'evening, Constable

Not really a trip out to this week, more of a quick dash. Early on Saturday evening I noticed the sky was rather dramatic, with a mixture of white clouds, darker rain clouds and still some areas of blue sky. So I quickly made the 15 minute drive to Curbar Edge to see if I could get some dramatically lit landscapes. With it being near to the longest day I knew I had a good hour or so in which to work, before the sun got too low. I have plenty of sunsets taken in this area so I was looking for late evening shots rather than sunsets.

By the time I got there the ratio of clouds to blue sky had increased, but there were still patches of blue sky, and the promise that there might be some strong sunbeams appearing between gaps in the clouds. Because of the increase in clouds the land itself was quite dark in relation to the sky. Exposing correctly for the sky, would almost certainly cause the land to be underexposed.

There are several techniques for dealing with this situation. About the only option for slide film photographers, is to use a graduated neutral density filter. This is dark at the top and gradually gets lighter and then clear at the bottom. This is used to make the sky darker so that that relatively low latitude of the slide film can encompass both the sky and the land. Colour negative film photographers have another string to their bow: they can use the extended latitude of the film. A straight print from the negative will either be correct for the sky or the land, but not both. But by dodging and burning during the printing stage the best result for both sky and land can be arrived at.

For the digital photographer, in addition to the graduated neutral density filter, there are three other ways to beat the problem.

The first way is to use a good solid tripod and make at least two, and preferably more, exposures of the same scene, each exposed differently. One could be exposed to show all the detail in the sky correctly (resulting in very dark land), one could be exposed to show detail in the shadow areas on the land (resulting in a blown out sky) and the third could be an in between exposure that is correct for the midtones in both sky and land. Then within a photo editing package various techniques are available to merge the three separate exposures together so that the correct exposure for each area of the scene is used.

If no tripod is available another technique can be used. A single compromise exposure can be made with a raw file. The raw file can then be developed three times using the fact that raw file developers can, in effect, give a slightly underexposed image, a slightly overexposed image and an in between image. The three resultant exposures can then be merged, as in the previous technique.

And finally, the way I usually do it: I take a single raw exposure making sure that the histogram of the file is 'exposed to the right', but without too much clipping of the highlights. Some clipping of white clouds is in fact essential, because, although I am shooting a raw file, the histogram I see on the camera screen after exposure is not in fact the histogram of the raw file, but the histogram of a jpeg thumbnail file which the camera produces and embeds with the raw file for review puposes. Now when I develop the raw file on my pc, I set the raw developer to 'recover' the clipped highlights, whilst at the same time not clipping the shadows. This will usually give me a fairly flat result with a well exposed sky and a fairly dark land. This file is then passed into my photo editor, as a 16 bit file, where final processing is performed. This final processing mimicks the 'dodging and burning' which would be used by the colour negative photographer during the printing stage. I use this technique because, as an ex wet darkroom person I understand dodging and burning and I want my digital 'dry darkroom' processing to be as similar as possible to my previous experience. The actual way I achieve the dodging and burning, is to use selection tools, with various amounts of feathering, to select specific areas, and then use the levels tool on the selection to get the optimum exposure level for that area.

A picture is worth a thousand words so here is a jpeg produced from my raw file before I have done the dodging and burning:



And now the result of a lot of dodging and burning:



Notice how I have also made the sky a bit more dramatic, by selecting it and applying levels to 'stretch' the histogram so that some mid grey areas have been darkened.

This technique can be overdone to the extent that some results can look more like paintings than photos. I try to avoid that, but maybe the above example is approaching that level. I do however like fairly dramatic skies and think that on this particular evening I got one or two lanscapes with skies that are reminiscent of those in Constable paintings:

A mixed bag

I thought I would have a change from flowers this week. Checking through many leaflets on things to do and places to go, which I picked up from the Chesterfield Tourist Information Centre, I came upon one for an Otter and Owl sanctuary between Castleton and Chapel. And for once it wasn't half term or full term school holidays, so hopefully it wouldn't be too busy.

Arriving shortly after opening time my hopes for a quiet time were fulfilled. Just me and a few other retired old codgers, and one family group with under school age youngsters.

As soon as I went through the entrance gate I was taken by the pattern of sunlight on grass and tree trunks which presented itself. I thought it might make a good monochrome shot, but after playing around with that idea I decided it looked better in colour:-



Continuing down the path to the sanctuary I came across the added bonus of a herd of small deer. Having already put my telephoto zoom on the camera, in anticipation of the otters and owls, I was ready armed to get a few shots of them as they ran away from me:-



I began to think this was my lucky day: no hordes of schoolkids, a bright blue sky, and several decent shots and I hadn't even reached the Otters and Owls yet! But you can probably guess what's coming...

