Caley

The father of a friend of Mrs SJR passed away last week and the funeral service was today. It was a large gathering, of friends and neighbours, there to both pay respect to a kind and well-liked man and to offer some support to the family. I’m not a church goer but the service was delivered with kindness and thought by a lady minister who was clearly a friend and former colleague of H. I hope it offered the family some comfort.
 
Everything else is trivial on such occasions.
First thing, Caley and I retraced the steps of yesterday’s walk up a hill track above Tulloch. This wasn’t because it had suddenly become the “must-do” walk of the month but because last night after dinner I realised I had left a bit of kit lying on the heathery ground. I knew exactly where the flash and trigger thing (my present from Santa) would be lying. I reached the cairn moved an inch of snow sideways and there it was. I expected the batteries would be flat and I took a fresh set so I could check immediately whether it had survived a night out in the cold. Oh no, its not working, then I realised I had a cell in the wrong way. A few more seconds of fumbling and then the LEDs lit up.

My long time aversion to flash is because of the flattening effect of a light source right above the lens. I have tinkered recently with torches and a very old manual Sunpak flash. Just getting the light source a few feet away has a dramatic effect on the image. I think a nice winter sky benefits from underexposure but this leaves the foreground black as coal. I know the flash illumination doesn’t look natural but what are you supposed to do at this latitude in late December?