Getting back to composition (sorry had a slight diversion in to holiday snaps there), there are several ‘rules’ to composition (all rules can be broken), today I want to discuss straight lines or the lack of them. When composing a picture always try to angle the shot so that you remove any straight lines particularly where people are concerned. That is not to say that you remove ALL straight line e.g. horizons should always be straight and level particularly where water is concerned. Lets use an example: below is an image of 2 people who happen to be roughly the same height, if they had their heads were at different heights or the shot was cropped much more so that only their head and shoulders can be seen it would be more dynamic.

Not good-photograph of 2 people with heads at the same height creating straight lines

Take a look at the next photograph where the 2 people are at different heights and so create a diagonal line between the heads and so looks a little more dynamic.

better-photograph pf 2 people with heads at different heights and so creats diagonal lines

Next time I will look at how this can be improved some more.

One of the most amazing sites left on Orkney is the stone age dwellings at Skara Brae. They were revealled after a mammoth storm in the 1930s and are now available for viewing. There is a reconstruction of one of the dwellings which you can go into and see the things that were found in the huts, all were identical. All had the dresser opposite the enterance and what were probably beds to either side. At the site is also a large house from Edwardian times which can be visited on the same ticket. It was quite awe inspiring to think that the dwellings I was looking at wer built before the Egptian perimids and Stone Henge!! I must admit there is not a lot to see but the displays that have been set up to show how life was then are very good and the reconstructed house is very authentic (I think, then what do I know?). Here are a couple of pics I took from there, I hope you all like them.

photograph of the inside of the re-construction of a stone age dwelling

photograph of stone age dwellings at skara brae

Just to note for scale sake the opening isthe doorway and it is only 2 foot square, so I guess they crawled in on hands and knees.

For more information on Skara Brae go to

http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/skarabrae

Back to the Orkney Islands: one of the main tourist attractions in the Orkneys are the ship wrecks that litter the coast line. Some are visible from dry land but most have to be seen by Scuba diving. Both my husband and I scuba dive but I like staying above 30m and looking at fish and he likes diving deep and dark to see ship wrecks. So on this trip, whilst I travelled around the islands on dry land and boats he travelled round scapa flow on a boat which he then leapt off to dive under the water. You can still see some of the boats that were wrecked off Scapa Flow to block the channels and keep the German submarines out, below are 2 photogrpahs I took of the bits of boats left sticking out above the water line when a sea fret had rolled in and obscured what I had set the camera up for (these fogs roll in very quickly). If you want to know more about the historyof Scapa Flow and the Germon high Fleet scuttled in WW1 click on the link here:

http://www.scapaflow.co.uk/

photograph of ship wreck of the coast of Orkney

photograph of engine block of ship wrecked off the coast of Orkney

I was recently talking to someone who had bought a new compact camera and proudly stated that it had 13Mega pixels. That got me thinking about the marketing hype around cameras, manufactureres are using the numbers game to pursuade us to part with our money. Unfortunately the higher the number of pixels does not necessarily mean a better quality picture, in fact quite the opposite. The biggest factor on picture quality is the size of the sensor, the larger the sensor in general the better quality picture that is produced. Why is this? Well without getting too technical it is all to do with noise (unwanted information) in relationship to the light that we do want and the smaller the pixel the greater this ratio becomes and so the noiser your photographs will appear. (Noise is usually very fine black dots on your photo, usually more noticable in pictures taken at night in man made lighting.) So if the sensor size stays the same and they add more pixels, in general the picture will become poorer in quality. There are other mitgating factors like the quality of the process to produce the sensor that will affect the quality of the photograph as well, but in genreal the higher the camera price and the larger the sensor size the better the quality, so pictures from the extremely small sensors on mobil phone cameras are never going to be as good as those taken from a compact which will never be as good as those taken with a full frame (35mm) sensor and so on. If you want to get more tachnical about all this there is a superb article which discusses all this and much more at the website found here :http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-size.htm

Stromness Shopping week!!! It’s really an excuse for a week long carnival, with a carnival queen, pipe bands, games and on the Thursday night a parade through the town, which in 2008 included a Viking boat and 2 Viking armies(!) and a big bonfire at the Stromness Point. There were a couple of thousand spectators all trying to squeeze along the main street behind the boat. There were about 10-15 men in each of the armies, all beautifully dressed in Viking replica clothing. Below are just a couple of the photographs I took of the parade and and the bonfire.

photograph of the boat in the main square before the parade

Before the parade the Island photgrapher for the local Gazette took lots of photographs of the guys in their costumes with the boat which started its route through town in the main square.

