hill before dropping down to the ruins of Craigend Castle. Towards the end of the hill, there are ruins of World War II anti-aircraft gun batteries. Not the prettiest ruins in the world, to the contrary, but with the brooding snow sky behind it, they made for a nice atmospheric shot.

Overall, it was a pretty dark and grim afternoon, and the light was extremely poor for photography. Still managed to get a few decent shots though.

And that was the first time ever we have been up to Mugdock with our Lola, when a shower afterwards to wash of black mud was not needed.

Waehae, it’s snowing

When we got up this morning, it was to a very big disappointment. Even with all the warnings and predictions, still no snow in Glasgow, when the rest of the country is covered by inches. Life’s not fair! A short ‘do your business first thing’ wander through the back lane and then quickly back to our warm and cosy beds (with Lola’s cosier and warmer than ours!) for another hour of well deserved sleep. A much needed extra hour after a little bit too much red wine last night.

An hour or so later, we got up to go to Churchill’s to get the Sunday papers. When we opened the front door, surprise, surprise, an inch or two of snow had fallen since our first outing. Lola loved it and went into a bouncy, snow snorting, playing mood. Fun with snow all the way to the newsagents and back. As usual, Lola’s good nose sniffed out the treats along the way. Lola reappeared from a hole in hedge with a complete smoked sausage in her mouth.
After reading the papers in bed with a cup of tea, it was time for a play out the back. As you can see from the images, Lola’s a happy bunny in the snow.

Mist and frost at Mugdock

After a long lie, reading the Sunday papers in bed, and scrummy bacon and eggs on Morton rolls with freshly brewed coffee, we headed out to Mugdock for a short walk and some fresh air. The weather did not promise for much, as it had been very misty and very cold since Friday. The mist got worse the more we headed out of the city and became very dense on the road along the reservoirs to South Lodge car park at Mugdock.

From the outset, we were all feeling the cold, especially Lynn who was still feeling under the weather. I certainly hope that Santa gets her a new pair of fleece lined walking trousers that she so badly needs. Due to the cold, we decided to walk the short circuit: along Loch Mugdock to Mugdock Castle, then along the side of the caste and across the wooden walkway through the swamp and back along the shore of Loch Mugdock.

There were a few good opportunities for shots along the way, but the combination of the bitter cold and being spurred along by two shivering ladies did not leave much time for lingering to find the right composition, let alone time to set the tripod up. Apart from the first two images below (taken last), these were all shot handheld at high ISO, low shutter speeds and open apertures as the (digital) grain and shallow depth of field can tell.

When we got back round to the main path, Lynn headed straight back to the car to get warm, but Lola and I walked round a little bit further to retake a good view of the crannoch in the mist, but this time using the tripod. Glad we did, as it turns out to be one of the better shots I have taken in a while.

It was getting dark very quickly even though it was only 3:30pm so time to get back to the car (and Lynn) and head home to a hot drink and a warm fire.

A very wet walk at Loch Ardinning

After Sunday lunch Lola and I headed up to loch Ardinning for a nice long walk along the loch, across Muirhouse Muir and along the Craigmaddie burn. In my bag I had spanking new natural density graduates that I hoped to give a test drive with a bright sky contrasting with the Campsies and Drumgoyne. Unfortunately, the clouds were very dark and grey so this plan fell through at the first hurdle.

We wandered past the loch, full to the brim with water, but empty in respect of water fowl. The swans, geese and ducks that usually litter the surface must be at neighboring Mugdock Loch hoping for bread from the hordes of Sunday afternoon visitors. At the turning point of the circular walk through this little nature reserve, we crossed the fence and ventered out onto the moor. Lola was in her element, roaming through the wet grass and black mud chasing imaginary rabbits and mice.

As usual, the view back across the loch towards Drumgoyne provided a wonderful vista, but not spectecular enough to set my tripod up. I took a shot handheld which turned out very well considering I had pushed the ISO up to 800 and slowed the shutter speed down to 1/40 to get a resonable aperture and consequently, a resonably large depth of field. We continued our walk uphill towards the tree line along the old dyke.

It has actually been a very long time since I had been to this part of the moor. I looked for the famous dead tree of one of my most successful shots: lonely tree on the moor. It was sad to see that only a little stump was left standing, so a repeat of the one taken on black and white film using my digital SLR was gone with the wind.

We had to backtrack and follow the main walking route, as the stepping stones halfway along the dyke were not even visible due to the swollen stream. We reached Craigmaddie burn and saw two photographers at the first waterfall. It turned out to be a pro giving a lesson in the field on how to shoot a waterfall with milky white water. I was surprised where they were. The first waterfall is not the best as there is a big pine laying across the pool in front of the waterfall and spoiling the shot.

Lola and I wandered up to the second waterfall which, although a little smaller, is much nicer. The weather was not good, but I am pleased at how the couple of shots have come out. No price winners though. Lola was getting impatient and started to run around the tripod, so we packed up and continued our walk to the cairn and then back to the Loch. Rain started to fall, so the camera was safely in the rucksack. We got back to the car just in time before the rain started to lass down horizontally. Happily homewards to a hot shower and a hot tea.

A late afternoon sun at Mugdock

We headed up to Mugdock for our ‘usual walk’ on a Sunday afternoon. It was the first weekend without rain for ages and, surprisingly, even the sun had decided to come out. The low winter sun, combined with the blue sky and the odd dotted cloud looked very promising. From the South Lodge Car Park, we wandered up to Mugdock Castle with Lola roaming through the fields chasing shadows. At the castle, the low sun provided a wonderful red glow on the tree lined driveway across the crest of the hill and on the fabulous dead wood on the side of the driveway. A good opportunity for some shots, although the chilly wind drove us on fairly quickly.

