Author: Robb Towns

After our weekend in Inverness, my eldest daughter and I flew up to Shetland for a quick 4 day, 3 night photographic adventure. Neither of us had been to Shetland before and if you ever get the chance, I would recommend that you go. Stunning Land and Seascapes. We really enjoyed our time and we took many, many photos. Here are just a few.

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As mentioned below, on December 5 we left for Scotland to spend time with our daughters and to shoot some photos of the amazing Scottish landscapes.

I have started to get through the 1000’s of photos I have taken, I hope you enjoy the photographic journey as much as we did/

I will start off this set of posts with our journey over from Canada to the Orkney Island. The photo’s are not amazing, but help to start telling the story of our time in the beautiful country of Scotland.

Sorry that the site has appeared dormant, but we were on a Family and photographic adventure to Scotland since the beginning of December. I took 3,000 photos and between trying to get over the 5 hour time difference and settling back in at work I haven’t had much time to get the photos sorted yet.

Over the coming weeks I will post a few of my favorite photos from our trip. I will try to break them down by areas that we visited.

So a little synopsis of our trip before the photos start to get posted (building anticipation?!?). If you cant wait, I have posted a few photos on my Instagram feed. (see the side bar).

We traveled (all in one go) on Wednesday, December 5th from Ottawa to Montreal by bus, then Montreal to London overnight via British Airways on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, then London to Edinburgh on a British Boeing 757, then from Edinburgh to Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, on a Logan Air Saab 340 turbo prop (36 seater).

We arrived in Kirkwall late in the day, and visited with family. The next morning we were up early  and we then took the ferry from Stromness to Scrabster and then traveled down to Inverness for the weekend. We took in a Pantomime, lots of shopping, a movie and a very moving visit to the Culloden Battlefield and interpretation centre.

We returned to Orkney on Sunday evening.

Early Monday morning, my eldest daughter and I flew from Kirkwall to Sumbrugh Shetland for a 4 day, 3 night photo adventure.

Once we returned to Orkney on the Thursday, my week of constant travel finally slowed down a bit. We spent the rest of our time in Orkney. We were able to take several day trips in the short amount of available daylight (but what amazing light it was that you get at nearly 60 degrees North) to the various parts of the Mainland.

Our youngest daughter joined us just before Christmas and it was amazing to have the entire family together for the first time in 2 years. It was hard to leave them behind when we returned to Canada on Dec 29th, but the memories and photos we have will be treasured forever.

 

I was able to do some of my photography class homework yesterday. Our homework was to use the tripod for a long exposure shot and work with aperture and not to have any shake. I experimented with several combinations of settings, but found I really liked a small aperture (F22) as it gave a “star” like effect on the little LED lights I placed around the subject of my shot. I used an ISO of 200 and a shutter speed of 10 seconds.

So these photos combine a couple of my favourite things. The Highland Park Whisky is made in the Orkney Islands. I really like the 18 year old Highland Park, but my bottle of that is nearly empty, so I had this 12 year old bottle that was full. Which makes for a better photo I think. The tartan wrapping the bottle is the Orkney Tartan.  I ended up using all the bottles that I currently have for the Trio picture, but the goal here was to take photo’s not so much to show perfect product pictures.

I am really please with the single bottle pictures.

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War 1. I had the distinct honour of piping for several veterans at a local seniors home.

Tonight we visited a couple of interesting Remembrance Day sites. Veterans Affairs Canada had installed a very interesting display of sound and light in Confederation Park in downtown Ottawa. They had several light Orbs with video about people who had answered the call to war for World War 1.

We then walked up to the National War Memorial. It was still busy with lots of people paying their respects and dropping their poppies onto the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Every year one of my best friends hosts a Cottage Closing party for all his friends. Although it is a Boy’s Weekend, it is very relaxed and laid back, with no stress, lots of Hockey and Football on the Big Screen and as much fresh air as you can stand. Here are a few of my favorite shots

Today we took a quick drive and ferry ride to a place we visited this past winter, Plaisance Falls, Quebec. The Plaisance Falls is a historic site with a scenic lookout, observation points and a hiking trail that let’s you get right up close to the site’s spectacular natural beauty. With their 63-metre vertical drop, the Falls were an important economic factor in the founding of the 19th-century village of North Nation Mills (now only a memory). On-site interpretive activities bring to life this important part of the history of the Petite-Nation.

 

I took today off so that I could go out and do a little bit of photography of the fall colours around our little neighborhood. These photos are all taken around Renaud Rd and Anderson Road in the south-east end of the city. I think next week the colours will be even more brilliant, but I just couldn’t wait to get out and capture the fall colours.

 

We took a drive to Montreal to visit with friends. I knew that they lived near Dorval Airport or Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport (YUL), but what I didn’t realize was that they live almost directly under the approach to the Airport.

It was very distracting to sit with our friends while so many wonderful planes from all over the world were flying overhead. I finally broke down and grabbed my camera to shoot these planes in the dying light of the day. I used an ISO of 800 to keep the photos sharp, but I can see a bit of noise in the photos when I zoom in.

Hopefully our friends will invite us back again soon. We had a wonderful visit with them and the show above was spectacular.

The next time we go, I will attempt to write down where each plane is arriving from or going to and include that information.  There is a great website you can use to view flights in and out of your local airport. It is called www.flightradar24.com

Today we took in the Beechwood Cemetery 24th Annual Historical Walking Tour. The purpose of the tour is to highlight some of the famous people who are buried at the cemetery. I could have filled several pages with photos from the tour it was so interesting.

At each of this year’s highlighted people headstones, several actors would bring that person “back to life”. I would have liked to showcase all the various actor’s but with 150 people in our “small” group there were too many people for me to feel comfortable including on my page. It was hard enough to just get photos of the headstones on their own.

I would really recommend their tours, which are held on frequently. Check out their website for more information.  http://www.beechwoodottawa.ca