Two Old, One New — Lens-Artists Challenge #210

Hi all 😃 My entry for this week’s challenge, set by Sarah of Travel With Me: Picking Favourites.

This first shot is of a sunrise I captured in the coastal town of Arbroath, Scotland, & is my number one choice. To capture this meant an early rise whilst on holiday–with sunrise at about 0530. I’d also looked at the weather for the morning & the conditions looked like they would be ideal. We were up (yes, my long-suffering wife came with me 😂) at about 0430, had a quick breakfast & headed to the seafront to get a good vantage point. There was a bank of low cloud sitting on the horizon with higher cloud above catching the sun’s colours before it arrived, which I took several shots of. Finally, the sun peeked over the top of the clouds & turned the world orange just as a small fishing boat left the harbour. The fishing boat is more of a silhouette, just like the gulls following it, but you can see the light glowing through the windows of the wheelhouse. There was also an interesting reflection off the seawall top–on the left of the picture. I love the scene as a whole, but it’s also the fact it was a planned-for-shot that worked & the fishing boat was an added bonus.

My next is another sunrise featuring Lensy. This was another planned outing that also involved a race against the sun 😂 I had it in my mind that sunrise over Fannyside Lochs could be pretty interesting. The meteorology geek in me looked at all the conditions & decided on a morning to go & get some more sunrise pics. This turned out to be about 0600 towards the end of April. Lensy wanted to come along as he hadn’t seen any sunrises yet and was interested to see how they turned out. I thought the Lochs were about 4 miles away on foot, so I set off at about 0500, giving myself what I thought was ample time; as it turns out, they are about 5 miles away, so I had to make up the extra mile to get there in time 🥵

I managed to get there just ahead of the sun cresting the horizon & was able to steady my breathing whilst I got Snappy (he’s my DSLR) set up & dug Lensy out of my bag. The conditions were perfect & I took a whole load of shots both with & without Lensy. This one turned out to be my favourite as the background has disappeared into the sun’s glow, whilst the whole landscape can be seen in Lensy. As with the Arbroath Sunrise, I like the scene in the shot below, but there’s also a sense of pride in a worked-for image coming off.

This last shot is the new one. This one came about from taking part in LAPC #209 set by Tracy: Surreal. My wife had suggested I edit some of my shots using the effects in Canva (thanks, Sweetie 😘) & there were some intriguing effects I used in my post — Surrealism Without Photoshop. This particular one used the “smear” function that split Lensy apart & warped the image within him. There is no real specific reason I like this shot. I just do!!!

…and finally, I’ve been slightly sneaky & used one of my other favourites as the featured image 🤓