To mark the 150th Anniversary of The National Wallace Monument a special Hogmanay fireworks display was organised on the Abbey Craig which synchronised with the celebrations at Stirling Castle.
After the fireworks display the Monument was illuminated in a multi-colour display using their new floodlights.
For more information about the monument click here: The National Wallace Monument.
That people run OK, you see that more often but that people run uphill?? That is another matter! Only recently we have had the Stirling Marathon. And believe it or not, 35 KG's ago even Photographer Stirling did the odd cooper test and other sports, but never anything like what I have seen the other week, let alone what I have seen today!
The mountain rescue service on their way to the Dumyat summit
Of course I have a great excuse because we don't have hills in The Netherlands. Therefore for me Dumyat is a mountain!
The Dumyat Mountain Race is organised by Stirling University.
The website says:
"This race is ideal for all levels, from those attempting their first hill race to the more experienced hill runner."
Perhaps that's why 400 people signed up?
The record of the Dumyat Hill Race stands at 32 mins and 23 second, so I planned an extra hour or so to get up there and choose my position. I was expecting fierce competition from other photographers to get the best spot.
Mountain rescue team, Stirling University marshals and photographer
The wind was already strong, but that was nothing in comparison with the rain that was on its way. And rain at that height comes in horizontally!
I had to give up in the end because I couldn't see in the viewfinder anymore if the images were in focus. I was totally relying on experience (as in: in theory they should be good..) and the sophistication of today's Canon autofocus system. It is rather amazing really that it can still find the (moving) subject behind the rain and bring it into focus.
At this time it was really pissing down!
One of the marshall showing his admiration
Some results of the Dumyat Hill Race 2018 that we want to share with you are those of some that feature in our pictures:
Scott Fraser (788), overall winner with 00:34:37,
Jonathan Crickmore (708) with 00:35:21
Hamish Battle (730) the photogenic one, with 00:35:21
and of course prominently featuring in these images are:
Bill Duff (543) with 01:01:06
Chris Lorimer (872) with 00:42:35
Amy Frankland (754) with 00:43:53
And many, many more!
Unfortunately not all 349 runners will find themselves back in our photos, but I hope you enjoy viewing them nevertheless. For more results and images please visit the site of Stirling University.
All extremely well done everybody!
Via the link below you can see all the photos taken by Photographer Stirling, but before you do please read the following:
you can freely download the images in all resolutions if it is for personal use
in return we would appreciate a link to this website when you post them on your own social media channels
please contact us for commercial use
if you want to share this post with others then please do so by using the sharing options at the bottom of this blog when you're on your mobile or at the top, when you are using a desktop. This is to ensure that people will be able to get through to the Flickr site.
I hope you will find yourself in one of the images. Enjoy!
10-05-2018 20:45h : all images are now online! If I have missed you then perhaps I see you next year?
Thanks for visiting!
Today we covered parts of the Stirling Marathon 2018. The start of the Stirling Scottish Marathon was at 08:30h on Millennium Way (A84) close to Stirling City Centre. I was waiting for them at Graigforth Crossing and later on Airthrey Road between Wallace High School and Stirling University.
Stirling, the Gateway to the Highlands
The runners are on their way
Runners in the #StirlingMarathon may find @STUDIOVHF #photographer #Stirling in the verge on Sunday morning, images later that day online via: https://t.co/kihy2Ez62x pic.twitter.com/Lr6MMiTD2w
— Vincent Hartman (@vincenthartman) April 27, 2018
Michael Wright takes the lead and he kept it, making him the winner of Stirling Marathon 2018 with 2:29:38 !
Scotland's most picturesque marathon
Great atmosphere!
Realising what is lying ahead...
Via the link below you can see all the photos taken by Photographer Stirling, but before you do please read the following:
you can freely download the images in all resolutions if it is for personal use
in return we would appreciate a link to this website when you post them on your own social media channels
please contact us for commercial use
if you want to share this post with others then please do so by using the sharing options at the bottom of this blog when you're on your mobile or at the top, when you are using a desktop. This is to ensure that people will be able to get through to the Flickr site.
I hope you will find yourself in one of the images. Enjoy!
Update 30-04-2018 18:30h: all images are now online!
Stunning scenery again here in Central Scotland. We went up on Dumyat on Saturday afternoon for some exercise and another attempt for a panorama.
