Behold Bohol

Bohol is  located in the Central Visayas region, consisting of the island itself and 75 minor surrounding islands. Its capital is the City of Tagbilaran and is the tenth largest island of the Philippines. The island is a popular tourist destination as it has many beaches and resorts. The Chocolate Hills are among one of the top attractions. Panglao Island, located southwest of Tagbilaran, is famous for its diving locations and is routinely listed as one of the top ten diving locations in the world. The Philippine tarsier, amongst the world's smallest primates, is indigenous to the island. 

After leaving Cebu I headed to Bohol and the City of Tagbilaran. It's difficult to know where to start when I think about Bohol. The hashtag that comes to mind is #itsmorefuninthephilippines, although the locals like to joke that #itsmorefunanddangerousinthephilippines. Driving of course was of course mad and appeared to have no rules but there was a touch of beauty about how it just worked for the most part. Being driven in a modified side car of a motor bike around the City of Tagbilaran was an entirely new experience. 

 

I found Tagbilaran easier going than Cebu, the people and the city felt calmer and although the weather was very warm a small breeze from the ocean took the edge off the heat. I enjoyed meeting people such as @gallardonoygonz and @nessagwapa and getting to chat after Yoga on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Driving down to Panglao at night and sitting outside with a cold drink watching the sunset was sublime and made me question why I would want to be anywhere else. I suspect the company I was keeping had a part to play in this too.

I will talk about more locations and attractions of Bohol in upcoming posts, but for now I wanted to share the first night I spent in Tagbilaran. All four photographs were taken at Kasagpan Resort on the western side of Tagbilaran City.

 

Trackpadding

Seems an apt way to spend the end of the month seeing as I literally started here at the beginning of the month.

A quick stop into the Apple store in Edinburgh at the weekend to pick up a trackpad replacement. You know those signs they have in computer labs "No food or drink!!", turns  out they are actually there for a good reason. Much to my disdain a pint (yes a full pint) of water tipped over on my desk and my £130 trackpad took the brunt of it. It did not react well. Turns out the keyboard wasn't too bothered though.

Anyway, long story short, Apple screwed me for £90 for a replacement. Meh. I may have to be overly critical about the HomePod when it gets delivered.

On the bright side, I managed to finally get coffee with @davidgullver_photography (dude you really have to get a shorter Instagram handle) and take some shots around town. In the pouring rain, for the most part.

I have another shot of Teviot Row House on Instagram without the bokeh, but I particularly liked this one and have kept it for the website instead :-) The long exposure on Victoria Street is something I have been playing with, slowly turning the zoom while exposing. A little fun if nothing else. The sunset silhouette was just too tempting on my way over North Bridge.

Sunset silhouet

Bokeh at the Teviot

Light speed on Victoria Street

Loch Achray

The title of this post should really be Loch Katrine, but the view from here and the sunset was just too good. Also the availability of fresh coffee was so near to where I was shooting it was an opportunity I wasn't passing. The coffee was available from Loch Venachar, a Lochside Restaurant, and I have to say I had the best soup I have probably ever had. If you are ever along this way I highly recommend stopping for lunch, they even have an instagram account so you know they're legit ;-)

Back to the photography, Loch Achray is a small freshwater loch 11 kilometres west of Callander in the district of Stirling. The loch lies between Loch Katrine and Loch Venachar in the heart of the Trossachs and in winter do not expect the roads to be gritted. I was lucky enough to stop just before the golden hour and then stayed outside in the -2 to -4 temperatures for an hour and a half. It was a beautiful golden hour and sunset and I hope I have done it justice with these photographs. The mountain in some of the photographs is Ben Venue; the name Ben Venue is derived from the Scottish Gaelic words meaning "the miniature mountain". It has an elevation of 729m. 

 

Re-visiting the Mirror Man

Satrurday night saw myself and @alycoste taking an impromptu visit to Saint Fillans to take some shots of Rob Mulholland's artpience "Still", commonly known as the mirror man. I have more details about it in my original post from May. The weather turned out better than expected and it appeared that many people had the same idea as we met @espixie @_liam_jardine and @katie_smith80 all there taking photographs as well!

It was really nice to meet some new people that are also keen photographers and instagrammers, one of my favourite aspects of this social media platform. As I have posted about this sculpture and the area before I am just going to post some of my images here, click to enlarge on tablet/desktop.

 

Loch Lomond

I have been meaning to post these images since Monday but it has been a very busy week. A spent Monday evening at Loch Lomond, on the East side near Balmaha. It was a beautiful summer day and the evening was nearly cloudless which made for great conditions for shooting a few photographs.

I was especially keen on taking some long exposure photographs. Realising that I didn't have my tripod with me when I was almost there basically killed that idea off... I tried improvising using my rucksack but there was still too much movement :-(

On the bright side, it's Scotland so there will be lots of sunny days like this to try again ;-)

I have also taken on the role of moderator for the Instagram Hub @pocket_uk which means I get to select some photographs each week from the UK to promote! Am quite excited about this as sometimes I see photographs on Instagram that just blow me away and I feel giving a "like" and a comment just isn't enough! If you have instagram photos of the UK go over to the @pocket_uk hub, follow them and tag your photographs with #pocket_uk and you'll hopefully get a feature! 

Here are the photo's that I did get from Loch Lomond. Click the thumbnail for the large version :-)