When I eventually got down to the sanctuary I found that the otter enclosures were all heavily surrounded by high trees, the early summer foliage of which largely kept the light out. So shooting conditions were decidedly dim. Also the ponds in each enclosure were extremely shallow and muddy brown which would not make for natural looking otter photos. And where were the otters anyway? Most of them must have been asleep in their little huts because there were only a few on display in the open air. Anyway, after much walking around and patient waiting I did find one pair of otters who decided it was time for a swim. Their pond did have a bit more water in it than the others, and there was a small patch of sunlight on part of the water. Immediately it sprang into my mind that if I could get one of the otters to swim through this patch of sunlight it would not only solve the problem of the dim conditions, it would give me the perfect title for what would be an award winning photograph: 'Ring of Bright Water'. I could even win the BBC Country File calendar competition!

So I waited, and waited.. and waited. Neither of those pesky otters wanted to go through that patch of sunlight. Maybe they were worried about skin cancer or something. So the closest I could get to the award wining shot was this:-



And the owl situation was even worse: a few forlorn looking creatures invariably perched in the darkest corners of their dimly lit cages. I took one or two hopeful shots but I knew that there would be nothing worth keeping.

It was now two o'clock and on returning to the entrance to the sanctuary I decided to have a spot of lunch. Or rather a spot of clotted cream tea. Well, rather a large clotted cream tea actually. On returning to the car I decided that a good walk was required to work off the cream tea, so I scoured the map for inspiration.

The bright blue sky was still around, and unusually for the Peak District, which seems to attract haze like cow pats attract flies, the visibility was excellent. So a high viewpoint with far reaching vistas was called for. Where else but Winhill? So I drove over to Yorkshire Bridge and began the steep climb straight up the tightly packed contours. No zig-zagging cheating on this walk, its straight up the steep side of the hill. After ten minutes I realised I'd left my bottle of water in the car. After twenty minutes I must have worked off every single fat laden calory of the clotted cream tea. And after forty five minutes I finally arrived at the summit.

The climb had certainly been worth it and I forgot about the inevitable fact that the climb down would be just as difficult and enjoyed the wide ranging views of the Peak District:-

New beginnings

Unfortunately I've broken my rule and missed a few weeks of this blog. I have been taking plenty of photos however, including the wedding of a friend's son, so Blog writing time has been at a premium.

So I'm back again with a new beginning, in more ways than one.

Many years ago my first film SLR was the diminutive Pentax MX. It was Pentax's answer to the Olympus OM1. I didn't like the ergonomics of the OM1, which had a shutter ring around the lens mount so forcing the aperture ring further out down the lens barrel. This gave rise to two disadvantages: the aperture ring was in a different position depending on the size of each lens, and the set aperture could not be viewed in the viewfinder, as it could be on the Pentax, via a small window in the prism covering. The Pentax also showed the set shutter speed in the viewfinder so, to me, was the better designed of the two.

What both cameras shared was small size and weight, especially compared to the Canon and Nikon offerings at the time. To me size and weight matter for two reasons: I am more likely to carry and use a camera if it and a few lenses don't require weight training sessions to carry about with ease; and smaller cameras and lenses are less obtrusive and attract less attention when trying to shoot candids. Indeed I would be a rangefinder man if it were not for the fact that rangefinders are useless for macros and telephotos, which are essential for nature and wildlife photography.

But gradually, with the addition of autofocus and motordrives and battery requirements film SLRs started getting bigger. Then when Digital SLRs came out even bigger batteries were needed so it was even harder to design small DSLRs. But if anyone was going to do it it was Olympus who opted for a slightly smaller sensor. This size advantage did not initially appear as they started the E series with a professional grade body (E1) and professional grade lenses. All these, whilst smaller than other manufacturer equivalent offerings, were still fairly bulky for my requirements. Gradually they have started filling the system out with smaller cameras and lenses. Immediately Olympus announced the new E420 a few months ago, coupled with a 25mm pancake lens, I knew it was the camera for me.

So I bought one, and it really is small and light. So I now have another rule, apart from doing this blog once a week, and that is to carry the camera with me all the time. That should open up some opportunities that would be missed otherwise. Watch this (blog) space!

After a couple of days getting familiar with the new camera I decided to put my my 50mm macro lens on it and go out into my garden to see what was around. Unfortunately the buddleias are not in flower yet so there were no butterflies around and I had to be content with getting in close to a few flowers.

This water lily is the first to bloom in the pond this year. To get a close in shot I had to hold the camera out in one hand and used the 'point and shoot' technique of Live View on the rear LCD:-



This small rockery flower looks quite insignificant in real life but when you get in close it really glows and seems to float above the foliage:-



My favourite of the session is this chive flower, which sits on top of the straight chive stem and just seems to explode into life:-

To cut or not to cut

Sue's brother Chris and his wife Sue came down from Scotland to stay with us last weekend. They wanted to get out and visit one of the Derbyshire Stately Houses. They had been to Haddon recently, and Chatsworth was a no-go area because of the Horse Trials (not sure what they were alleged to have done) so out of the big three that left Hardwick Hall.

