Sunshine before the storm below the Woodhead Pass

Such a long time since I last posted (it could be my confessional) but here at last some photo that I took last week.  I'm not going to make any excuses or promise to post more often in future because who knows what might happen.

Anyhow, the Woodhead Pass is where the old A road between Sheffield and Manchester crossed over the Pennines and it's just a few miles from my house.  Coincidentally I have returned to where I last made a promise to blog more often back in January 2014 with this post called A New Beginning - Strange World (most of which has never come about).  Even more of a coincidence is that this first photo was taken from almost the same place as the last photo in the previous blog from this location (I honestly hadn't noticed until I looked back at the old blog post).

In this first photo I didn't have the mist from before but the weather was definitely on the turn again.  It was very windy so I had left the tripod in the car because it just wouldn't have made any difference over hand holding the camera.  I was stood in a patch of sun but heavy looking clouds were all around and I was expecting rain at any moment.

In this second photo I went around the other side of the trees to get a shot with some nice blue sky in the background, just to prove that it was quite nice in that direction.  There are probably ten or a dozen trees at this location and I took a few other shots with the blue sky in the background but I think this was the best.  Looking back at the previous photos from this location I can see that the fallen tree in the foreground was standing last time.

The previous photos that I took of this next tree and it's partner (see below) in the morning mist were mainly taken from the other side.  These trees are a little bit important to me because I have sold a few prints from my previous visit and exhibited them at the Holmfirth Art Show and a photographic exhibition at nearby Hepworth village.

Here are both the trees which are set away from the rest of the trees in the valley bottom next to a small stream.  The sun was getting a little more patchy now so I had to wait around for the good light before taking the shots.  I'm not sure but I think this tree which is now in the foreground is leaning over a bit more that it was on my last visit.

I moved back up to the main clump of trees for this last shot and as you can see the clouds were getting darker and more threatening.  A couple of guys in a 4X4 turned up and parked their vehicle on the dirt road right in my shot shortly after I had taken this photo.  I tried moving around a bit more to take some more shots from different angles but the sunlight was disappearing fast and I feared that the shooting session would be cut short again but for very different reasons.

 My remaining shots didn't come out too well and then the rain started to fall so I decided to call it a morning.  I have a few recent sets of shots that I might share with you but I won't spoil your surprise about what they are or when they are likely to appear.  Could be soon, you never know.

Fisheye Around Holmfirth

I'm still testing out my new fisheye lens and a couple of weeks ago I had some spare time to walk around Holmfirth while my wife was having her hair done.  It wasn't actually raining but everywhere was still pretty damp.  This first shot was taken at the riverside path which is over the wall from the Co-op car park.  It doesn't show off the distortion from the lens very much but it's a reasonable shot.

Up from the river is a little park behind the Post Office building.  I found it quite interesting to see the lined pattern on the floor under the benches where the rain has dropped through the seats.  One of the attributes of the fisheye lens is a very short close focusing distance which coupled with the very wide angle of view allows the camera to be placed very close to objects and still take in the whole scene.  The front of my lens was only a few inches from the metal frame of the bench for this photo.

This building is the Picturedrome which was originally a cinema but is now mainly used as a music venue.  Sometimes it is used as a cinema and the bar at the rear of the auditorium and the tiny seating area makes it a bit like watching films at home.  It is a wonderfully intimate music venue where the audience is stood a few feet from the stage which is just a couple of feet high.  The venue attract lots of the old bands and artists plus lots of tribute acts and local artists so has a lot of appeal to all music tastes.  I love the way the fisheye lens has exaggerated curve in the river and brought a large amount of Holmfirth into the picture.

Further up the river are the rear view of the mill shop, some office space and the market hall (which was previously a car showroom).  Also the main view of "The Rug Shop" which is across a little bridge across the river.  The lens distortion is highlighted quite well in the red brick building on the left.

After I had my hair cut I crossed the main road in Holmfirth and went up into Victoria Park and was amazed to see blue in the sky between the clouds. As with the picture of the benches in the other park area, I was very close to the railing when I took this shot.

This is a gift of a subject for a fisheye lens with the circular pavers, the rounded metal benches and the curved railings around.  My main problem when taking the photo was trying to make sure that I didn't get my feet in the picture because the camera was pointing downwards quite a lot.

After leaving Victoria Park I walked up the hill above Holmfirth for this final picture.  At the top of the hill the land flattens out and there are a few fields here stretching towards Upperthong. The clouds were moving away to the horizon and leaving a big area of blue sky above me.  I pointed the camera upwards to take in the whole of the old airplane vapour trail which looks to be radiating out from the sun behind the clouds.  The lens distortion has made the horizon wrap upwards at the edges and the yellow sun has lit the wet grass up in a beautiful way.  The white tractor and gate make very good foreground subjects to the picture.  Taking photos directly into the sun can be a bit problematic but I think that this was the best photo of the morning.

I don't have a batch of photos for the next post as yet.  I may have to look back through last year to find something if the weather doesn't do something interesting soon.  Maybe some photos from France may encourage the sun to come out.

Images of Thaxted in Essex

On the morning of the the wedding that we went to in Hertfordshire, my wife had arranged to help decorate the room at the hotel for the wedding breakfast in the afternoon.  I didn't think I would be needed so I decided that it would be a good idea to visit one of the local villages to take some photos.  We had met up with the brides parents on the previous evening and I had asked them to suggest a good place to go to take photos.  The brides mother said I should go to Thaxted as that was where her mother and grandmother had been born and they had just put the sails back on the windmill.

I woke up pretty early in the morning and so I decided to set off to Thaxted at about 6:30 am and it was about a 20 minute drive from the hotel.  I parked in the main street and the first interesting building I saw was the Guild Hall.  A wonderful wooden framed building with the space below and the charming leaded windows.  There was quite a lot of blue sky but in certain directions there were some big clouds starting to build.

Just further up the street were these lovely wooden framed houses on the cobbled street.  I tried to get a photo without the car in it but didn't quite manage.

Next I headed up to the church which was another magnificent building in a beautiful setting.

I moved back to get more in the image and I did a fairly radical conversion to make this black and white image.

I moved further along the side of the church to get this photo of the big windows with the old grave stones in the foreground.  The sky looks a little strange as the front edge of the clouds are starting to head towards the village.

Next to the churchyard were some lovely single story buildings and in the distance was the first view of the windmill.  This is also the first shots where the big clouds are seen heading towards Thaxted.

Around the other side of the church was this beautifully ornate entrance with the cobbled path leading into it.

Around the village were some more wooden framed houses nestled between houses with different constructions.

Here are a pair of thatched houses with rendered and painted wall.

Back down to the churchyard I took another shot of this little house with the windmill in the background.

As I headed towards the windmill I passed another lovely house with a thatched roof and an extension with a red tiled roof which didn't look in particularly good repair.

Finally went to see the windmill and I took quite a lot of shots of it from different angles.  I picked this one to add to the post as I loved the barley (I think) in the foreground.

My only slight disappointment was the lack of a nice duck pond with a weeping willow next to it but appart from that I think that this is a beautiful place to visit and have a look around.  I originally had 21 photos that I was going to post but I decided to edit down to twelve.