Kieran Campbell's photostream  

Having a seat in the hour before guests arrived for the Re-Ignited Pipe Band Concert, last night in the Music Hall, Aberdeen.

It's the first time I've been the photographer in a modestly sized venue and was good fun to have the run of the place.

It's been a while since I've taken any photos, apart from commissioned work, so it was great to see some stars last night and feel motivated enough to try to make something of them.

This one is a testament to the advice that you should pick your camera up every day (not every month, as I have been doing) if you want to stay in tune with it. Usually when I shoot the stars it's around the new moon, whereas the moon is close to full just now. Halving my usual exposure time, without also dropping the ISO or aperture, let in way too much light resulting in a completely white preview image - apparently blown to the point that the camera was flashing black almost the entire frame to reinforce how badly I took the photo. Luckily though, shooting RAW was surprisingly forgiving and I pulled back the result that you see here.

Much like another shot from the set, I wasn't really sure what I was doing apart from forcing myself to use a lens that I only ever use for people-portraits and seeing what came of it.

Although I don't see anything special in the results, there is something I still like about them. Maybe it's just a welcome contrast from my usual super-wide, competely in focus landscapes.

It's almost two years since I was standing at the side of the lake, watching the clouds developing, the ducks swimming around, the ripples appearing and dissappearing as the breeze passed over different parts of the lake, and this canoe floating around too.

I was also listening to the snap of my other camera every 5 seconds as I'd only recently bought the laptop that I was using to control it and shoot a time-lapse of the goings-on on the lake. You can see the video of time-lapse here (starts a little dark, give it a few seconds for the sun to come out).

A late afternoon glide over the North-Italian town of Sondrio. Just a few miles behind me is Switzerland.

My friend, and host for the few days I spent in Sondrio - Davide - can be seen flying right of the middle of the frame.