This is another National Trust property so I had the pleasure of getting in for free (as a member of the NT), whilst the others had to cough up nearly £10 pounds each. Most people will know the saying "Hardwick Hall - more glass than wall", and one has to admit that it's not far off the mark:



As with Calke Abbey photography is not allowed inside the hall, which in spite of all the glass is very gloomy inside, so we will have to be content with shots of the gardens. We arrived before the hall was open so spent a good hour walking round the gardens, which are well worth a visit on their own. From the rear of the house the formal gardens open out into open countryside and I was taken by the contrast between the formal hedges and the trees beyond in this shot:



The gardens are divided by high formal edges into many separate areas such as an orchard, herb garden, vegtables, border plants etc. In one of the walkways between these areas I spotted this white bench in a quiet corner which appealed to me:



As you can see the bench sits on a typical English lawn: well manicured apart from a few daisies which must have shot up overnight because the lawn shows every sign of being recently cut. It made me think of when we moved into our current house five summers ago: the house had been previously occupied by a single man who worked away during the week and didn't have much time for gardening. When we moved in the lawn in the back garden was completely overgrown. When we had eventually unpacked everything and began to settle in I had to set out a complete morning in which to cut the lawn back to a normal length. I was a bit reluctant to do this because actually I quite liked the overall effect of long grasses going to seed mixed with a myriad of wild flowers (aka weeds) such as daisies, buttercups, dandelions, clover etc, etc. But convention won out over radicalism and the lawn duly received its short back and sides.

I was quite pleasantly surprised therefore on leaving the area with the bench to go into the herb garden. There at the back of the garden an area had been set aside to 'go wild', and here it is in all its glory:



Hopefully when we eventually find our little country cottage it will have a garden large enough to set an area aside to go wild in a similar fashion. I will be quite happy to share the maintenance of my garden with Mother Nature.

...and Blooms

Well, it was slow coming. but the cold and wet April has finally given way to a warm and dry start to May. Over a period of a few days the countryside has been transformed by the fresh greens of new foliage and carpets of wild flowers.

The fine weather has given many opportunities to get out with my camera, too many in fact to document in this blog. So I will have to be selective and choose only one expedition to talk about. This is a trip to Lea Gardens, famous for its collection of many varieties of rhododendrons planted on a mid Derbyshire hillside. Here, any time between April and June you can enjoy walking along paths with tightly packed bushes of hung with abundant large luxuriant flowers.

If you go in early May,as I did, you will find a mixture of flowers that are past their best, many more in full bloom and some still in bud which will be blooming in June.

I like to get in very close to the blooms with my macro lens. The blooms are so large and have such long pistils and stamens that it is impossible to get everything in focus at close quarters. So I make a virtue out of necessity and use a large aperture to reduce depth of field to a minimum. When it works this can give a dream like effect with stamens apparently emerging from a colouful mist:



Even from a further distance it is difficult to keep everything in focus. In the next shot the fronts of the petals and the stamens are in focus but the centre of the bloom, from which the stamens emerge is just a white cloud:



Finally, one with everything in focus, because it is still in bud, and which reminds me of a raspberry ice cream sundae:

Spring Blooms

Well almost. The last few days of April have been just as cool and wet as the earlier part. I've been keeping an eye out for wild flowers during my daily bike ride through the park. There are plenty of cowslips to be seen, but very little else. A friend says cowslips like wet weather, so that probably accounts for it.

Just out of interest I looked back at last year's photos and found that before the end of April I had been out on several wild flower safaris. But last year April was exceedingly dry and relatively warm. After April, however, the weather deteriorated into the wettest summer we have had for years, and my wild flower safaris came to a full stop.

So I decided that this year's wild flower photography had to start this week. Last Spring also coincided with the purchase of my E330, which had hit rock bottom prices due to the introduction of newer models. Although the newer models have Live View facilties, which had been pioneered in the E330, they lacked a folding out LCD screen, which makes low level close up photography so much more convenient. I put the camera on a very small and light tripod, which can place the camera almost at ground level, and pull out the folding LCD so that I can look at it from above. I still have to kneel down to compose and focus, but at least I don't have to lie down on damp grass!

Because the E330 was a new tool this time last year, I had not yet honed my skills on it. Over the last year I have gradually found out what works best for flowers, and what works best for butterflies and insects. So I'm looking forward to getting a lot of good shots this year.

When I first started photographing wild flowers seriously, about five years ago, I tended to do a lot of 'record' shots to help me familiarise myself with all the varieties. Quite often I would not know what a flower was until I got back home and compared my shots against several wild flower recognition books I have. It's surprising how difficult it can be to identify flowers this way, and I would take shots of leaves and stalks etc to further aid identification.