View on Wallace Monument from Dumyat
The first time I wanted to create a panorama from this viewpoint was in the summer. As it is a bit of a climb, I didn't bother taking a tripod. Sometimes you get away with it, but not this time. For sufficient overlap between images you can better use live-view and the grid on the LCD on the back of the camera.
In case the panorama fails, a little video.... pic.twitter.com/2Jbl5yF22O
— Vincent Hartman (@vincenthartman) January 20, 2018
This time I decided to take a light carbon fiber tripod up the hill which was kindly carried bij Daan Metz on the way up and Brockwell James (who we bumped into on the summit) on the way down. Thanks guys!
If you click on the image below, a new window will open with the high resolution image. You can browse the Forth Valley all the way from the Queensferry Crossing in the east to Stirling at the foot of the hill.
The Foth Valley from Dumyat
The image is 59.954 x 4.760 pixels at 300DPI and has a file size if 1.6GB
The final 360 image took a bit longer to construct and still has some minor errors, but for this purpose I am happy with it. The main problem was the maximum file size of the Adobe Camera Raw that powers Lightroom. Anyway, I won't bother you with details. I found this blog about Panorama File Sizes that explained why things weren't working as they should and found a way around it.
I decided to process the separate images in Lightroom first as that can be done reasonably quickly and you can copy edits from image to image. Then I made 3 panorama's of 55 images each in Lightroom and stitched them together in Photoshop manually (the autofunction didn't work properly either), hence you may notice some errors, that I left in there to save time. Perhaps later when I am bored or when somebody wants to buy the image they can be corrected.
The image can be seen by clicking on the thumbnail below:
The final image is 106.587 x 5168 pixels at 300DPI and has a file size of 3GB.
A few days later the snow was gone, it was raining and there was high tide:
Wallace Monument
Stirling Castle
Time lapse by of the fireworks display during the Hogmanay celebrations 2018
Having been behind the camera since 1987 with varying intensity, photography has been close to my heart ever since. It has been a journey with a lot of discovery and experimenting. From having my first exhibition in Zwolle in 1990 and a little photography business, to happy snapper and hardly touching a camera at all when we were living in Northampton. The last 8 years with a studio in Heino, close to my hometown in Zwolle, the photography was a head on commercial business, specialising in corporate and advertising photography, product and interiors. I also did some editorial work and to a certain extend, those images were more liberating. As a commercial photographer with a marketing background I have always had the communication goal of the client in the back of my mind when creating an image.
That commercial drive was good for my clients and subsequently for my business, but made it hard or even impossible to switch off and do my own thing. Not that you can't be creative in commercial assignments, but that is more related to creating the right look and feel of an image in order to make an impact. Of course some commercial images clearly have my signature, whatever that means, but it is not free work.
A number of times I have come up with ideas of starting various projects and discussed these with friends. I have envisaged some images in my head and still like some of them if I think about it, but I have never actually done it. Running a little photography business 7 days a week leaves little time to reflect and switch of to think about the next step to grow the business. The commercial impact of some of the images I have drawn up in my head were influencing the execution of it and some of the project ideas I had were in hindsight just there to make the business grow. So I was exploring a dead end road.
Now having moved back to the UK with main professional emphasis on marketing and with photography only being a part of it, opportunities for free projects are more within reach. And when I learned of the Portrait of Britain public art competition back in June 2016, I have followed the project with great interest.
Hmm, this is interesting, perhaps I should enter, what do you think? https://t.co/SO9dIxFzLa #portrait
— Vincent Hartman (@vincenthartman) May 4, 2017
The Portrait of Britain public art competition is an award-winning annual exhibition that shows the diversity of people in modern Britain. It is organised by the British Journal of Photography in partnership with the outdoor advertising company JCDecaux. Although I don't particularly like photography competitions and don't necessarily need national exposure, I thought it was a good opportunity to start a little project. With the deadline approaching, it would give me a clear goal.
With winding down STUDIOVHF in The Netherlands, selling the Dutch property and moving the family back over to Britain again, I have followed the Brexit discussions with great interest. It is fair to say that the political climate here in Britain has changed tremendously from the years that we were living in Northampton. Without willing to turn my photography project into a political statement, for me it was an obvious subject to cover.
Wow, first portrait taken for a new series of free work, can't share it yet, but can say that I am chuffed to bits!
