Not a new photo of Sydney, I took it last time I was here when I was tourist.  I would expect in due course that I will go back a few more times in the coming months now that I live here.  Should hopefully have some more photos up from my jaunt to China soon, although you can view a few images in the gallery.

And finally I got invited to be part of the new Eliza the Gallery site.  http://www.elizathegallery.com/Artists/Gallery/ChrisJones

A few photos from my last two weeks time spent at home before I move to Australia via a 3 week stopover in China.  

Stormy Duncansby Stacks

Suilven from the summit of Canisp

Loch Clair

View of Assynt from Sgurr an Fhidhleir

Went for a walk around Loch Clair last week, wondeful reflections were had, but being midday and quite gloomy I had no expectations of any good photos.  But some jiggery pokery on Photoshop seems to have brought something out.

Final Image

Starting RAW

Firstly I created two outputs from the RAW, one for the land and one for the sky and combined both layers using a mask in Photoshop.  This composite was still a rather flat image as there was no real light in the trees which still looked dull.  

So my first step was to create a new black and white adjustment layer and set the blending mode of luminosity as circled below.  I played with each colour channel in the panel.  As you can see I sucks the colour out of the image.

Next I made a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and brought the universal master saturation back up.  This makes the blues too strong so I individually brought the blue channel saturation down.

Finally I created a quick curves adjustment layer to darken the sky a little bit and masked out the land.

Frpm Chefchaouen after some recommendations and no other plans I decided to go to Essaouira.  I decided to break the long bus trip up by stopping at El Jidida just to see the water cistern.  I only had 30 minutes before the cistern closed for the day and without a tripod it was a little tricky to get a photo in a dark room.  Luckily I found some steps to rest the camera on.  Apart from that there's an old fortress and a port.  Nothing exciting.

I finally got to Essaouira and it was a very nice seaside town.  

And last stop was back to Marrakech where I had a day to explore before flying back home.

After the claustphobic environment of Fes it was a relief to head out to the provincial town of Chefchaouen which is nestled happily in the Rif Mountains. Chefchaouen with its blue Medina was the prettiest town I visited in Morocco, and the pace of life here seemed a lot slower than the big towns elsewhere.  Although I spent most of my time here walking around the Rif Mountains in Talassemtane national park, I only got one reasonable shot below.

Although I did get plenty from the blue medina too.

I decided in the middle of my tour to the desert that I'd rather go straight to Fes from the desert rather than travel back to Marrakech.  This involved a long 10 hour journey on a local bus, which stopped at every town for at least 15 minutes.  When finally we arrived in Fes at 8pm it was raining.  Quite a temperature change from the desert.

The medina in Fes has over 9000 streets and you'll get very lost according to the many unofficial guides I wandered past.  They're right too.  The first day I just wandered the maze and continually got lost.  Only ever having a vague idea where I was.  So on the second day I went on a tour with an official guide which took me to see all the more interesting areas of the city.

I was only here for about 16 hours, with a camel ride in and out with a night sleeping in a 'Berber camp' under the stars.  Although personally I chose to walk after 15 minutes of rocking about on my dromedary so that I could take some photos.  Going out to the dunes was something new for me and despite the 2 days of stifling travelling to get here, it was definitely worth it.  The dunes were a magnificent site to behold.

Our Guide

The Dunes

Shadows

The 'S' Bend

Ripples

Sunset

Tourists waiting for the sunrise

Mono

I have just returned from two weeks of winter sun in Morocco away from constant winter of Scotland.  I don't think there are many sights to see as such in most Moroccan cities other than the old medieval medinas themselves.  Unfortunately despite the endless interesting people and weathered faces, portraits were difficult to come by due my lack of language skills and the locals unwillingness to be captured on camera.   Despite this I still got a few from portraits here and there.

The Streets of Marrakech

Some Architecture 

Some People

Mint tea is very important in Moroccan culture and it is especially a drink of hospitality, commonly served whenever there are guests around who might buy a carpet.

