Fishing Provides Such Pleasure

[Donald]

40D, 70-200mm f/4L IS USM@138mm. ISO100. 1/45@f11.

[FrankMi]

Hmmmm... I think I hear the putting of the motor echoing across the lake. Nice!

[Sahil]

Lovely shot, Donald.
I love the mood of this shot. I find it so peaceful, although it must have been excessively cold...

[Donald]

Thanks, guys.

Frank - You're absolutely right. You can hear the phut-phut of the motor long before you see the boat coming round the headland. Between 7 - 9am, there are lots of these pass up by the cottage where we stay for our holiday weekend (but not on a Sunday - Scotland still has some of these traditions and observances in place). Then in the late afternoon, they all go back the way from where they came. It's a club and people who live in Glasgow and other parts of the conurbation at which Glasgow is the centre, come out to Loch Lomond for fishing.

Sahil - It actually wasn't cold at all. Although, of course, everything is relative and for a resident of India, I suspect it would have felt very cold. I always remember a friend in Sri Lanka, as we enjoyed beers (and some whisky!) at the Kandy Garden Club on 1st January telling me that the weather was quite cool. I could hardly move because of the heat!

[ScoutR]

NICE!!!

Wendy

[Donald]

NICE!!!

Wendy

Thank you ma'am.

[Steve S]

Now this is the kind of work i expect of you. Excellent job donald. I really like this one alot!

[wilgk]

Aaah the put put around bend, gotta love the Doppler effect...
This scene reminds me of the saying that golf was what men do to get away from their wives if they don't like to fish
It is a truly wonderful shot - 3 words for you
Print/frame/wall/mine
Oops 4 words but you see why I had to add the 4th

[Donald]

It is a truly wonderful shot - 3 words for you
Print/frame/wall/mine
Oops 4 words but you see why I had to add the 4th

I haven't had my nationality or cultural identity insulted for ages .... and now she's being nice to me. This could be dangerous.

It is an interesting observation. Indeed, in all the years we've been spending a weekend at this location, I've never yet seen a woman in one of these boats. Which tells you a huge amount - they're no good at fishing!

[jeeperman]

Nice peaceful shot Donald.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Donald,

It is a lovely shot, but can I be an absolute rotter and mention a couple of things?
a) it might well be level - I appreciate the far bank may not be parallel to you, but to me, it still gives an impression of needing to go up a bit on the right (anti-clockwise rotation), not much though.
b) either the sharpening, or (from an earlier comment you made in another thread On the Loch Side) SE Pro, has caused some odd effects on the boat's letter/numbering; most noticeable on the "5", see how the top and centre bottom have far more contrast applied. (Sorry, I pixel peeped to prove to myself I wasn't seeing things and I suspect I am overly sesnsitive to this kind of problem)

Hope you don't mind me saying, and I am going to post some pictures soon, so do be sure to 'give to me with both barrels'

Cheers,

[Donald]

It is a lovely shot, but can I be an absolute rotter and mention a couple of things?

If you must!

You were right on the level issue. I've given it, I think, a .35 (GIMP figures) anti-clockwise rotation and the new version is now on my own website. Small difference, but once you know about, it sticks out like a sore thumb and has to be corrected.

I'm going to live with the effect on the number on the boat. I think it's so imperceptible as to to be 'liveable with'. A complete re-processing, which is what I'd have to do, runs the risk of losing other strengths that I think it has.

[ucci]

I love this particular shot, so quiet and peaceful. Underscores what fishing is all about. Something most women and a few city dwelling men can never understand. They are to be pitied rather than castigated for being "Supermarket fisherpersons!"
But I have to admit it looks damn cold out there on the water. Too cold for my old bones now I reckon But it brings back beautiful memories of past times when I was younger and had more appropriate levels of testosterone
If I have offended any Lady members, hey, don't blame me and expect an apology. After all it is Donald's art work! Seek any redress from him Gee this hole I have just dug myself into is getting pretty darn deep....

[MiniChris]

Whereas, "on the Loch Side" struck no emotional chords, this one really speaks to me. Any student of mine who produces a shot like this, tonally and emotionally, gets an A for life - (a Cambridge grade would be an E.)

[Donald]

Ken, Chris - Thanks for commenting.

Interesting point raised by what you say, Chris.

We've had discussion on here previously about how many 'keepers' we should be aiming for and I referred to a statement attributed to Ansel Adams, that he thought that 12 'keepers' per year was a good achievement. Now, of course, Adams made many, many more images per year than that and we now think that practically all of what he chose to print is out of the top drawer.