— Vincent Hartman (@vincenthartman) June 3, 2017
Drawn up a list of people that I knew of or have met the last year that fitted the category, I set of that morning to take my first portrait for this new series.
In the 10 minute drive to the location of the first image, I have again been deliberating with myself about the style of photography, what techniques to use, landscape frame or portrait frame etc? I concluded that it was not a commercial assignment so all those thoughts could be skipped and that I didn't have to win the competition either. How liberating!
I did set myself some guidelines though, to ensure that not just the subject is the connecting factor, but also the style:
Images taken in my beloved Black and White
The subjects to be photographed facing camera, in an environment of their choice and where they feel comfortable
No directing of posture and scene and no controlling of styling and environment, just take it as it comes
Landscape mode to connect the surroundings to the individual and to complete the story visually
Keep photographic techniques as basic as possible
Limit myself to the geographical area of the Country of Scotland
The project has now 6 images and they have entered the competition. However, the project will not stop here, as the Portrait of Britain competition was just a tool for me to get it of the ground. So I will keep on adding portraits on the basis of 'who I bump into'. We will then see where this leads us..
The full series of portraits of EU nationals in Scotland can be viewed here:
Ian is an Irish farmer living in Bridge of Allan and running his farm south of Falkirk. A couple of years ago he sold most of his cattle to branch out into the tourist industry as his farm is located near the Falkirk Wheel. The Wheel Caravan Park opened to the public in the summer of 2015 and is establishing itself as a meeting place for tourists from all over the country and the continent. Ian is an enthusiastic communicator and enjoys meeting a diverse variety of people and making them connect. The Ceilidh house is a small building where he holds gatherings where people can come and play or listen to Scottish and Irish folk music or share stories. Ian himself plays the Irish bagpipes. In addition to this he has taken on the art of painting.
Aileen is a primary school teacher in Doune, Perthshire and from Dutch origin. She moved with her parents to Callander at the age of 16 and that is where she met her architect husband. It was a joy to hear the story of how their eyes crossed in the local pub and how they have been together ever since. She talks about it with a twinkle in her eyes. I came into contact with Aileen through her husband Andrew who is thinking about designing his own home and he was introduced to me by Incognito Underfloor Heating as he was interested in ergonomics in the workplace as well. It was a nice experience talking to a fellow Dutch national, talking English with each our own specific accent. We will certainly meet again when my wife Dorien is over, as she is from 't Gooi' as well!
Uli is a German business administrator who recently moved from Stirling to Falkirk. I have met Uli last summer at one of those inspiring evenings at the The Ceilidh house on the Wheel Caravan Park, where she was staying for a while when she was moving house. Uli is a true global citizen as she has lived in many countries due to the work of her Swiss husband, a diplomat. From Switzerland to South Africa and Canada. She talks highly of the quality of family live and culture that she experienced when the family was living in Manchester. But Scotland has apparently stolen her heart as she has been here for over 12 years now.
I will never forget the great entrance the Dutch Marjan made when she got onto the Easyjet flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam. I was sitting on the isle seat on the 2nd row when she rushed into the plane, hit her knee badly against the chair in front of me and let the world know in unmistakingly Dutch swearwords that she didn't like it! I obviously laughed my head of! It happened to be that her seat was next to mine and the hour and twenty minutes flight-time were gone in no time. Marjan studied plant physiology at the University of Edinburgh and never left. She currently works as a data consultant for energy and environment. The portrait was taken at the pier in Leith where she recently has cleaned the beach with a group of volunteers.
For more than 5 Months I have been visiting a site in Edinburgh where Amos Beech has been working on an office interior design and fit out project. I installed a timelapse camera there in December 2016 to cover the whole project and it needed regular TLC. Most of the time I visited the site in the weekend, but when I was there during the week, I was welcomed by the warm and friendly Spanish Ana Maria. Ana Maria came to Scotland 8 years ago, just to stay for a few Months and to learn the language. She never left.
Dariusz is the archetypical bloke who is full of positive energy and has the ability to learn from experiences. After staying in Belfast for 2,5 years, the Polish Dariusz moved to Edinburgh 10 years ago. Currently living in Bo'ness where he moved to be closer to the job he had there at the time. He started his own business 3 years ago in quality designer lighting called Modelight. I have met him a couple of times on a local networking event where he presented himself and his company. We met for the portrait in a pub in Edinburgh where he spent quite a few hours when he lived there.
