February probably isn’t the best time if year to spend a week in Scotland. We’d not been to “The Machars” before so wasn’t too sure what to expect. Hired a cottage for the week on the harbour of the Isle of Whithorn. Lovely cottage but what a strange place. I was expecting sandy bays and castles on every corner, turned out to be flat farmland and wet, cold and windy. Dont get me wrong there were some lovely looking places and interesting things to do…..if they were open. That “Visit Scotland” TV advert can take a running jump.
Managed two wetplate sessions over seven days. The first was in the sheltered woodland area of Sorbie Tower. click here And heres a link from Alex Boyd, difficult to imagine it as the same place…. Sorbie Tower in the 1860s
Exposures were around f8 for 15 seconds. Still need to solve the overexposure issues towards the tops of subjects when theres a lot of sky involved. Not too sure why that happens, the difference in UV between the top and bottom of the tower cant be that much.
5×7 Ambrotype scanned as a neg.
5×7 Ambrotype reflective scan
5×7 tintype
5×7 ambrotype
Quarterplate tintype
The second not so successful site was Cairnholy chambered cairns…did I mention it was cold, wet and windy….. And who thought to put a cairn up an barren mountainside? Click here
A bit of fogging on these plates as the darkcloth was flying all over the place in the high winds. Steph really wanted a shot of these rocks, normally I wouldn’t have bothered as I couldn’t get a decent view of them to warrant setting up all the wet plate gear etc.
5×7 ambrotype scanned as a neg
5×7 ambrotype
