More from Barcelona

Checking out the weather from our apartment.

As you can see it is wet-it really did pour down on the Thursday morning!!

At Rannoch Station..

...there is this charming little hut-all weathered and rusty, and unusually for Scotland,a corrugated iron roof. Could almost be in Australia!

Lamp...

in Barcelona

Rannoch Station

Rannoch is a remote station in the middle of Scotland. As you can see there is very little around the station. Hill walkers often use the train to get to a location, and then walk back.

Rannoch Moor

We had a trip out to Rannoch Moor today-what a beautiful place!

More from Barcelona

This was my favourite of Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona-how pretty is this apartment building?
And what a fabulous view these people had of the Tour de France
(although it is much more fun to be at street level, in among the action!)

And some detail:

Ducks

We had a day out today-up through GlenShee, and on to Braemar.
We are very familiar with braemar because we used to there a lot when we lived in Aberdeenshire.
I don't know how many hours were spent when the kids were little pulling them along on the flying fox in the park. But one of our favourite things to do there was to go to the duck pond and feed the ducks. It was very quiet there today-just me and the sound of my camera shutter and the ducks quacking. It was very peaceful and I loved watching the antics of the ducls splashing around in the water.

So here are some of my favourite photos of the ducks:


I love above one because of the water-it looks so clear and I love the circular ripples around the duck.
And these below I love for other reasons-detail, reflections, actions...

Vik market

Vik is a small town outside Barcelona, and we visited the market there while we we in Barcelona.

Tour de France

We were fortunate that the Tour de France passed through Barcelona while we were there. We're big fans of the Tour, and this is the third tour I've had the good fortune to see.
So I was experimenting with shutter speed when I was taking these photos, trying to capture the movement and speed! This is one of my favourites-even if the head is cut off-I like that the focus is on the legs-which, after all, do all the work!!

So this one was using a fast shutter speed to freze the action...

and this one was a slow shutter speed, panning the camera with the bike-in order to keep the bike sharp, but blur the background. So I haven't managed to keep the bike sharp-but it's still OK.

And a collage of my favourites:

You can click on the image for a closer look.

Thistle?

Well I don't think it's a thistle-but it's thistle like! We were over near Dumfries yesterday and I was experimenting with camera settings and I learned something! Actually, I've learned a lot recently about my camera, and taking photos in general.
Now I thought to get this shallow depth of field I had to use the smallest aperture setting on my lense, which is 3.5. and stand as close to the plant as my autofocus would allow. The result was that the plant looked small and insignificant in the frame, and the background not as blurred as I would have liked. Then I experimented with standing back, zooming in with a larger aperture setting. This was the most successful at f/9.

Don't you just love it when you make progress?

Barcelona

We had a fabulous time in Barcelona-it is a perfect place for a photoshoot, so many interesting nooks and crannies, so over the next week or so I'll upload some of my favourite photos, staring with this one. I used a slow shutter speed because I wanted to try to capture the rain (we had great weather, except on one morning when it rained with a vengance). However, it gave me the opportunity to play around with camera settings, so it wasn't all bad! I love this photo for a number of reasons-the subject, the specks of rain, the graininess, the blue umbrella. Although, now when looking at it I think I should crop out some of the foreground..

Ants

I have a small slab type stone in my garden under which lies an ant colony. When I lift the slab I see these eggs . It's interesting to note the variation in size of the eggs. Anyway, the ants mobilize to protect the eggs as soon as the stone is lifted. Within about 30 seconds they have moved all the eggs down the holes. It is fascinating to watch, as the smallest eggs are the same size as the ants, and the larger eggs are double the ants' size. But they work together and get those precious eggs out of harm's way at great speed. I'm not generally fond of ants, but I leave this colony alone as I've developed a soft spot for them over the years.

Aquilegias

at Cramond Kirk.

Dawyck

Another thistle at dawyck.