And today 05/01/2018 i learned that Julian Love in London had the same idea: Europeans living in London.
The Soroptimist International Falkirk held their second Strictly Come Dancing event at the MacDonald Inchyra Hotel in Polmont. It was a fund raising event for two charities: Playlist for Life (personal music for dementia) and Barnardo's (the UK's largest children's charity). My neighbour Bob Black, a committee member of the Falkirk Camera Club was asked to take care of the photography of the event and asked if I could help him out.
The dancing couples
I wasn't sure what to expect, but when we arrived we learned that we had half an hour to take the group portraits, so I went into 'work-mode' very quickly, set up the light and the shots of the dancers were taken before the audience arrived.
Only when we set down, I learned that the Soroptimists were not an association of some sort of medical profession but an international vibrant and dynamic organisation for today’s professional and business women. The name Soroptimist is derived from the Latin 'soror' meaning 'sister' and 'optima' meaning 'best'. So Soroptimist is best described as 'Best for Woman' and who doesn't support that? The Soroptimists are committed to a world where women and girls together achieve their individual and collective potential, realise aspirations and have an equal voice in creating strong, peaceful communities worldwide. The Falkirk branch of Soroptimist International is a long-established active and enthusiastic community of women active in all areas of society in Falkirk and the Scottish Central Belt.
The Showgirls
Unaware that they were well underway winning!
All images taken by Photographer Stirling
More images can be found via the following link:
With less editing jobs to do over the weekends and the weather improving, I am getting out a bit more by car, by foot or a combination of both. Sometimes with camera.
In the slideshow below in aspect ratio 16:9, you will find images taken in Falkirk, the surrounding countryside of Stirling, Carronbridge, North Third and Kilsyth.
The slideshow starts with two shots taken from a recreational area in Falkirk between Princes Park and Callander Park. A great place with good views over Falkirk and the Forth Valley and the countryside south of the town towards Shieldhill. The third image represents something where the United Kingdom is an example for The Netherlands as it generates 25% of it's energy consumption through renewable energy sources like wind and water power, heat-pumps and not surprisingly to a lesser extend solar energy. The fourth image is taken at North Third Reservoir. The overview landscape over Falkirk, Grangemouth refinery and in the distance the New Forth Road Bridge, is taken from the carpark at the Tak-Ma Doon Road between Carron Bridge and Kilsyth. In the last two images you see Stirling Castle and The Wallace Monument.
Great walks from Lionthorn Falkirk via Glen Burn, up the hill towards Westerglen Transmitting Station.
F11, 10s, ISO100, see further details under the image below
Loup of Fintry waterfall is on the River Endrick in the Carron Valley. It is 29m high in the Endrick River and feeds the Carron Reservoir.
Canon 5DS with old 70-200 f2.8L, to fit the 77mm ND filter. The 6 stops B+W Neutral Density filter allows for long shutter speeds during daylight to achieve a nice milky water flow. Focal length 70mm, F8, 3.2s, ISO50.
Upper Glendevon Reservoir
Laide in the North West of Scotland
The river starts at Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area 19 miles west of Stirling. Just west of Stirling the river Teith joins the forth and at Stirling the river becomes tidal. It widens eastwards and becomes the estuary Forth or Firth of Forth and eventually ends in the North Sea.
The start of the River Forth at Aberfoyle
All images by Vincent Hartman
Today I was introduced to the first round of The Scottish Drift Championship held at the Driftland Circuit in Lochgelly, Fife.
I have done motorsports before like TT in Assen NL, a bit of football, cycling and running events as well as some editorial work about individual sporters but that is about it as far as sports is concerned.
I was not on an official assignment, am still registered in The Netherlands as a professional photographer and decided to go here on short notice, so I didn't have the time to organise all the paperwork to get free access to the area's within the circuit. I tend to choose low camera standpoints for this type of photography but was now forced to take more distance and capture the event from a higher standpoint. In hindsight this was actually not so bad for this type of photography. The proportions of a car and its position in relation to other cars on the circuit can be better captured from a higher standpoint. Also the official media area's within the circuit were all on elevated stretches of grass for safety reasons.
Anyway you may judge yourself how I managed to capture this event:
Later this week you can find more images via this link: 20170319
Enjoy and looking forward to seeing you back on this site!
Vincent
