Good set in general but this one is a standout. I love to see landscapes with a reference point giving a sense of scale, in this case the village below.

That turned out really well. The lens obviously works very well in your hands. Too heavy for me though, nice to be able to borrow one for a while.
" guided missile" is a good description :-)

We were lucky with the weather that weekend :-)
They had promissed "rain for later" , but it didn't come until late at night. The next day it poured down

Looks like it was a great hike with lovely views.
The vista in number 1 sets the scene. That big rock oin the distance looks like a reasonbly easy hike from the back, getting to the big cliff face and good view. Is the Solutre rock you were standing on similar ?
The bright autumn leaves in number 3 make for a good motive.

Enjoy the new camera, it has found competent new hands!

Cold I'm sure, but with the pretty lights this one looks nice and warm and inviting :-)

Those skies look familiar! Ayr is about an hour's drive for me. Some beautiful coast to the south.

Walking on water 😁 Excellent shot - interesting and even daring composition with the horizontal and vertical divisions.

These are all brilliant shots - the new toy has inspired you, as is often the case. The last is extraordinary!

Interesting contrast of textures between sculpture and water

Holme Fell

I took another trip to The Lake District here in England this weekend. This time I decided to revisit Holme Fell. This is a relatively low collection of rocky peaks that sits between Coniston and Little Langdale. Historically the area has seen a lot of mining and still bears the scars, chief amongst them being the flooded quarry at Hodge Close, but many of the smaller signs of abandoned industry are slowly being reclaimed by nature.

The walk began mid morning at Hodge Close and then proceeded up through the woods to one of the many rocky peaks that form this fell, although I believe this one was the official summit. The plan had been to eat here, then head North East(ish) to Oxen Fell, but after crossing numerous undulations, we eventually hit an impenetrable barrier, blocking our way. Well, technically, it was a 3ft high fence that I could probably have stepped over if I hadn't been carrying so much gear, but given there were no obvious paths beyond the fence and it was getting late, we decided to scrap that idea and instead follow the line of the fence back to Hodge Close. This turned out the be the worst path possible, leading to a few slips and tumbles from both me and my walking buddy, but neither of us was injured and no expensive gear was broken, so it was all just part of the fun and eventually we arrived safely back at Hodge Close by dusk, although it was hard to tell as it seemed to have been just as gloomy for the last few hours anyway.

Still, it was a nice long walk (in terms of time at least, taking 6 hours to cover just three miles) and highly enjoyable too.

All images were taken on a tripod with the GFX100S and either the 32-64 or 100-200, mostly using a screw on B+W CPL filter. Subsequent processing was done in Capture One Pro 23 from individual raw files.

1. Mossy Trees

There are some rather nice trees around the perimeter of Hodge Close quarry, including this group wrapped up for the winter in some very shaggy moss.

2. Hodge Close

Looking down into Hodge Close Quarry itself. By pure coincidence, I took this picture from almost exactly the same spot as a photographer friend of mine had taken a shot of the birch trees on the left about four hours earlier (apparently there was mist too at that ungodly time!). I managed to miss bumping into him on the car park by about 30 minutes, which was a shame.

3. Cave At Hodge Close

This is a close up of the cave that's more or less central in the previous image, giving a better look of the framework bending off into the water that once supported some substantial piece of mining equipment. You can also see light spilling in from the opening at the back of the cave.

4. Abandoned Reservoir

As you cross Holme Fell, coming from Hodge Close, you'll likely encounter this abandoned reservoir which once provided water for the mining operations on the fell. They say you should include a person in a scene to give an appropriate sense of scale, but when your friend is about 5ft tall it sort of throws that idea out of the window.

5. Dam

My friend stood on the reservoir's dam.

6. Bark

This pair of trees by the water caught my eye as I approached the reservoir, but it took playing around with half a dozen different compositions from all sides before I found this one that satisfied me, mostly due to the texture of the bark on the tree in the foreground and the details in the moss on the ground.

7. Reflections

On the far side of the reservoir stand a pair of birch tree stumps, which the water was reflecting quite nicely, so I took a shot of the stumps and their reflection. Although quite pleasing in itself, I was more interested in the reflection than the whole image, so I cropped down to just the reflection and vertically flipped the image to get this abstract shot.

8. Summit

My walking buddy patiently waits for me at the summit as I find one exciting composition after another on the way up. You may recall that I mentioned earlier that the walk took about 6 hours to cover a little over three miles? Well, apparently only an hour of that was actually walking, the rest of it was me standing around taking pictures.

9. Runestone Quarry

Some months ago I published a set of pictures from Runestone Quarry on the lower flanks of Wetherlam, that was a great walk and well worth a visit. Anyway, this shot shows the quarry buildings surrounded by spoil heaps at the top of Runestone Quarry, as seen from the summit of Holme Fell.

10. The Langdale Pikes

This was taken on the way back down from the summit, looking across the reservoir towards the enigmatic pikes as they loom majestically over Great Langdale.

11. A Wider View

Taken a little further along the walk, this wider view introduces the next craggy peak we were going to have a scramble up.

12. Rocky Outcrop

A tighter shot of the rocky outcrop itself.

13. Lone Tree

As we continued across Holme Fell, we encountered many little summits, often adorned with a skeletal tree such as this one.

14. Lone Tree #2

...and another one.

15. Selfie

You spend ages composing your shot and some idiot just wanders in and ruins it. Actually, that's me admiring the view and trying to hold my belly in.

16. Tree With a View

After hitting the impenetrable barrier we instead started heading down in the general direction of Hodge Close, passing this tree along the way (this was before we once more encountered the barrier and it's hilariously terrible adjacent path). I quite liked the way this tree appears to be leaning in towards The Pikes as if admiring the view.

Yes, they're both fairly easy paths up the dip slope of the rocks, though the paths were slippery in places from the previous day's rain. About 400m climb in total over maybe 9km.

Looks like a pleasant area of town. Nice warm and welcoming lighting.

The quarry looks like my kind of place - just right for playing with multiple / ICM exposures 😁
I often find that the reflections are more interesting than the subject and frame accordingly. Lovely colours and textures in all these.

I will make more effort to post my "usual stuff " 😀

A couple of recent "usual" subjects shots

I liked he 2nd shot, took a while to work out that was water at the bottom but it was the 3rd shot that intrigued me the most.