Since I was flying out of Marrakech I opted to move on quickly so signed up to go on a tour to the Sahara which mostly involved sitting in a people carrier while numerous photo opportunties flew passed the window.  On the occasion we did stop it was usually to an uninteresting tourist trap.  Although we did stop at Aït Benhaddou, which is where many movies have been filmed including Gladiator, Lawrence Of Arabia, The Mummy and many, many more.  Here are some of the photos taken on the journey out to the desert.

Now I can add a new country to my map of the world after my 2 weeks in Morocco. This also marks my first venture into the continent of Africa. Photos will be coming soon once I get a chance to sift through them all.

And shortly I'll be adding China into the mix with a 3 week trip there in March.

A quick trip up to Glencoe back in September on a very rainy and cold day. 

Hired a car and went over to Glencoe with the foolish hope that I might catch a sunrise.  As I slept in the car with the rain pelting down, I knew that wasn't going to happen, but I didn't let that deter me too much and although at first I couldn't see anything the clouds did allow glimpses of what lay hidden behind them.  

Lochan N'Achlaise

Next stop was to the iconic Buachaille Etive Mòr. Some sunshine broke through even though it was still raining heavily at the well trodden view Buachaille Etive Mor with the peak of Stob Dearg remaining shrouded in the cloud the entire time I was there.  I'd say I'm a little disappointed that this did not turn out as well I thought it would when I was standing there.  Had a few rainbows that came and went that I also missed while trying to dry off my lens.

Buachaille Etive Mòr

I then went for an explore down Glen Etive without any expectation of seeing much, but hopefully managing to capture some of the many falls along the river.

River Etive

River Etive II

A couple shots that involved getting my feet wet crossing this stream so I could get a view looking over towards the mountains.

Sròn na Crèise

 Buachaille Etive Mor

And finally a very unoriginal view from Blackrock cottage to Buachaille Etive Mor before driving home.

Blackrock Cottage

Managed to take this on a wee hike up Ben Venue last weekend.

View over Loch Katrine towards Crianlarich

Also here are a few of the photos from the earlier trip up to Skye that have now been processed.

Trotternish Penisula

The Cuillins

The Old Man of Stoer

Kilt Rock

The Quaraing

Sisters of Kintal on the way home

Finally made a photobook of my images from my trip round South East Asia in 2010.  Made on Albelli which Is excellent.

Asia Photobook 2010 on Albelli

Also got out for some classic Scotland landscapes shots, only processed one so far though. More to come soon hopefully when I get time.

The Black Cuillins from Elgol.

And a shot from a couple weeks ago that I forgot to post on here. 

Diggers

Just a bunch of photos with no real theme apart from accidently not shooting in RAW.

Red and green leaved plant outside my front door.  I really like the shallow depth of focus at f1.4 on my 50mm

The Usher Hall on Lothian Road, ideally I'll get a twilight shot here, but I'm away to work at that time of day at the moment.

Can't go a spring without some daffodils photographs now.  Took advantage of the rare blue skies the other week and tried to create softer focus shots with my 50mm wide open at f1.4 rather than tack sharp images.

This one was taken at f4 and is nicely in focus, but doesn't appeal to me so much...

This is actually a late upload from week three, went up to the Cramond walkway but water was still too high so wandered down to the falls on the River Almond.  No photos from last week.

Went out for a wander around the old town with a couple of images in mind around the curved Victoria street, but ended up gwalking up to the High Street and quite liked the style of the shop front of the first shop below of the whisky store and went about looking for a couple others.

I still took a few shots from the top of Victoria street.  I tried to capture the curve and the upper and lower levels in one frame so just waited until I got people walking in different directions on each part.

So here for starters a image of the iconic Forth Bridge.  Went out in hope of a good sunset but it all clouded so ended up with this from earlier.  Quite like the colours of the rock in the foreground, ideally the tide would have been higher around the rocks and going out.  Its a start though.