In a similar vein, but opposite intent, Mary recently introduced a thread asking people to post up just an 'ordinary' image.

All of which got me thinking about what I achieved, photographically, as a result of my recent weekend in a cottage on the shore of Loch Lomond. Setting the colour images that I posted on here aside (because colour photography is a fun aside for me that I don't take too seriously), I think I've posted 8 images up on here over the last couple of weeks. From those, this seems to be the one big keeper, according to the positive reaction here on CiC and, if I'm honest, my own thoughts as well.

I don't think the others were poor images, in fact I am quite fond of them, but I think I got close to the bullseye with this one. So, 1 from 8. That's probably not a bad strike rate. That, of course, doesn't take account of those that never made it past the RAW stage and shall sit, probably forever, unprocessed.

The other thing to ponder as well, of course, (but not for too long because photography is about having fun) is why am I only getting a 1:8 ratio. What did I do wrong with the other 7?

Anyway - just some rambling thoughts.

I have one more from this weekend that I want to post up and will do so later today. I think it could be number 2, but I'll wait to hear the informed criticism of colleagues here on CiC.

[Sahil]

Sahil - It actually wasn't cold at all. Although, of course, everything is relative and for a resident of India, I suspect it would have felt very cold. I always remember a friend in Sri Lanka, as we enjoyed beers (and some whisky!) at the Kandy Garden Club on 1st January telling me that the weather was quite cool. I could hardly move because of the heat!

Yes, we are not accustomed to extreme cold. For me anything below 8-10 degrees Celcius is very cold. In our city it goes down to 0 degrees at the max. Only once it has touched -1.
But down the south, (Like Sri Lanka) even 22 degrees is a little cold for them, where as we sweat at 22.

[MiniChris]

I think one of the interesting notes to your rambling thoughts (though they really don't ramble, much), is how we place importance on what we keep as opposed to what stays forever in some file, someday to be discarded.

I look at every image I shoot as a keeper until I can prove myself wrong (which rarely takes long). The steel guitarist shots are a good example. I have ten shots of this little trio playing and in my camera, they were all keepers. In the end, I will have two, tops..and maybe a third if I really want to put some work in it.

I shoot at my old film rate of one keeper per roll 36, five per box of 50 4x5. I think it is going to be some time digitally until I can hit that ratio again, though I do keep plugging away at it. Right now, I will only keep 10-12 of the 197 I shot yesterday. Without benefit of a calculator, that's about 1:15 or 16, about half what you are keeping, but twice what I was doing at the beginning of the year. Whoohoo, I'm on a roll!

The more fun thing for me to do, is go back and look at images I produced several months back and compare them to what I am outputting these days...and hope that what I am ouputting today will be ten times better in six more months. So much to learn...

[LeoLeo]

Donald,

You should not touch this subject (fishing..) ... old rabbits die hard ..err habbits.

Maybe a sepia tone ? Anyway, I really enjoy it!

Leo

[Dave Humphries]

If you must!

~

I'm going to live with the effect on the number on the boat. I think it's so imperceptible as to to be 'liveable with'. A complete re-processing, which is what I'd have to do, runs the risk of losing other strengths that I think it has.

I just had another thought on that; I bet the jpg compression is also a contributary factor; out of interest, does the Tif show any signs of it? It is fairly minor (read microscopic), so I won't hold it against you

[ucci]

Ken, Chris - Thanks for commenting.

Interesting point raised by what you say, Chris.
Anyway - just some rambling thoughts.

"Rambling? Donald, ye dinna knew ramblin,' ma wee Laddie" (uttered in my best attempt at a French accent!) How is this for rambling? Another example of the very stupid questions I have a tendency to pose and bore others witless with.
On the subject of "Keepers." How do we actually define just what constitutes a Keeper? Are there different levels of a Keeper, based on the potentially intended use of it? i.e. is it purpose related? And so those pictures we take which may be lacking in technical excellence may be indeed important keepers to us because of their content. In which case may be they are personal keepers, as opposed to competition winning or professional keepers. And in this your keeper rate may be 50 percent or more. In this I am excluding ' happy family snaps' as being a separate issue. I am only referring to subjects we have photographed because we found the subject caught our attention. So, there is the philosophical question of how and by whom is a keeper defined? And are there different levels of keepers? :confused. So, Mr D, how is that for a piece of unmitigated rambling? Pretty boring hey? On a scale of 10 it should rank about 11.5!

want to post up and will do so later today. I think it could be number 2,

Look forward to enjoying these...
K