Good morning to everyone wherever you are in the world...
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Whitechapel Tube Station
I was In Bath again last weekend for family reasons. This time I was with my wife, and hiring a car was cheaper than public transport from London. It also meant we were more able to see things out of town, in the time we had free of commitments. It was easier than I thought driving with the gearstick on the "wrong" side. So on future visits to the UK I will hire a car.
View out of our hotel room
Bathampton
Bathamton
The picture everybody takes in Bath. In my misspent youth after a few drinks, I swam down over this weir.
Cross Baths. Once we kids learn to swim in this bath for a few pence. Now I,m told a swim here costs £40
The Circus
Landsdown Cresent
Somerset Place
Cold Ashton
Cold Ashton
Must ask my barber to do me a haircut like this.
Wow, what perfect timing and seeing, the triumphant march of the iPhone cameramen and the two girls exiting left and right make this shot interesting.
The second one is a bit of a departure from my usual fair—a bit of Wormy influence.
Tells a nice story Wormy.
I've been a bit lazy this week, so I only managed one evening walk, spending a pleasant couple of hours exploring the moors above Brinscall as the sun beat a hasty path towards the horizon. For once the dreaded Irish Sea Perma-fog was conspicuous by its absence, but so was any other evidence of clouds, leaving a tonally nice, but empty sky.
Unless sheep and distant cows are your thing, there's not a lot to see on Withnell moor, although there are a number of farm ruins up there which always make interesting subjects and the view to the horizon is rather nice too, at least from the western edge where it falls away sharply towards Brinscall and Withnell.
For this particular walk I started my wander at Cocker's Folly, what was once a prominently placed farm on the hillside above Brinscall and although no longer standing, it's easily spotted on the hillside from the town below. I then followed the edge of Withnell quarry, a huge working quarry surprisingly well hidden from the moors by a five foot high earth mound erected around it (so much so that, despite several previous visits to Cocker's Folly, this is the first time I've realised it's even there! The mound makes it practically impossible to get decent pictures of the place too.) up to the northern edge of the moor, before turning South East to arrive at Botany Bay farm for sunset. The final part of the walk was a trudge back to Solomon's Temple and then back off the moors via Ratten Clough.
All images taken with either the Nikon Z7+24-70 f/2.8S or the Fujifilm X-H2+100-400. Some Nikon images were taken with a CPL, I haven't got a magnetic mount for the Fuji lens so I can't mount my CPL on it, plus, as I'm handholding in low light I need all the light I can get! All images processed from single raw files in Capture One Pro 22. Given that we don't have a way to easily see the EXIF here I've added a few more notes than usual about the shooting settings in case anyone is interested.
After a steep climb part way up Well Lane, I left the road and followed the track that runs roughly North across the hillside towards Cocker's Folly to arrive at this view. Z7, 31mm f/8, 1/80th, ISO64.
This is the view from the quarry side of Cocker's Folly. You can just see the upper reaches of The Withnell Plantation (more commonly known as Brinscall Woods locally) on the horizon in the lower right of the image. There's not a lot left of the farm (a common theme with these farms), but this isolated group of large trees stand prominently on the hillside making them easy to see from the village below. Z7, 65mm f/8, 1/30th, ISO64.
Looking North from Cocker's Folly gives a great view of Withnell, with the tower of St. Paul's church rising above the village. X-H2, 400mm, f/7.1, 1/60th, ISO250.
Looking South West from Cocker's Folly gives a good view across Chorley towards Harrock Hill. Most of my shots of Chorley are from either Anglezarke Moor or Heapey Moor/Great Hill, so it's nice to view it from a different perspective. Between my viewpoint and Chorley lies White Coppice and Brinscall Woods (in the foreground). X-H2, 100mm, f/6.4, 1/280th, ISO125.
I took a novel (for me at least) route to Botany Bay farm, AKA The Summer House, by following the edge of Withnell Quarry to the northern edge of the moor and then turning South East across the moor. I was hoping for some different views of the weathered old Beech tree at the farm, but due to the lay of the land nothing particularly worked out. However, I'd taken some nice shots last week approaching from the South East where the land sits a little lower, so I decided to skirt South of the farm and then loop back up towards it, experimenting with compositions along the way.
This worked well and I was treated the to the following view captured hand held with the Fuji at 124mm while leaning against a wall. The aperture is as wide as it would go at that focal length (f/4.6 apparently) to help soften the foreground. I have a lot of issues with sharpness on the X-H2, I'm sure the AF simply isn't fussy enough and will happily give you a green confirmation box when it's way off, so I have to scrutinise my images in the field to check for critical focus, which isn't easy as the 100% image replay is not as crisp as I'd like, despite the lovely viewfinder. However, with all that said, I'm happy to report that in this instance it's done a great job of crisply picking out the details of the tree. X-H2, 123mm, f/4.6, 1/150th, ISO125.
As I moved closer to the farm the Fuji's 100-400 became less useful and I switched back to the Nikon when this view presented itself. This is shot handheld at 70mm with a wide f/2.8 aperture to soften the foreground. I particularly like the way the distant hills (the Forest of Bowland, I think, not sure of the exact direction I was pointing here) have almost been reduced to solid blocks of subtle colour here. Z7, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/320th, ISO64.
There wasn't much to see for the remainder of the walk as I made my way approximately South West across the moor towards Solomon's Temple, another farm ruin. For this portion of the walk the sun was below the visible horizon, but when I arrived at Solomon's Temple the lay of the land changed and I was treated to a last glimpse of the setting sun over the Irish Sea. There wasn't a lot of time so I hastily composed a few images incorporating the setting sun, but not very much seemed to work, however I quite like this silhouette of one of the handful of Hawthorn trees dotted around the farm ruins. This was taken as part of a three shot bracket, but I decided against merging the shots to HDR and just used this one instead. Z7, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/320th, ISO64.
The sun had pretty much set by the time I'd crossed the field between Solomon's Temple and Ratten Clough, so there wasn't a lot of direct light on the ruins, but the nice colours in the sky made it worth taking a few speculative shots with the Nikon. I've daringly bumped the ISO up to 400 here and dropped the aperture from my typical f/8 to f/6.3 to let a bit more light in without impacting too much on the DOF. This gave me an exposure of 1/40th which is easy to hand hold with the Nikon, even in the moderate breeze that had been blowing all evening. Z7, 70mm, f/6.3, 1/40th, ISO400.
The best part of this for me is the guy coming down the stairs with the phone in front of his face.
Beautiful, crystal clear, set with real punch to the images. Pulteney Bridge is so beautiful. I should have a weekend there again.
Two very different images, the first has real impact, the second is a lot of fun.
Sounds like a standard night out in Soho.
Very stylish set, had to rush through them a little as I have to go out,
I agree with that.
I'm not seeing any emoticons in this editor. Am I missing something?
A very interesting shot, colours and composition just right.
[quote="@SteveMonks"]
As I moved closer to the farm the Fuji's 100-400 became less useful and I switched back to the Nikon when this view presented itself. This is shot handheld at 70mm with a wide f/2.8 aperture to soften the foreground. I particularly like the way the distant hills (the Forest of Bowland, I think, not sure of the exact direction I was pointing here) have almost been reduced to solid blocks of subtle colour here. Z7, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/320th, ISO64.
I love the colours in this.
