Abernethy. This shot show the general conditions of the day. Very flat lighting and featureless sky. 

Ben Macdui from Ryvoan. The mostly featureless sky made photographing the snow capped hills almost impossible but here is one shot which worked. 

nr Forest Lodge, Abernethy. This wasn't too inspiring in colour, but a graduated tint on the sky and conversion to black and white lent some atmosphere and I rather like it now. 

Home of the Optio S4. Looking suitably aged now. Imagine what the camera would look like if it hadn't had that protection. 

Apart from Hippie spotting and a fantastic Tuna Salad, my highlight of Wells was proably the Cathedral which yielded a few good shots. 

Wells Cathedral again. One of the best things about Balck and white photography is making the sky go Black with a red filter. This didn't need too much coaxing in Picasa.

I'm sure you couldn't tell, but the picture below was taken through the mesh fence. Rather than pay to not be allowed to touch the stones, we decided to make use of their car park facilities and watch from the road. In the heart of sleepy England, tour buses full of disinterested French teenagers arrive and pay their six pounds to not engage with history. This fortuitous composition was my attempt to reflect that. I'm pleased with the shot only because it worked exactly as intended, no cropping.

Stopped off at Stonehenge on our trip through Wiltshire last week. The light was poor but I think Black and White rescues it.

Down the Clyde to Arran. As usual, the colours and light changed constantly, and these were taken when the light favoured the sky rather than Arran itself. Reminds me of my North Berwick photo of last December.

Just a quick snap of the magpie building a nest just outside my window. won't get such a good view once the tree gets leaves on it, but at the moment it is great. I've seen a definite change in behaviour over the last few days. Far less chattering, and more tinkering of the nest construction. They were very perturbed by the snow at the weekend which engulfed the nest, and you can still see some remnants of it in the base now.  

Sunrise at the Sighthill flats. 

Starting to get the hang of the 50mm f1.8, even though this isn't a particularly interesting shot, it shows the detail you can get. 

The Botanics in Glasgow are really just another public park, so building snowmen is not frowned upon as it might be in Edinburgh. Also, as there are lots of Students around, the snowmen tend to get quite big. 

A beautifully tranquil Kelvin. 

A very hastily created snowman - easy though as the snow was more than 6 inches deep. See the park benches. 

This car isn't going anywhere soon! 

A first test of the 50mm f1.8. Looks great so far - obviously, its forte (at least indoors) will be portraits, and these won't be going on the site. But I shall try and take some landscapes with it - I remember the days before zooms and am quite looking forward to the discipline of a prime again. 

See the next post. I initially posted this without any PP, then thought that I should do the lens a bit of justice. So I had to then edit the entry to reflect that this is the 'straight from camera shot' and the next is the PP'd one.

5pm, end of February: The wonders of a long lens and a polariser. This is looking ESE towards the flats at Sighthill. I have been thinking of upgrading this lens (the one from the car park - as it was such a bargain, I could probably sell it on eBay for a profit) to a 70-300 IS, but on the basis of the shots I took yesterday it is performing pretty well. In fact, it took better photo's of the rainbow than the 28-135 IS. Hmm.