With the UK in lock down I’ve noticed lots more people walking past my house. It’s ironic!
Despite this I know many more people are doing what’s asked and are staying at home. I for one am using this as an opportunity to review the huge number of images I shot last year and I’m finding plenty that I missed.
This is a good example which I’ve just posted to my Instagram account.
The story behind the image is that it’s the first day of a trip to Scotland with my good friend and fellow photographer Steve O’Nions. The weather hadn’t been kind and the longed-for sunset never happened. On the drive back to Ullapool where we were staying, we passed this river. Both of us instantly recognised the potential of the scene. Despite it being very dark I managed to capture a few frames I liked including this one.
I was using the Fuji X-T3 with a Fuji 16-55 lens. I had the camera mounted on a tripod and used a 3 stop Kase filter (soft ND grad) on the sky. Even though it was very dark, the light from the sky was still much brighter than the ground. The soft grad was much more forgiving than a hard grad in terms of lining up the filter. That was a good thing because I really couldn’t see what I was doing.
The exposure was 20 seconds and I even needed to reduce the aperture to f/7.1 and increase the ISO to 800 to achieve that. Everything felt like a compromise at the time, but now looking at the image I really like it.
This shot also marked the start of a new period for me. After this I found myself liking the blue hour more and more. I’m sure there was someone else famous for having a blue period 😉.
Have a great weekend wherever you are and stay safe.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Hello Robin, Pleased to read that you are safe and well
We also live in the country in Kinross-shire but here people are being careful The problem is people who have second houses are now arriving for the weekend They may roam more
At Applecross they are fed up with the intrusion
I always enjoy your great Images and look forward to more Kind regards Jim https://www.jimhampsonphotography.com
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Thanks Jim. We had a similar problem here at the weekend. I live in a small village where we tend to recognise each other. At the weekend there was a large influx of visitors to walk in the countryside. People were parking on grass verges and up old farm tracks which we never see. We were out delivering the local newsletter and shocked by the constant flow of people who were quite obviously visiting. Hopefully people will soon get the message and stop being selfish.