Re-visiting Travel Photos - (Scotland part 1 - December 2017 - digital)

Hello and welcome back to another post. Last week was the final post from London's 'Re-visiting Travel Photos'. We'll be diving into some photographs from Scotland this time. There will be 2 parts to Scotlands' photos so let's get into these.

I went to Scotland for a week in December (5th to 9th) with Caroline to visit my dad's side of the family, and to see LANY the band play in Glasgow.

These photos are all from the 5th of December. There were a very small amount of edits already done so the ones I could pair with original files are below. For the re-edits, I went for a cold and dark colour palette, not much different from how the originals look as Scotland was cold and dark.

I did go heavier on the shadows and blacks in these edits and brightened up the top of the images where the sky is to create a strong contrast. I looked for the central focus in each image, where the eye would naturally be drawn to when first viewing the photo, and made that the clearest section in the image.

As seen with the three examples below, the first one being shot down a small narrow street. It feels very claustrophobic and to play to that, I darkened the bottom half of the image. Doing this brings the focus to the top of the image, and this is where our main subject stands, the Scots Monument. I threw on a pretty high haze on the upper image, blowing out the sky and brightening all the subjects in the skyline.

I think these are some moody shots and so I wanted to bring them alive through a dark palette that creates a strong contrast between the light and dark tones.

As mentioned before, there were very little original edits, so below are all the re-edits paired with original files.

This top image is probably my favourite re-edit from this lot of photos. I love how the haze overlay makes it look like it's snowing or at least about to. The buildings in this photo have been brightened perfectly to give that tan colour. I love when buildings have this palette to them. Very old school and Scotland is full of these buildings. This image actually has three main subjects that I wanted to give an equal amount of eye time too. The Ferris wheel, the yellow and red carnival top, and the scots monument. Since they are the largest and most prominent subjects in the picture it wasn't too hard to get them focused on. Framing closer to the subjects and lining them up left to right was important as to lead the eye between them.

The viewer will most likely start on the yellow and red carnival top as it's the most vibrant subject in the frame, then go to the scots monument as its the largest, then to the Ferris wheel as it's the brightest.

My second favourite photo would be the archway, framing the scots monument. Its one that I completely forgot was taken and so it feels new to me. I like how it compliments the monument, making it the sole focus of the image, even though there's quite a bit happening in the lower part of the image.

There are a few other good ones here like the lamp inside the ghost tour bus. On my second night in Edinburgh, I went out to the Christmas market, a short walk from the hostel I was staying at. There was a stop off and pick up point for ghost history tours by bus through Edinburgh and I thought 'Why the hell not' and got on one. It was fun and interesting learning the dark history of Edinburgh through a tour guide who was comedic and engaging.

That's it for this blog post, check out the rest of the photos below. Some of the photos that are shared in the blogs will be put up into either the digital photo tab or the store. Depending on how good they are. So if you want to check them out or even purchase one, check the store tab, and if it's not in the store and you would still like to purchase the photograph, send me a message and I'll add it.

Thanks again. Join me next Friday for another post. Until then, stay safe.