Now that I am more familiar with the different varieties I am more interested in taking more 'artistic' photographs, using narrow depth of field to isolate single blooms, and creating nice blurry out of focus backgrounds. Putting the camera on a tripod theoretically means that you don't have to worry about the shutter speed so can concentrate on selecting exactly the right aperture to give the right depth of focus. The 'right' aperture might give a fairly slow shutter speed, which does not matter as far as camera shake is concerned, because the camera is on a tripod. But the subject, although anchored to the ground, is very susceptible to the slightest breeze making it jump all around the place. So I spend a lot of time after composing and focusing, just waiting for that brief second when the subject is completely still. Of course, I could use flash, which provides sufficent light to provide a high shutter speed. But in general I find flash gives an unsatisfactory result, giving almost black backgrounds and blown out specular highlights on petals.

I started in Holmebrook Valley Park, then moved up to Linacre Woods and then drove over to Tideswell Dale. Holmebrook Valley Park yielded up this shot of a cowslip:



Also in the park I found a few clumps of Greater Stitchwort, most were in bad condition, but one small clump had a few pristine blooms:



Moving up to Linacre Woods therewere quite a few bluebells out, but it will be another week or so before the ground is completely carpeted with them.



There were also plenty of wood anenomes, most of them pure white, but I prefer the ones which are tinged with purple:



Tideswell Dale proved rather disappointing. There were a few more butterbur flowers around than I saw a few weeks ago but other species were few and far between. A distinct lack of butterflies as well. I did spot one orangetip but it was the only one and did not stop to have its photograph taken. But a few Red Campions were just emerging:



And finally, lest I forget, a Forget-me-not:

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Many times, driving north on the M1, I have passed the signs for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and made a mental note that I must go there sometime. Well this week I finally did go there. And was pleasantly surprised that entrance was free (but with a car park charge of £4 for all day parking).

Having researched its website the previous evening, I knew it would take a lot of time covering the many acres of park and exhibits, so I arrived at 11:00 and expected to stay until late afternoon. There is an excellent restaurant there, so an all day visit can be split into two sessions by a pleasant lunch.

The weather was slightly overcast in the morning but considerably brighter in the afternoon. Interestingly I found the overcast conditions more conducive to photographing outdoor sculptures: backgrounds are less obtrusive and there are fewer specular highlights on metallic exhibits. Back in episode one of this blog I said my aim was to get out with my camera at least once a week 'come rain or shine'. Well I'm quickly learning what many photographers have known all along: sunny, contrasty conditions can ruin photographs, whereas less clement weather can add drama and mystique. I have now made a mental note that the park will be an excellent place to visit in winter, in foggy, misty and snowy conditions and will best be avoided in the height of summer.

Photographing other people's works of art could be considered plagiaristic, especially if the art is already two dimensional and graphical. But a monument or sculpture can be viewed from many angles and can elicit different emotional responses from the viewer. So selecting a single view and attempting to render one's own emotional response into a two dimensional graphic is, in my view, a sort of art in itself. For instance, the following record shot shows a very large sculpture depictng three angry men apparently confronting each other:



I wanted to capture the anger and aggression expressed by the sculpture and decided that I had to focus in on the heads. But I couldn't find a way to put all three heads into a single shot successfully. So I settled for excluding the third head by positioning it 'edge' on and between the other two heads. In this position it provides a barrier between the other two heads, further strengthening the antagonism between them:



The size and construction of this sculpture allowed me to take many different shots of it. The following one completely abstracts the sculture and uses part of it as a frame for a nearby tree creating a totally different work of art to the original, having no anger or aggression, merely recording patterns created in turn by man and nature:



The majority of exhibits did not represent the human form and were therefore much harder to 'interpret'. Some were intricate, and could be admired because of the skill required to conceive and fabricate them. But many others were comparitively simple geometric constructions, which might be admired for a neat bit of welding, but, to me, were lacking in anything approaching a decipherable message or meaning. For example, the following cone attached to a cheese wedge shape did not speak volumes to me, so I decided to photograph it at an unusual angle.



I think I like the result, but it is no more meaningful than the original, just a pattern of shapes and planes. Someone I know said a few weeks ago that a photograph (or any work of art) should make a statement or ask a question. But what about things which are just nice to look at? Are they art? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that I will be returning to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park again.

Lepidopteral Lemons

A complete change of pace this week: from last week's philosophising and social documentary attempts to a look at a few frustrations in one area of my photographic interests.

This Tuesday I noticed a few cowslips raising their heads as I made my usual early morning bike ride through the park. But a fortnight of fairly cold early April temperatures seems to have slowed down the arrival of Spring. So I decided that it wasn't worth making a spring wildflower trip into the Derbyshire Dales just yet.

