Revisiting Scotland

I've been working at re-creating my website, chriscina.net. It had been a place where I uploaded just about everything I shot and so it had gotten very cluttered and unwieldy.  It was time to clean it up and try and show, and hopefully sell, prints of the very best photos I've taken.

It has meant a visual trip through many trips taken in recent years.  Looking at my Hawaii photos from 2003 reminded me of what a great trip that was, but showed me that I have improved as a photographer since then.
 
While it was great remembering the seal we almost tripped over on a beach, most of the images were small .jpgs and fairly poor quality. The image above of the Na'Pali Coastline, taken from a helicopter window, was one of the best.



Last week I revisited the Aran Islands in Ireland (a place I go back to in my thoughts when I am having difficulty sleeping).  The photo above is my husband stopped on his bike, patiently waiting for me to take the picture. Oh how I love the geography there, ocean on one side, rolling green landscape broken up by stone walls and occasional cows all around you. And it felt like the island was all ours to explore. Definitely one of my very favorite places.

Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh, Scotland
 Today I've been strolling through Edinburgh, Scotland - a very different experience. A large city brimming with spectacular architecture,  history and ghosts of writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Scott, Robbie Burns and J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan).  The great thing about photography is that it allows you to go back in time and relive special moments in life as well as to stop and appreciate the beauty of a particular area.

Edinburgh has the most spectacular skyline which we discovered immediately after hiking the 823 feet to the top of Artur's Seat.

Spires and gothic grandeur can be seen as far as the eye can see and beyond it all, the sea.  Buildings down below favor a mixture of old and new, but all are large and impressive.


Castles can be found throughout Scotland, but nothing is quite like the Edinburgh Castle that sits up high on a volcanic rock, a mile north of the Palace on a road strewn with great restaurants and shops, the Royal Mile.





The Royal Mile, looking down the road from Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh even has a sense of humor.  It is a magnificent city in a beautiful country. If only I could spend my days traveling and shooting and enjoying all that this world has to offer.

Saving right now for Alaska. Stay tuned!

Happy shooting, friends. For more photos of Edinburgh, go to ChrisCina.net.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cead Mile Failte Ireland

Image
That means 1,000 welcomes in Gaelic and we really did feel welcomed! Ireland greeted us with sunny, warm weather, very unlike what we had been prepared for. I was looking forward to a cold, foggy trip to the Cliffs of Moher – thought that would make great photography – but as we approached it, we found ourselves shedding layers and were quite surprised, and challenged, to discover bright sunlight displaying the cliffs to us in all of their glory. I set the tripod up and attempted a panoramic view. Don’t think I captured it, in it’s noontime sunlit glory, but it we did witness a spectacular vista. We drove on, frustrated by the roads. Driving was more challenging than we had ever anticipated. We were prepared for the left side of the road challenge and even the perplexity of the left side driver’s seat. We’ve both driven stick shifts, albeit not on the left, but the twisty windy roads that weren’t wide enough for the traffic…and ongoing, constant impatient cars behind us really made
Read more

Day Trip with my Daughter

Image
Between Covid 19 and moving from Texas to Maryland, I really haven't seen much of the world this year and that is hard on this travel-loving girl.  Here I am living an hour away from Baltimore and Washington, DC and we are stuck in an unending state of quarantine.  I needed to break out so I asked my daughter if she'd take an early morning trip to Annapolis with me. "How early?" she wanted to know. She is not normally a photographer and, with two young children, unaccustomed to our "pre-dawn" starts.  "As early as you can," I tried and she and the kids showed up slightly after 7 am.  Popsie stayed with the kids who grumbled that they just wanted to go back to sleep, but Nova was game for a new adventure and we happily drove 35 minute southeast to the beautiful city of Annapolis.  Court house showed some signs of life. Mask covered guards stood at the door. Maryland's capital city, located on the Chesapeake Bay is a lovely, his
Read more

Getting Out and Shooting Again

Image
Whew. This has been some year. Not only are we all dealing with Covid 19 which has forced us indoors, but we made a cross-country move in May from Austin, Texas to Columbia, Maryland.  As a friend reminded me, we were lucky that we were so all-consumed by the move and didn't obsess on the world's problems.  But as a photographer who loves traveling and documenting the beautiful world around us, I was getting extremely antsy. So, last week I woke up early and took a trip to beautiful downtown historic Ellicott City.  I had actually lived in this same neck of the woods 40 years ago and I knew that Old Ellicott City had a charm that includes history, art and architecture, nature and food.  The streets are hilly but you never know what kind of cool shop you'll stumble upon. I am just dying to explore this cool, old Fireman's museum.  There is also the oldest surviving train station that I'm dying to share with my grandsons.  And oh, I had forgotten how much
Read more