Westward Ho! Again

I spent a couple of days last week back in Devon.  With limited time for photography, I stuck with  two of my favourite places, Westward Ho! and Hartland Quay.  I was able to make a couple of trips to Westward Ho!  The lower set of images are from the first day.  I arrived in Devon on a foggy afternoon and made it there in time for the last hour of daylight.  The low light, freezing fog and vast expanse of sand gave a surreal and empty landscape, that I struggled to do justice to. 

The next day I was able to spend more time there.  It was a grey day, but I was also there at low tide, so I was able to see and shoot a couple of relics of Westward Ho!'s history.  The first is a series of pillars at the rocky end of the beach.  These are all that remains of a Victorian pier.  Built in 1870, it only lasted 10 years, due to the battering it took from Atlantic storms.  The second is an oval of decaying timbers buried in the sand.  This is all that remains of an 18th century shipwreck, thought to be the merchant ship Sally.  The amount of the timber visible changes from year to year, due the shifting sand.  At this time, most of the outline is visible.  Given the conditions on the day, I felt both features would benefit from a moody, mono 10-stop treatment.

 

 

A Morning At Richmond Park

I visited Richmond Park on a much better day than my trip to Winkworth Arboretum.  The sky was blue, it was frosty underfoot and the low morning sun was gave some lovely light.  I was in search of rutting deer.  Sadly, the rut seemed to be over.  I did find one stag with a small harem of hinds and a few younger males. The big male was making his presence known with some enthusiastic bellowing.  At the right angle his breath caught the morning light.  I spent ages trying to capture this, the first shot here being my most successful.

Autumn Colours In The Rain

Winkworth Arboretum in Surrey has been on my 'to do' list all year, as a place for autumn colour.  The day I chose to visit it rained non-stop.  This made photography rather challenging, but at least the wet conditions made the colours shine.

 

 

Whipsnade Tree Cathedral

Last Sunday I visited Whipsnade Tree Cathedral in search of Autumn colour and fungi.  I didn't find that much colour, but there was a fair few fungi.

 

 

 

Blackpool

I recently visited my friend Vic up in Preston for another weekend of hills and beer.  We also spent a day taking pictures on the Blackpool sea front.  It was a mixed day weatherwise, but that did make it great for long exposures shots.  We spent far too long shooting a giant rotating glitter ball from various angles.  The concrete bus stops framed it nicely and the railings made great lead lines, but my favourite is the first shot with the added curve of the steps and the circular brick design.

 

Granchester

A couple of weeks ago, it was the annual CCC 'Points of View' competition.  Usual rules, a set area and 5 photographic themes to shoot in a set time.  This year the location was Grantchester.  The themes were 'Movement', 'River', 'Three', 'People' and '1912'.  As usual I concentrated too much on a couple of themes at the expense of the others.  I ended up with little of use for 'Movement', or 'River', or 'People'.  I did okay on 'Three' though.

The definition of 1912 was an image that could have been taken in the year that Rupert Brooke’s Grantchester poem was written.  For this I tried using an Holga Pinhole lens, that I bought a while ago and haven't played with much.  The resultant image overshot the target a little and looked more like 1862.

In the end I didn't have enough to enter.  But I had a good day out, fitting in lunch at the Orchard and a pint at the Red Lion. So, here are a selection of my images from the day.  Some of them even fit a theme.