Instead I opted to visit the Butterfly House in North Anston, near Sheffield. This is one of those places that provides a tropical environment, in what is essentially a large greenhouse, in order to breed and display tropical butterflies. I thought I could use a trip there as a practice session, to hone my skills for photographing wild butterflies in the coming summer months.

I use different techniques for photographing wild flowers to those I use for butterflies. Because flowers are attached to the ground I invariably use a small tripod at ground level and use manual focus on my fold-out LCD screen. This enables me to work at ground level without lying on the ground to look through the optical viewfinder. With the camera on a tripod I can select any aperture (to control the exact amount of depth of field I want), even if this means a slow shutter speed is required. The only fly in the ointment being that the slightest breeze sends most flowers into a St Vitus Dance, so a slow shutter speed means that the images can be blurred (sometimes this makes a nice 'artistic' shot). So I can spend a lot of time just waiting for that vital second or two when the breeze drops and the flower becomes still.

For butterflies, which flit around from one position to another, I find a tripod just too cumbersome, and so resort to handheld shots and rely on autofocus rather than manual focus. Sometimes I will use the optical viewfinder and sometimes I will use the LCD screen, especially where the target is a bit high up or low down. Depending on light conditions, I will sometimes use flash, but prefer not too as flash with close-up photography can lead to unnatural dark backgrounds.

Choosing between all these options, whilst stealthily creeping up on a butterfly so as not to disturb it, certainly makes photographing them a challenging past-time. Hence the need for a practice session on captive butterflies.

When you retire you think you can go out visiting places in mid-week, when everything is quiet because the kids are all at school. What you don't realise is just how little time kids actually seem to spend in school. It always seems to be half-term, or an INSET day, or something like that. This week I completely forgot that, although Easter had actually happened a couple of weeks ago, it was so early this year that it played havoc with normal term lengths. This caused many local authorities to delay their 'Easter' holidays for a fortnight. Going to an attraction which is so popular with parents trying to keep kids occupied during school holidays was a bad decision!

Entering the butterfly house they were everywhere (kids that is) whilst the butterflies seemed to be hiding up in the rafters to keep away from the sticky fingers and the high decibel shrieking going on below them.

Eventually both the butterflies and I began to acclimatise to the havoc and I began to spot one or two on flowers and leaves at lower levels. The larger, and more exotic ones, however, tantalisingly stayed up near the rafters, occasionally fluttering past my head, but never settling on anything remotely within my reach.

All told I took about a hundred shots, experimenting with aperture and speed settings, most of which had to be discarded for technical shortcomings. What was worse, though, was the number I had to discard because the butterflies themselves were imperfect specimens, with bits of their wings missing. Here's a typical example:-



It's a bit galling to get the right exposure, everyting in focus, nicely composed and then find the butterfly is imperfect. For some reason I just don't notice the imperfections when concentrating on the technicalities. This also happens when I'm photograhing flowers and don't notice imperfections in petals.

Anyway, with this particular butterfly I did get a 'head and shoulders' shot which doesn't show the imperfections:-



To conclude with here is the shot I liked best. Unfortunately the tips of its wings were missing, but I thought the shot was good enough to merit a bit of extra work to rescue it. I have reconstructed its wing tips using the clone tool:-

Decisive Moments in Bradford

This week it's up to Bradford, with a few other members of the Photographic Society, to visit the National Media Museum. The main attraction of the visit is an exhibition of the famous French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, or HCB as he is known among the cognoscenti. Trained initially as an artist he became famous for his pioneering photography from the 1930's through to the 1960's.

When most other serious photographers were still using large format cameras HCB adopted the relatively new Leica 35mm rangefinder 'miniature' camera. This enabled him to get close in to his subjects without being conspicuous. Even today the Leica, and its small lenses, is still a favourite of 'street photographers' who want to capture the spontaneity of people going about their daily lives.

But HCB can explain it better than I can. Here is part of what he said about photography:

"For me, the camera is a sketch-book, an instrument of intuition and sponataneity, the master of the instant which in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to give a meaning to the world, one must feel involved in what one singles out through the viewfinder. This attitude requires a concentration, sensitivity, a discipline of mind and a sense of geometry."

If you have heard anything at all about HCB, you will have heard the expression 'the decisive moment in time'. Every photograph of course captures a single moment of time, but HCB was the master at capturing that precise moment when all the elements in his viewfinder came together in a happy juxtaposition to change a mere moment into the decisive moment.

The exhibition itself consisted of several hundred very small prints which were part of his scrapbooks, interspersed with a few larger prints of his more famous shots. One problem I find in viewing and judging his work is that I don't know how much the fact that the photos are of bygone eras affect my response to them. There in a crowd of Londoners at the coronation of King George VI is a boy in a cap and raincoat who could be me on my way to school in the 1950's. So my response to the photograph is different to that which I would have experienced had I seen it when first published.