Photograph of a Viking on Orkney

And then finally the boat is set on fire after some posturing and brandishing of the fire brands infront of the boat, all the vikings threw their fire brands in to the boat and watched it burn until it got so hot they had to move away.

Photograph of a Viking in front of the burning boat.

I just love the light round the rim of the hat in this photograph.

When taking photographs of people there are several things to consider where composition is concerned. In this photography tip I shall concentrate on the close up.

Portraits usually look better if they are taken as close ups, concentrate on the head and shoulders. If you get in really close it does not matter if you crop off the top of their head, but it is usually better to not crop off the chin (there are always exceptions to the rule). Take a look at the example below, the 1st image is full length of 2 people:

Photograph of 2 people full length

The next image is the same picture but cropped to show just their head and shoulders, it has a much more intimate feel about it, you can see the detail of the faces and feel much closer to the people, more like you are there with them, rather than just looking at the at them.

Photograph of 2 people close up

Here is another example, the 1st image is of a baby full length, it is just a baby, you don’t get any feeling of being with the baby or any detail of the face:

Photograph of baby full length

The next photograph is really close to the baby and you really start to feel like you are there with the baby and get a feel of the mood she is in, it has much more impact. In fact it could even be cropped a bit to remove some of the forehead and the red top.

Photograph of baby close up

This is a beautiful little chapel made from old nissan huts and concrete! During WW1 the Italian Prisoners of War (PoW) were used to create the Churchill barricades (to stop the submarines getting into Scapa Flow) but because the Geneva convention prevents use of POWs for war activities they also built roads across the barricades and said they were building permanent roads for the locals to use!!! (There is always a round these things), the Italians being quite religious wanted somewhere to pray so they used left over concrete and created the front of the chapel and lined the inside with plaster and concrete and painted it to look like it was tiled and had paintings hanging. It is stunning, as with all things Orkney small but beautifully formed and well worth a trip if you are in Orkney.

Photograph of the outside of the Italian Chapel

Photograph of the Italian Chapel inside showing the roof and pulpit area

Photograph of the Italian Chapel detail of pulpit

One of the best days on the holiday was the day I went to Westray Island to photograph the Puffins. There were hundreds of them on the cliff with a large lump of rock slightly away from the cliff edge which meant you could see them full on without having to get near the edge of the cliff and peer down. They are so cute and so funny. They stand around posturing and squeaking at each other and then suddenly one leaps of the cliff and flaps like furry until they get out to sea where they settle to catch fish. Once one has gone another goes and then 2, then 4 then 10 then 20 and finally the stragglers leave until the colony appears to be empty. The slowly they return in the order they left bringing fish for the young ones and before you know it the colony is teaming again.

Photograph of Puffin Landing

Photograph of a Puffin

Photograph of Puffins coming into land

Photograph of Puffins on a ledge

One of the most stunning visual parts to Orkney (besides the breath-taking cliffs) is the ring of Brodgar, a set of standing stones about 50m in diameter (the entire ring not each stone) of which about 20 stones are still standing and the remains of many more can still be seen. It is a neolothic creation for which we still do not know the use or reason for it’s creation. One theory is, it was a show of strength and power of that clan as the bigger the circle the more hours were required to create it and therefore the more people that were probably required so the larger the clan. At sunset and sun rise on a cloudless day the light cast onto the stones is almost transluscent being so far north and the feeling of spirituality is quite awe inspiring, wow this is deep and meaning full! I hope you  like the photographs and comments posted are appreciated.

RIng of Brodgar by sunset

Still standing stones in the ring of Brodgar

Ring of Brodgar