A fantastic day and night out in Glasgow was had by @davidgulliver_photography, @archarlton1 and myself yesterday on a small Instameet. Time is pressing today to go through the photographs and create a Glasgow gallery but I thought I would put up a couple of my favourites. Click to enlarge...
P.S. The SSE Hydro image was taken just before I was tackled by security on "their" campus. Your welcome ;-) The other image is a Charring cross long exposure.
I had a fun time this morning taking a guided tour around the Grassmarket in Edinburgh with members of the Apple Team and other iPhone / iPad photographers. The apple team members were very helpful in explaining how to use the Camera Application and brought along some hardware from the store to try out!
Although what the Apple Team members were explaining was prior knowledge to me, it was good to meet new people and to help them with some of the functions of their applications and photography techniques.
Interestingly the majority of the people were older (OAP's), this took me a little by surprise, but it was great to see an older generation really get to grips with this technology. It was surprising as I have never seen a lot of people (of an older generation) use this technology so adeptly.
The afternoon was taken over by a client meeting signing off a website, which will be part of the portfolio when this site relaunches in March. The site is Tenth Floor Photography, go visit it and leave some nice comments on his first blog post! :-)
For now I'll leave you with some of the shots from earlier today in the Grassmarket and surrounding area.!
Ōlloclip have released their Lenses for the iPhone 7 (finally). I was able to get their core lens set from the Apple Store on Monday and in a nice coincidence it was also a sunny day. I headed down to Holyrood Park from the centre of Edinburgh to see what I could capture. The Olloclip core lens set comes with three lenses: Fish Eye; Super Wide and Macro (15x).
Holyrood Park (also called the Queen's Park or King's Park depending on the reigning monarch's gender) is a royal park in central Edinburgh, Scotland. It has an array of hills, lochs, glens, ridges, basalt cliffs, and patches of gorse, providing a remarkably wild piece of highland landscape within its 650-acre area. The park is associated with the royal palace of Holyroodhouse and was formerly a 12th-century royal hunting estate. It also has the small hill of Arthur's Seat to climb.
The park is a short walk from the centre of Edinburgh and provides plenty of great photographic opportunities. The shots below were taken mostly with the super wide lens attached to my iPhone with a couple of fish-eye shots thrown in for fun :-)
Recent circumstances have left me thinking a lot about reflective practice.
Reflective practice is a process by which you: stop and think about your practice, consciously analyse your decision making and draw on theory and relate it to what you do in practice. Critical analysis and evaluation refocuses your thinking on your existing knowledge and helps generate new knowledge and ideas.
I was first formally introduced to this idea when I was enrolled in a teaching in higher education diploma. Primarily I was encouraged to have a teaching / demonstrating program before the lesson and to reflect on what went well and what could be done better by reflecting on the experience afterwards. It is a particularly powerful technique for advancing teaching standards.
I think this had been drummed into so much that it has crept into all other aspects of my life (perhaps subconsciously). I realized this recently with website consulting work that I have been doing and my photography.
I spend a lot of time reflecting on what went well in my photography and things that could have been better and why. After a recent meeting I also found myself wondering what could have been better and did I miss anything out; more importantly would I get the chance to rectify this?
Easily done with photography, not so much with a paying client.
In the years that I have been taking photographs it has been primarily a solitary pursuit. In fairness I have always enjoyed the freedom of wandering wherever and whenever with my camera. It never really occurred to me before to meet up with strangers to go take photographs.
This changed a couple of months ago when I started chatting to some people through Instagram and after (what can only be considered to be way to much beer and not enough planning) we decided to get a group together to take photo's on the wettest day Glasgow has ever seen.
Even though the day was wet the spirits were kept high and this led to a second meeting with new (and familiar) people yesterday in Edinburgh. The weather was a mixed bag but eventually blue skies presented themselves at Newhaven Harbour.
I feel very lucky that I have met such great group of people that are always willing to share experiences and knowledge that makes the day so much fun. The group selfie was taken by @alycoste and includes @lisajparis, @chappygbr, @davidgulliver_photography and @redinscotland.
Have posted a few of the shots from Newhaven Harbour below, click for the large versions.