We continued our walk downhill, along the side of the castle and across the swamp. Of course Lola decided to jump of the wooded walkway to run through the black mud. Even a splash in the stream at the other end of the swamp couldn’t clean her up. Sadly, we were just too late for any good shots down there, as the sun had already disappeared behind the hill and trees, leaving the swamp in a bitter cold darkness.

We were all starting to feel the cold, particularly when exposed in the wind, so we decided to give our usual wander across the high moor and past the quarry a miss and walked back along the more sheltered East shore of Mugdock Loch instead. And a good choice it was, as the views across the loch to the castle were absolutely stunning as you can see.

The sun disapeared very quickly, so it was time to head back home to a hot shower for a muddy Lola and a hot cup of tea for us.

Remove Those Cables

This example is an illustration of a scenario where it is not possible to move around on location to adjust composition and capture the image you are after. Normally I would have moved closer and used a shorter focal length to capture the image below without the power cables. Unfortunately, I was standing on the edge of a sheer 50m cliff of a quarry so, frustratingly, I could not move further forward to achieve an angle with the power cables out of the way.

As I really liked the original image with the exception of the obtrusive power cables, I decided to remove these cables in Photoshop using the clone tool. Due to the blur and bokeh of the distant hills, the cloning proved fairly straightforward, although I had to ensure to match patterns in the hillside and avoid duplicating obvious elements, by careful sampling and regular resampling of the area to clone from.

I am glad I decided to remove the power cables, as I have since sold enlargements of this image. I am absolutely sure that I would not have sold enlargements of the original.

Tilt & Shift Correction

We have all taken images when we are restricted in the position of our vantage point, so we have to tilt the camera upwards and shift the camera sideways to get the image in the frame. The result of tilting and shifting the camera is that the verticals and horizontals of the image are converging.

The original below shows the converging verticals and horizontals of an image of a mural in Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunciónin in San Sebastian de La Gomera. Due to the location of the mural, I did not have the option to get in the right position to avoid even part of the effect.

The best way to correct for converging verticals is to use a camera or lens that enables tilt and shift movement of the lens, such as the Canon TSE lenses. Unfortunately, I do not have one of these specialist, extremely expensive tilt and shift lenses, so this option is not available to me.

An easy alternative is to correct tilt and shift in Adobe Photoshop using the ‘skew’ functionality. The process is very simple: select the whole image, select the skew tool found in the edit menu, drag appropriate corners to skew (or more correctly un-skew) the image, and crop or trim the image appropriately.

This is simple and very effective, as the final result below shows, but the quality of the resulting image cannot compete with that achieved using a tilt and shift lens. To achieve the best result with this edit, skew the corners in rather than skew the corners out, as the latter would result in image degradation due to interpolation.

Perspective correction

We have all taken images of buildings when we have to tilt the camera upwards to get the whole building in the frame. The result of tilting the camera upwards is that the perspective of the building is skewed with the verticals converging. The original below shows the converging verticals of an image of a ruined building in Agulo on La Gomera. Normally, I would take quite a few steps backwards to to minimise the converging of verticals, but as this house was in a narrow cobbled lane, I did not have this option.
The best way to correct for converging verticals is to use a camera or lens that enables tilt and shift movement of the lens, such as the Canon TSE lenses. Unfortunately, I do not have one of these specialist, extremely expensive tilt and shift lenses, so this option is not available to me.

An easy alternative is to correct the converging verticals in Adobe Photoshop using the ‘perspective’ functionality. The process is very simple: select the whole image, select the perspective tool found in the edit menu, drag a corner to skew (or more correctly un-skew) the image, and crop or trim the image appropriately, as illustrated below (click on a thumbnail to enlarge a screen grab). If there is one bit of functionality I would like Adobe to include in the next version of Lightroom then, without a shadow of a doubt, this would be perspective correction.

This is simple and very effective, but the quality of the resulting image cannot compete with that achieved using a tilt and shift lens. To achieve the best result with this edit, skew the bottom in rather than skew the top out, as the latter would result in image degradation due to interpolation.

The original and final image below show how this quick and simple edit can give you the result you desire.

Away with the crane

The big crane spoiling this spectecular sunset over San Sebastian de La Gomera has been an eyesore for years and can be seen in, unfortunately, too many of my images of the town, including the virtual reality taken from the terrace at Casa Cathaysa. Looking at the image below, you may think that the crane is not that bad, but trust me, on a large screen or on an enlargement print, it is very obtrusive.

This image is created from eight seperate 21mp images, that I stitched together into a panorama using Photoshop. The panorama measures a massive 11,200 by 5,300 pixels and would have required a ‘not yet existing’ 100mp digital camera to be taken in one single image, taking into account the need to crop the normal image format to a letterbox format. Without compromising the quality of the print, by printing at 300dpi, it can be enlarged up to 95 x 45 cm (or 37.3″ x 17.6″). Therefore, this image is a prime candidate for an enlargement print if it was not for that bloody crane.

So this image needs a little bit of Photoshop magic to get rid of that crane.

The two images above show a detailed closeup of the houses on the hillside with the crane partly obscuring them, and after removing the crane using the clone stamp tool in Photoshop. Due to the detail in the houses on the hillside, removing the crane was a slow and laborious task that took some time. But, as you can see from the detail above and the final image below, it was well worth it.