Would I have been a supporter and admirer of his style, or a doubting antagonist who decried his breaking of the normal rules of composition? Probably the latter!

I decided to give myself a little challenge: to go out into the streets of Bradford and see if I could get any shots even remotely like his style. I always find it difficult to point my camera at complete strangers, but do find it slightly easier away from home. I enjoy wandering around foreign markets, while Sue and her friends are occupied in retail therapy, trying to capture candid shots of stall holders and customers. Well Bradford is as near to foreign as you can get in England so that helped.

I only had half an hour to spare so I had to be quick. After one or two unsuccessful shots (of people walking away from me!) I spotted a constant stream of what looked like students coming out of college passing in front of a building. The light walls of the building provided a good backdrop to isolate the figures and expressions.

This first attempt was cropped deliberately to position the 2 outermost figures so that they are walking out of the frame:



It breaks the rules, but doesn't really 'say' anything: its just a pattern of four figures.

This second one could be considered an improvement:



It breaks the rules with two pairs of figures at the edges of the frame and nothing to look at in the middle, but I can give it a lot to say:

The two pairs are separated; they are in different worlds; two older business like figures, two younger students; they apparently have nothing in common; but wait, there is a commonality - both pairs comprise a white and non-white person, so they represent our multi-ethnic society. The younger pair are communicating with each other, the elder pair ignore each other: the younger pair represent the hope of a future confict free multi-ethnic society, the older pair represent current suspicion and uncertainty. What a pity I wasn't thinking about all that when I pressed the shutter!

So onto my final shot:



I'm not sure I can read any profound meaning into this but I do like the geometry of the three figures and I think I just caught it at the right moment that the lad was impressing the two girls with a funny story. Ah well, I suppose it's a little late in life to become a world famous surrealist photographer - it's been done before.

A Country House in Decline

Down to the very south of Derbyshire this week, to the National Trust property Calke Abbey. I've intended to visit this place for many years but never got round to it. As you will see fom the above picture it is not in fact an Abbey, but a fine example of an early 18th century country house. The 'Abbey' name derives from the fact that it is on the site of a former Cistercian Abbey which met the fate of most such establishments during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries.

Although not built by them, the house eventually ended up in the Harpur family. The 20th century saw a gradual decline in it's state, a not uncommon fate with these large houses, which required an army of servants to run and maintain them, and attracted crippling death duties. Eventually it was donated by the family to the National Trust in the 1980's, after a period in which it had been occupied by only one member of the family.

The NT decided to keep the house and its contents largely in the state in which it was on donation. It has been made safe by repairs where necessary, but not restored to its former 18th and 19th century glory.

I knew from the NT website, when I planned the trip, that photography inside the building was not allowed. But I figured the garden and external surroundings would still provide some good photographic opportunities. I also harboured an optimistic hope that once I got there and asked nicely they might allow me shoot without flash. My optimism was unfounded, however, which left only a slightly more optimistic hope that I might be able to sneak a few crafty shots in when nobody was looking.

Again the optimism was unfounded, but for a reason which made my trip round the house one of the most informative and enjoyable visits I have made to such institutions: a veritable army of NT volunteers is in attendance in every room which you are allowed to visit. These volunteers are there to interact with visitors and pass on as much of their knowledge of the place as you are willing to receive. So crafty photos were out, but interesting chats and information exchange were in.

Many of the rooms are jam-packed with stuffed animals and birds of all descriptions - a bit like a dusty old Natural History Museum. Apparently one of the family members was keen on documenting all native British species, his modus operandi being to go out and shoot them and then have them stuffed! In today's more environmentally conscious times, I pondered, he would have been a wild life photographer and his 'shooting' would not have had such a drastic effect on his targets.

After my internal tour I went to visit the gardens. Again these had deteriorated due to neglect, and have been repaired, where necessary, rather than restored. And one or two areas have been preserved in the state in which they were taken over. This shot of one of the garden sheds gives a good idea of what some of the rooms in the house itself are like:-



The gardens themselves were in an early spring state of having been prepared for bedding plants and vegetables, with some greenhouses being packed with pots of seedlings bursting forth. It was in one of the greenhouses where I got my 'Picture of the Week', this close up study of an unknown (to me) flower bloom just on the point of fulfilling its spring glory:-

Crich, en passant

Setting time aside for this week's outing was extremely difficult, what with visitors over the Easter weekend, and putting the house on the market. As Tuesday dawned I had made no definite plans for a photographic expedition, but also knew that the rest of the week would be just as hectic - so I needed to get cracking.

As luck would have it, however, I had to make a trip down to Duffield to deliver some papers to Sue's client. So after making a mad dash down the M1 and A38 I decided to take a scenic route back and go though Crich (otherwise known as Carr Dale in the Peak Practice TV series).

