Bridges at blue hour

Scotland Journal day 1 (Travel Diary Day 271)

We left the familiar suburban sights of Newcastle for the Scottish Highlands at the wee hours of the morning. 5 hours, that’s all it takes to be surrounded by landscapes that could inspire even the most ridged of minds.

Our hotel reminds us of a 50s-throwback usually found in once-popular seaside resorts found up and down the UK. The faint smell of old people, foisty, beer stained carpets brought me back to my younger days working as a glass collector at a local hotel and bar.

A blond lass with a heavy Eastern European accent greeted us as we approached reception. In a completely scripted manner, she reeled off all we needed to know and handed us the key. Her grasp of English began to fall apart when we asked her questions that required vocabulary outside of her occupational duties.

Sensing her embarrassment, we thanked her, headed to our room, threw our things down and immediately left to explore. We’re taking a small break from hiking at the moment to post this and catch up on some correspondence. Our view over Loch Linhe, with the beautiful sun brightly shining, is magnificent.

This is the perfect place to get some use out of my camera, the first time since we arrived back in the UK.

Today’s Photo – Bridges at Blue hour

This is a shot of the bridges that span across the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias.

Processed using 4 exposures (-4 -2 0 +2) in Photomatix and much of the original exposures blended back in. Colour corrections were done in Photoshop using Color Balance layers.

For my workflow, please refer to my tutorials:

Beginner’s HDR tutorial

Digital Blending HDR Tutorial