Chris Bowness' photos

I took my dog out for a walk, set my tripod up and took this with my phone. The phone took over 4 minutes to take this although the exif data says it took about 16 seconds.

I visited this spot last week and took a shot with my phone (see PIP). Tonight I went back with my camera and took this.

I walked my dog in my local park, the Bannockburn battlefield site. It's been wet for weeks, but tonight it was clear, still and cool. The mist started to form and I steadied my phone on a bin to take this shot...

I've been wondering about on my local hills looking for nice locations to take night pictures. I never took my big camera tonight as it was forecast rain. So I took my phone and the lightweight tripod. The phone surprised me as it seemed to realised it was in a tripod and started to taking 2-3 minute exposures automatically. It took 2 minutes, but the Exif data says otherwise! It was windy so there was a bit of movement, but I've now found a couple of vantage points to visit when clear with my camera.

This was taken on Bank Hill above Dollar. I was climbing out of the cold fog into the sun and I passed these people descending into it.

Ben Starav taken from Beinn Sgulaird

Wood Hill in the Ochil Hills is one of my favourite places as I find it beautiful to be there. It is very close to civilisation, but is mostly left undisturbed due to the stiff climb needed to reach it. I have taken so many pictures here that I've stopped going for the last few years. I need to go back though.

I visited Kingsbarns beach in Fife and a distant object caught my eye. It was the Inchcape (Bell Rock) lighthouse, and it could be seen clearly from were I parked my car at around 6 metres above the beach. I took this picture using my phone at 30x zoom. The full lighthouse can be seen on this link: lighthouseaccommodation.co.uk/listings/bell-rock-lighthouse The lighthouse was so far out I wasn’t seeing all of it. Then when I went down to the beach, I could see only the top sticking up (see the PIP). A difference in height of 4-5 metres meant I was seeing a lot less of the tower. So, I questioned Grok about this. Grok did the following calculation based on the above picture, knowing the lighthouse was 36m tall. Formula: 3.57 × (√h₁ + √h₂) • Your eye height on the bank: ≈ 6 m • Visible height of lighthouse in the first photo: roughly the top 15–18 m (out of the full 36 m tower) So √6 ≈ 2.45, √17 ≈ 4.1 → sum ≈ 6.55 3.57 × 6.55 ≈ 23.4 km. So, from this picture, Grok had calculated a distance of 23.4km. I have checked the distance using OS maps; the distance was just short of 22km. I was impressed and these pictures show that view of the lighthouse, from this distant vantage point, is affected by the curve of the earth. There is no other explanation.

I took this way back in 2013 as I wondered around this lovely place.

This is an old HDR picture that used five bracketed shots with Luminance HDR to tonemap and GIMP to finish. When shooting into the sun I used to also take a shot with my finger over the sun so I could mask out the lens flare. It's much easier to take pictures now!

There's some nice walks from Errol in Perthshire along the banks of the Tay Estuary. Here, every season is a gift.

This is the view that I had from the living room of the house where I used to live. The best thing about the garden below is that I had the view, but didn't have to maintain it as it wasn't mine.

Taken on one of my many walks on the Ochil Hills, near where I live.

This is my dog looking melancholic whilst waiting to be walked, he was approaching 14 then, he's 16 now. He also hates having his picture taken and always looks away...

Walking northward from Blair Atholl, we arrived for a lunch stop at this bothy. Bothies are dotted about the Scottish landscape and are free to use as shelters by anyone. The bothies are maintained by the volunteers of the Mountain Bothies Association. Little Fidget, my friends Jack Russel kindly posed for this shot :)