I’m just back from socialising with other photographers, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while but somehow never quite managed, and this inspired me to look through my stack of unprocessed photos and see if I could make something decent out of one of them. One of the advantages of shooting RAW is that sometimes you get lucky enough to produce something decent out of what seemed like a lost cause.
Now if you know me, you’ll already know that I’m far from calling the attached image “decent”, but nonetheless it is good enough to share and see what people think.
Given the poor weather conditions in which this was taken and the fact that in mid-April Spring hadn’t quite … sprung yet, there is little of visual interest to the original shot. Typically this is a good excuse to experiment with a completely different colour scheme. Monochrome didn’t really work here, I suppose it would have needed more contrast, so I decided to try some kind of split-toning.
But first I needed to crop it to something more attractive. I was rather pleasantly surprised when the tower fit perfectly in a section of the golden ratio. I tend to keep composition simple and stick to the rule of thirds but here it lined up really well and looking at it purely from a composition perspective, it works rather well I think.
Going back to the colour, I figured trying to make it kind of old with a little more saturation and splitting it between oranges and blues but putting the blues on the highlights would work well. A bit more tidying up here and there and some vignette and this is what I came up with.
I don’t actually know what the tower is called but a sign on the door (hidden from view) has an inscription in Latin that says “Tibi Sit Prudentia Turris – MDCCL” which Google Translates tells me means “It is [the] wisdom towers” and of course the date is 1750. I’ll have to enquire whether anyone refers to it as such or why it would have been called that at one point as I’m not quite sure what the purpose of the tower was when the Mansion it is attached to was whole and inhabited.
My Father was born and raised in Scotland, I grew up with pipe music Saturday night at the Scottish Hall and “highland Games”every summer.,My Aunts and Uncles all spoke like my dad, Until I went to school,I thought everybody spoke with a BURRR
When i was 16, I got to spend 2 weeks in Scotland and have never been able to get back!!!
Your Photos of Scotland are a wonderful gift. Thank yo
I have done two pencil sketches for my own personal use from two of you photos, I hope that is OK?
Thank you Brian, yes it’s perfectly fine and I am honoured (and would love to see them if you are able to share)