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The Caul, Dumfries, Long Exposure

The Caul is a weir, an overflow dam, that raises the level of the water upstream. This weir was built in the early 18th century to serve a nearby mill and to control erosion of the river bank. Breaches have been repaired several times since.

 

This is a previously unprocessed photo from my holiday in Scotland a few years ago. I posted another photo from this vantage point earlier, but that one was shot at 1/1000 second. It had rained the night before I visited and the river was running fast, so I wanted to capture the power of the river with a longer exposure. This photo was taken with a 10-stop filter to allow me to use a shutter speed of 8 seconds to blur the water. Although the filter is labeled as "neutral density" it's not neutral chromatically, and it imparts a cola-colored red-brown tinge to the image. It required multiple steps to color-correct the image to make this presentable. Surprisingly, the seagull near the middle of the photo remained still enough for the entire 8 seconds that it is still recognizable.

 

The bridge in the background is the Devorgilla Bridge, portions of which date to the 17th Century.

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Uploaded on February 18, 2018
Taken on July 5, 2013