Even More Lighthouses

[stamper]

Which one? The Holy Isle which lies between the Isle of Arran and the west coast of Scotland.

http://www.holyisland.org/

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I vote for the B&W version.

I like the color one, but the lush sunlit greens drag me away from the lighthouse. In the BW one the lines of the hill lead to the lighthouse, and the clouds hovering over it also single it out, so the whole image feels more consistent.

It's not an easy choice, however. It looks like a lovely place to spend some photographic time.

[stamper]

Eric they were taken from a ship. A difficult island to get access to. On a Thursday the Waverley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Waverley

cruises the whole length of the east coast of the Isle of Arran - approximately 21 miles from top to bottom - passing the Holy Isle. Nearly a ten hour cruise of the Firth of Clyde and if the weather is good then it is spectacular.

The Waverley in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3775bhSKJ6M

[thierrylegros396]

Like both version, but I find the color one a tad too saturated.

Thierry

[David Eckels]

Which one?

B&W

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Color.

I see it not as a simple portrait of a lighthouse, but as an environmental portrait of it. In which case the huge proportion of the island's hill behind it becomes quite important. In B&W it is just a dark blob. In color, I see the whole rugged hill, full of contrasty colors, lush greens with rusty browns and rocky grays. There is something in that blue sky that says a lot about the quality of light at that moment. I can almost smell the salty see breeze. In color, it is more of a documentary photograph, well composed and artfully executed, but it captures a moment well deserving of being experienced and preserved.

[nma]

I like the B&W better.

[David Eckels]

I see it not as simple portrait of a lighthouse, but as an environmental portrait of it. In which case the huge proportion of the island's hill behind it becomes quite important. In B&W it is just a dark blob. In color, I see the whole rugged hill, full of contrasty colors, lush greens with rusty browns and rocky grays. There is something in that blue sky that says a lot about the quality of light at that moment. I can almost smell the salty see breeze. In color, it is more of a documentary photograph, well composed and artfully executed, but it captures a moment well deserving of being experienced and preserved.

Poetic

[stamper]

Like both version, but I find the color one a tad too saturated.

Thierry

It was a glorious day with very good light and I was trying to replicate what I saw. Difficult to depict what is seen and what is eventually produced.

[sdwilsonsct]

In color, it is more of a documentary photograph, well composed and artfully executed, but it captures a moment well deserving of being experienced and preserved.

+1.

[stamper]

Thanks everyone for their feedback. I am leaning towards the colour version, albeit slightly muted as suggested.

[sniper]

My vote goes for the black and white too.
I didn't know the Waverley was still going, I've traveled on it many times when it was here in Wales.  I'm a little supprised to see it in the wilds of Scotland though, paddle steamers don't usually cope too well with rough seas.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Poetic

Hehe... Isn't that what (fine art) photography is: poetry in pixels? 😊

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Hehe... Isn't that what (fine art) photography is: poetry in pixels? 😊

Is that your new web site title, Slobodan?  Poetic Pixels?   

[stamper]

My vote goes for the black and white too.
I didn't know the Waverley was still going, I've traveled on it many times when it was here in Wales.  I'm a little supprised to see it in the wilds of Scotland though, paddle steamers don't usually cope too well with rough seas.

The Firth of Clyde is mostly sheltered therefore it misses extremely few sailings in Scotland. It is only when it sets sail to a foreign country such as England that the sailing problems arise. Sailing around Lands End can be a problem. Personally I think it should stay north of the border and the SNP should bring out a law to ensure it stays. I was on it one day when the captain announced it was doing 16.9 knots per hour with the port paddle half out of the water and the ship listing heavily to starboard. The passengers were on the starboard side looking at the Queen Elizabeth. The Waverley matched it yard for yard for quite a few miles. Glorious!

[Patricia Sheley]

Good morning Stamper,
I have very much enjoyed your "lighthouse" image, as each time I brought it full screen I became more and more aware of the multiple links that work their way in our being. Firstly, I very much agree that this image represents a strong environmental photograph, as Mr. Blagojevic so keenly sensed and expressed. While I do not know the trigger for him, for me it immediately opened one of my favorite classroom doors...

Inis Aran and this monastery island contain at their surface the history of the previous few hundred million years preceding even the breaking apart of Pangaea. There is an almost mirror reflection monastery in Nova Scotia, near the areas that I would often fantasize, that draining the ocean floor, I could follow the strata and prehistoric burrows now revealed at eroded surface as veins of (once molten) quartz across the Atlantic floor to areas such as Aran's natal history. The rock surfaces of that area are truly a museum of how small is our brief appearance on this earth. There is one of the larger specimens of the nautiloid here, fossilized.

If you make that trip often you might consider finding a copy of Stones Of Aran Labyrinth by Tim Robinson (It is the companion book to Stones of Aran: Pilgrammage ) My copy of the former is tattered and threadbare as it is my photographic companion in long rewarding hours of seeking and watching the areas to which I am drawn.

Reading SB's reasoning was as if he had lifted a page of appreciation from the book (not illustrated, save 3 small hand drawn charts) The area across the way from the lighthouse on Oilean na Tui on the shell beaches is a further study of our history. It is such an amazing place on earth preserved as you say by the relative inaccessibility...

I do not know how many images you recorded but I love whatever it was that brought this one forward.

And an aside re the Waverley. Built in 1946 she is younger than I but has been lucky enough to have her mechanicals removed and polished, a rejuvenation of the joints, which I am hoping  I will be able to benefit by one day if they figure out how to non-destructively do the same for ours.

Thanks for your post.
Lumine.

[luxborealis]

B&W - hands down. The separation from reality turns it from a postcard to something worthy of a wall.

[Tony Jay]

I like both versions a lot but the B&W is a portfolio-level effort.

Tony Jay