I've certainly not seen them. They look like outrageous fakery but I do of course believe they're real, especially given the amount of sightings there have been recently. I think it's the daylight that throws me, usually see them in the dark.
Wow! Amazing lights! The 'daylight' processing of the foreground is really interesting - makes it look like a scene from a fantasy planet, or the end of the world!
I've often mentioned The Goit, a man made canal that runs along the western edge of Brinscall Woods, passing through White Coppice and finally feeding into Anglezarke reservoir. If you follow The Goit in the opposite direction you'll eventually reach its source at the Roddlesworth reservoir chain, which lies East of Abbey Village.
After a pleasant walk through the woods around the upper reservoir last weekend in spectacular light but without a camera (I had my phone with me, but I don't count that), I decided to return one evening after work during the week, this time armed with the GFX100S, the 32-64mm f/4.0 lens and a tripod.
I reached the reservoir roughly an hour before sunset, but the light wasn't as nice as it had been on the previous visit, being much harsher and I really struggled to see what I was doing a lot of the time due to the glare off the surface of the water.
Still, I managed to grab some shots that are quite nice, but I think I need to return when the conditions are a bit more conducive as I think there are some much better pictures just waiting to be taken there.
On The Waterfront
Most of the shots I took at Roddlesworth were in the woods that line the edge of the upper reservoir. There's a decomposing boundary wall around the water, with a bit of a path on either side of it. There are plenty of great subjects on the side adjacent to the water, but not a lot of space to compose them nicely. This was taken with the sun off to my right.
Walls Come Tumbling Down
The gradually disappearing wall that encircles the reservoir. I liked the way patches of light were illuminating the wall and the various bits of flora trying to reclaim it. The main woodland path is beyond the trees way off to my right in this shot.
Reaching For The Light
This one is annoyingly a little overexposed. The original shot is very dark and I've raised the shadows and exposure a lot here for this high key looks, but the highlights on the trees, even without adjustment are ever so slightly clipped in the green channel. Should have bracketed it, but the in camera histogram lied to me and said it would be fine.
A Chance Encounter
After the sun had set, I found myself wandering without a torch, picking out pathways through unfamiliar woods. Eventually I emerged into a farmers field, following one of those paths that's there on the OS map, but in reality, not so much.
As I crossed the field I stumbled across this little Roe Deer buck. Initially, he was a bit closer to me and completely ignoring me, but unfortunately, I just had the 32-64 on the camera and the 45-100 in the bag, but with my tripod in one hand, making it impossible to swap lenses without putting it down. This drew his attention to me and he started to nonchalantly move away as I attempted to swap lenses without startling him too much. By the time I was ready for the shot he was quite some way from me, even with a 100mm lens, but I took the shot anyway, cropped it and then ran it through Topaz to upscale it. Here's the result.
It's not great for a 100 megapixel fuller frame camera, but when you consider, the following image is the original, unedited shot from the camera, taken handheld at quite high ISO and clearly underexposed on the subject, it's not bad.
Disappearing England
As I drove home I spotted this scene and had to take a shot. Regular travellers on the M61 will recognise the Preston Mormon Temple in the background, a clear indication that you're in Chorley and not Preston as the name might imply and in the foreground, a travelling circus had just set up. The sunset had been quite spectacular in its colour, if a bit lacking in interesting sky detail, but I'd just missed the best of it by a few minutes when I took this.
The land between where I shot this and the circus location is currently being built on, so I suspect, by the time they return next year (assuming that bit of land they've set up on hasn't been built on too) this sort of shot will no longer be possible to take.
Intentionally framed in 65:24 to hide the ugly and extensive development at the bottom of the image.