Sunshine and Swagger

It was my husband's birthday last week, so we treated ourselves to a trip to visit Arran, the largest island in the Firth of Clyde. Despite growing up within striking distance of the island I had never actually visited it before so was looking forward to exploring a new to me destination.

Visiting Scottish islands in March can be a bit hit and miss weather wise but we were lucky to experience a glorious couple of days surrounded by sunshine and stunning scenery as you can see.

The mountains in the North of the island are known as the "Sleeping Warrior" as they are said to resemble a warrior lying on his back with his arms crossed over his chest. They certainly don't look like it from the photo and angle above, but maybe I can see a head and chest in the photo below.

Of course that could also be down to the power of suggestion :)

No powers of suggestion needed to spot the sheep in this photo though, aren't they the quirkiest bollards you have ever seen?

Clearly quirky is part of the island culture.

These cottages at Catacol, known as the Twelve Apostles, were built for local landworkers who were being driven from the land and encouraged to become fishermen. Each of the cottages has their own distinct window style. The idea was that if a wife wanted to signal her husband out on the fishing boat she could place a candle in the window and because of the different window shapes the husbands would know which of them was being signalled! I never read anywhere how successful that scheme was :)

Talking of success, however, I am pleased to report that our second trip of the week North of the Border was equally rewarding.

The swagger of the kilts, such as this, at Murrayfield to watch the annual Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and France was much improved by an impressive Scotland victory.

The beret wearing fans amongst us didn't have so much to cheer about by the end of the afternoon, although it didn't appear to dampen their spirits too much :)

Next up a trip to Dublin and the hope of a long awaited away win, keeping my fingers crossed!

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Rising to the challenge

Recently, Katy at The Littlest Thistle has been challenging us all to get to grips with our cameras. Having supposedly mastered the Landscape, Portrait and Sports settings we were then challenged with something called the triangle of light (No, I had no idea what she was talking about either!)

To get to grips with this scary sounding triangle we first had to get our heads around the aperture settings. Now, as it happens I usually use the aperture setting on my camera, so most of what Katy said about the challenge almost made sense:) In a later post mathematical equations were being banded about and they definitely made no sense whatsoever!

We took a photo of a line of objects, focusing on the front object and increasing the aperture with each photo. So, the above photo was taken with the aperture set to f5.6 and the focus on the front reel. The front reel is in focus but the rest are not

Same photo at f8

At f11 the second and third reels are now in focus but the lettering on the last two reels is indecipherable

At f22 you can read the lettering on the brown spool

At f29 you can read all of the lettering on the spools.

We then had to repeat the exercise focusing this time on the centre object

So, this time at f5.6 the green spool is in focus but the spools either side are not

At f11 only the front and back spools are indistinct

At f29 the variation in the front thread is now discernable.

And just in case you thought that all this information was going in one ear and out the other (it has been known!)

On our sporting trip to Murrayfield last weekend I was able to catch the flamethrower using the Sports mode

and the sequence of a lineout, which unfortunately was about the only piece of action that happened directly in front of us. By this stage, my Irish husband, was too tense to utter anything more than the odd syllable so it was maybe just as well. His heart rate only recovered when the fact of Ireland's winning of the Six Nations Championship sank in around 10.00p.m that evening :) Sadly for me, Scotland could only gain the Wooden Spoon, so our prospects for the World Cup later this year seem rather dismal :(

Throw - in

Jump

Catch

Gather

This month's challenge is to get to grips with the shutter speed, so I am off to find some fast moving objects :) There weren't many of them to be found amongst the Ireland fans on Sunday morning in Edinburgh I can tell you :)

Camera Challenge - the sporting edition!

The opportunity to use the sports mode on my camera at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh for a Six Nations Rugby game was too good to pass up.

The game between Scotland and Wales was much too tense for me to concentrate on taking photos during it. Sadly the result didn't go Scotland's way (no gloating there Catrin!) but I did get some photos taken before the nerves kicked in :)

Marching Band Murrayfield

Marching Band pre-match entertainment in sports mode.

Marching Band Murrayfield Stadium

Marching Band in full auto mode

The pre-match entertainment also included fireworks, which I attempted to get a photo of

but I was so startled by the bang that I missed the shot completely!

I couldn't miss these strange fellows though

Welsh sheep are bigger than I thought :)

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