On a hill just outside the village is Crich Stand, a monument which serves as a memorial to men of the Sherwood Foresters regiment who died in the First and Second World wars. The Sherwood Foresters mainly recruited from the two counties of Nottingham and Derbyshire, and the monument can be seen from many places in both counties.

Travelling around Derbyshire I have of course seen the monument from a distance, but have never actually visited it before. It resembles a lighthouse and one is able to climb to the top to get magnificent views of the mid-Derbyshire landscape. When I reached the top I must admit it was a bit of a surprise view for me. What I had not realised was that a lot of the hill on which the monument stands is no longer there - a large quarry has eaten away into one side of it.

So, as with the canal walk a few weeks ago, I can present a picture of two halves: contrasting the natural beauty of sky and hills with the ravages of man's activities in the foreground:-



There are many such 'scars' on the landscape in Derbyshire, which has been mined and quarried for lead, coal, fluorspar and limestone for centuries - no wonder Derbyshire was one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution. Times change though, and many of the former trappings of industrialisation have now been transformed into tourist and recreational facilities: railway lines are now cycling trails, opencast mining sites are now country parks and nature reserves. But roads are still being built and their foundations, as likely as not, originated in a hill in Derbyshire.

Descending back down to ground level I noticed that the monument now has a smaller sibling in the form of a beacon. I assumed that this would be a Millennium beacon, but on reading the plaque on it I discovered that it had been erected by the villagers of Crich in honour of the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. Here it is, its new stone (quarried below?) shining brightly in comparison to the older monument behind it:-



You will have noticed from the two photos above that it was a fairly drab day in early spring, with no real sign yet of those fresh spring greens which can provide easy-on-the-eye landscapes. But a main aim of this blog is to flex my photpgraphic muscles by accepting whatever conditions prevail and get at least one reasonable photographic result. So for the second week running I found myself seeing in black and white, giving the shot below similar post processing treatment to last week: selecting the sky and enhancing its contrast, converting to monochrome and applying local contrast enhancement:-

Town and Country

Spring is coming and I am looking forward to the arrival of all the spring wildflowers which will keep me photographically busy in April, May and June. In planning this weeks expedition I thought I would have to curb my impatience for a few weeks and restrict my photographic excursions to other subjects.

So I decided to visit Buxton, a Victorian Spa town in the Peak District. It's a good few years since I've had a look round the town of which I have fond memories from childhood: back in the pre-Beeching fifties, when even a small country town like Ashbourne had a railway service, a visit to Buxton on a steam train was a favourite Sunday or Bank Holiday treat. I remember sunny afternoons spent in the Pavilion Gardens feeding the ducks and eating ice cream.

If Matlock Bath, with its over-abundance of fish and chip shops and amusement arcades can be considered the Blackpool of Derbyshire, then Buxton, with its Pavilion, Opera House and Crescent would have a far more upmarket parallel: something like Harrogate, or even Bath.

I started my tour in the well-tended Pavilion Gardens, still well populated with water birds. These two were very friendly with each other and seemed to be suffering from a spot of species confusion:-



I watched them for several minutes, the goose following the swan everywhere it went. I couldn't see any other geese or swans around, and they really looked the best of pals!

From the gardens I continued on into the town itself. I was a little disappointed by the current state of the town. It seems a little drab and in need of a facelift. Indeed, whilst stopping for a coffee, I read in a local paper that decisions are about to be taken on plans for re-furbishing the famous crescent. I also noticed that the famous conservatory in the Pavilion is closed because of the ubiquitous 'health and safety' reasons. And round the rear of the pump house I found an appropriate opinion on the surroundings by a local artist:-



Behind the Pavilion there is a road containing some very large Victorian houses. One in particular caught my eye and I immediately thought it had the possibility of making a nice monochrome shot. In processing it I initially struggled to get a result I was happy with: I just couldn't get the right sort of contrast to give the sense of drama that I had envisaged when pressing the shutter. I was almost ready to give up when I had the idea to try a technique called local contrast enhancement, which I sometimes use to give added 'pop' to a colour shot. This involves using Unsharp Mask with a very large Radius (50) and a small Amount (20%). I've no idea what this actually does at pixel level, but to my delight it produced just the result I wanted:-



To me this sums up Buxton: a glorious past, a little drab at present, but not totally run down, and a prime candidate for refurbishment and improvement in the future.

