April Adventures

Chris

May 4, 20233 min read

I had a rather busy month this month. Out for plenty of adventures with the camera and a trip to London to boot.

The month started on April 1st with me getting up early and heading to Auckengill for sunrise. As is so often the case, I never quite got what I'd hoped for, but did capture some nice images nonetheless. I did a mix of long exposures and fast shutter images to show how the waves were wild but a change in settings can quite easily change the mood of an image. I finished the trip with shots at Canisbay Kirk looking over Stroma Mausoleum and then Castlehill looking over Dunnet Bay.

On Good Friday I had the day off work and the forecast looked promising, so I made an early start and headed to Latheronwheel harbour for sunrise. By the time the clocks change sunrise arrives at a less than sociable time of the morning, so there are unlikely to be many more attempts at this prior to late August.

Anyway I captured a couple of pleasing images, then headed on to my plan for the day, climb a bunch of hills in the South of Caithness. I aimed to start with Scaraben which consists of 3 peaks, then up Maiden's Pap and home. I could see the cloud capping the hills as I arrived and I was hoping this would lift prior to my arrival at the summit.

My fitness has seriously declined over Winter and getting up the Eastern Summit of Scaraben was a slog, wet and steep. I made it and what views, (no sarcasm at all here). Straight away I found myself humming Space Oddity by Bowie when I arrived at this mast, it certainly felt otherworldy up there. I stopped for a bite to eat, (fajitas, mm) and a coffee, then headed down to climb the centre summit. Lo and Behold, the clouds departed as I looked back at my Space Oddity Mast, typical.

The views from the next 2 peaks were impressive, where I had a few stops for taking images prior to the steep descent ready to climb Maiden's Pap.

By this point my knee decided it wasn't loving life, but I persisted, climbed my last hill, got lovely views and ate the rest of my fajita packed lunch, (only the best will do).

Next up was a family trip to London for my father in law's 60th. This was a busy busy trip, fitting in touring, shows and activities. I also managed to fit in some photography, with some shots I'm really proud of, a mix of tourist shots, street and night photography.

After London we got some lovely weather at home and I popped to berriedale for sunset one night and was delighted to encounter the little deer family below, as well as get a shot of the strath.

I finally received my Canon 6D back fully repaired on 20th April so headed out that night for some Milky-Way panoramas. However, I failed to notice my camera had been reset, (kind of obvious in hindsight), so spent the entire evening shooting in Jpeg, which is no use for night sky photography. JPEG doesn't allow you to recover detail from high dynamic ranges. Luckily the following night was also clear, so out I went again, and this time it paid off with some lovely Aurora and Milky-Way. The Aurora actually was a bit of a hinderance to capturing the Milky-Way but I battled on and got some lovely images.