Notes and Images from a Small Island (January Week 1 Day 2)

I decide to return to the loch later in the morning, rather than before sunrise.  The intense cold of yesterday has lifted and the sun has started to warm the air.  The colours on the loch are more vivid and the ice patterns have greater light and shade.  I am able to get more light in the camera, meaning that I am able to get a greater depth of field from front to back in the image.  I would have ordinarily avoided this time of day, but again, like I found in my intensive photographic practice before Christmas it is interesting that there are always pros and cons to working at times when most photographers would choose not to go out.

Much of the loch is in shade, but the reflections of the Red Cuillin Hills, still with snow on the top, are ablaze, against the strong blue sky.  The reeds are rendered lifeless and immobile by the drifting ice, freezing around their tender stems.   I retake some of the images from yesterday as the hoar frost is thicker, more intense and highlighted by the brighter light conditions.  The patterns etched in the icy surface are also more defined.

I decide to do some multiple exposure work playing with some of the intense colours reflected in the loch.  With this work, it is very much trial and error – and often the results are not what is expected.  I need to do more experimentation with this technique which I have scheduled to do during my next intense period of photographic practice.