There was still plenty of afternoon left, so I decided that on the way back home I would pay a quick visit to Tideswell Dale, one of my favourite dales for wild flowers, just to see if there were any signs of early arrivals. Walking down into the dale from the car park at first I thought I was on a wild goose chase. But then as I got to the small bridge that crosses the stream I did discover a few very early Butterbur flowers. The flowers on this plant appear before the leaves (which are very large and rhubarb like). In a few weeks time the banks of the stream will be absolutely covered in these conical pink flowers. For now I was glad to be able to see the few early ones and capture this specimen:-

Canal Walk

On a nice Summer's evening we occasionally bike along the Chesterfield Canal towpath, working up a thirst and appetite for a pint and a sandwich. The Chesterfield Canal Society has done sterling work over the last few decades, dredging and cleaning up the disused canal and making a good stretch of it navigable again.

The restoration of the canal, combined with the decline of industry along its banks, has made some stretches of it, from Brimington towards Staveley, quite picturesque and has provided many havens for the return of wild life.

This week I thought I would walk along the canal to see what sort of condition it is in at the end of Winter, before Spring provides its beautifying blanket of fresh greens and white and pink blossoms.

I decided to walk from Brimington towards Chesterfield, where the canal wanders between our two temples of consumerism, Sainsbury and Tesco, is backed onto by various industrial estates, and runs parallel to the River Rother (not a pretty sight, even in Spring and Summer).

The tow path was slightly wet from an earlier shower and provided some interesting textures in the now bright sunlight.



However, after a hundred yards or so I came across the following 'landscape', which struck me as a fine contrast between the beauty of nature and the ravages of man. The glorious blue sky with fluffy white clouds would look well above a vista of green fields and hills, but here it provides light for an altogether different scene.



Continuing on I came across more and more scenes of discarded detritus. I think they can all be summed up to 'perfection' in this view of tree-borne litter on the banks of the Rother.



The camera is of course very selective, and I could have ignored the unpleasant areas and concentrated on the swans and ducks, or the very early blossom beginning to show, and given an entirely different gloss to my walk. So, to provide balance I will end with what I think is my best shot of the day. A simple, almost colourless, reflection study; formed by the breeze on the canal's surface, abetted by the sunlight and merely recorded by me. It's dark and sombre but the little colour in it, to me, represents a glimmer of hope for a tidier future.

Snow capped mountains....

We've booked our summer holidays this year in the French Alps, so I am eagerly anticipating getting many photos of snow capped mountains. Although we have been to the Austrian Tyrol in the past, those trips were 'pre-digital' so this year I am hoping for many shots to keep me happily engaged in the digital darkroom next winter.

I missed the chance of a practice run when we had a rare snowy weekend a couple of weeks ago, so when Sunday evening's weather bulletin forecast snowy showers for Monday morning I gathered my kit together for an early start.

Snowy showers actually turned out to be a few flurries in Chesterfield, which managed to give a very patchy covering of white to the local fields: not much more than a heavy frost would have done. But I told myself it would be a different story in the heart of the Peak District, where the familiar contours of Mam Tor and Rushup Edge would be completely transformed by a good layer of fresh sparkling snow.

After loading the car I set off in brilliant sunshine accompanied by an unaccompanied Bach violin sonata playing on Radio 3. The aural experience of rising and falling arpeggio and scale passages punctuated with guttural double-stopping combined with the visual experience of the countryside bathed in bright winter sunshine to so mellow my mood that I was quite content to follow a large lorry slowly negotiating the narrow road through Barlow and up to Owler Bar.

On the road above the Longshaw Estate I now glanced a view of my destination. I stopped in a layby to assess the state of the distant hills. As you can see from the following photo there was some snow on the hills, but not as much as I was hoping for.



There were, however, plenty of clouds in the distance which might result in some further snowfall: I might even get a dramatic view of a blizzard rolling over the edge of the Kinder Scout plateau! Arrival at the National Trust car park near Mam Tor soon dashed these hopes. No further snow, and a distinct lack of clouds likely to dump a quick landscape transforming layer.

I set off up the fairly short but very steep path to the summit of Mam Tor. It was quite calm in the car park. It started getting breezy after a few hundred yards. By the time I reached the summit I had to hug the trig point to stop being blown over! How on earth did the builders of the Iron Age fort which used to stand here survive this environment? Nice views, but I would need triple glazing to even consider a place up here.

Hanging on to my new-found friend the trig point I did just manage to wrestle the camera from its bag and get a few shots in, the best of which was this view of Rushup Edge:



After this I hastily beat a retreat down the path to the car park and then made the short journey down through Winnats Pass to Castleton to have a warming cup of coffee. Newly refreshed I then wandered round this village of tea shops, pubs and gift shops. There are many Peak District villages I would love to live in, but not those, like this, which have had to give themselves up totally to the tourist trade.

Passing the village church I found a suitable position to photograph it from. A lane runs past it, bordered by a stone wall about five foot high, at the top of which is the churchyard. So I was able to get a view, complete with snowdrops, as though I had taken it at ground level. So here is this week's 'Picture of the Week' (yet another Derbyshire church):-