MOTIVATION. (29/11/13)

The weather is wild, wet and windy. I need a good prod with a sharp stick. I’ve been looking for inspiration and tomorrow if it’s fine I’ll take a camera, a tilt/shift lens, a load of filters and a tripod out and try for some ICM images. ICM stands for Intentional Camera Movement. It has much in common with unintentional camera movement so shouldn’t cause me too much heartache. I have tried it before but it’s very hit and miss. I am lucky to get one half descent image in fifty. I know you grown up birders accept such things but it is an alien concept to me. I’ll take Miss Bronica out as well. That will be fun. I have lots of ND filters for her but few are marked up. I’ll hold them in front of the Canon and make a wee note of the reflective Canon exposure. That should sort the job….time will tell. I prefer incident readings for film…..Okay I would like a reflective light meter but haven’t got one. Incident is better for flash and portraits. Where am I. I’m confused again. I have a selection brush in camera raw and can set it to virtually anything.

I have always admired the work of the Canadian photographer Michael Orton. Here are a couple of images I’ve reprocessed in his style.

REDCAR.

  GEODHA SMOO.

Some work…some don’t. The second doesn’t for me. I spent over an hour messing with Smoo Inlet . Redcar worked for me, first go.

Whilst messing about……I mean searching for anything to drag me out of lethargy and take my mind away from my back which is still causing serious grief…I came across some stunning imagery by ROB HUDSON.  It may not inspire you but it made my day. I spent an hour or more absorbed in his work. I suspect had Uma Thurman knocked on the van door I'd have suggested she wait. How sad am I?

Have a great weekend.

MIXED NEWS. (27/11/13)

Yesterday I got the van back but it has to go back. It passed it’s VOSA test but I wanted a load of work doing on it. The van deserves it. For a year now she has been losing coolant. Neither I nor the garage can find out where it is disappearing to. I want it sorting. I think it’s a drop the engine and transmission out job which sounds horrendous but will be quicker than trying to work on it in situ. Fiat electrics are also an on going problem. A new engine loom is the sensible option as is a clutch and cam belt. The van only does a few thousand miles a year so such things are to be expected. What I didn’t expect was another big vehicle coming onto the lift and having to stay on it while some esoteric parts arrive. I now have to wait a couple of weeks for a three day slot. Ho Hum.

I have plenty to keep me occupied, I have a new idea for the Christmas 3D video. It’s a virtual tree with real twinkling lights. Following an on-line tutorial I have got this far.

   This was all created from the default cube in Blender 3D. I now have to find a way of popping a little coloured emitter in the bulb bit and giving the bulb a glass material. I also have to suss array and mirror modifiers to get a string of them to follow a Path round a tree. This business is seriously in danger of putting me in the funny farm. The only bit I’m confident with is Paths and a cylindrical light emitter. I could limit myself to, in vogue, white twinklers but what the hell. I’ll try for the Full Monty, four. White bulb , red Bulb, green bulb, blue bulb. I know how to key frame so no problem there. HOPEFULLY! Panning the camera around the tree whilst snow falls from a particle emitter above and hopefully out of shot. It would be easier to just video a Christmas tree but I love getting lost, totally lost in 3D modelling. Blender doesn’t seem to have auto save so it is important to stop and save successes. They are few and far between for me.

Just in case the men in white coats arrive with the backward canvas jacket then here is an early card.

   Merry Christmas to you all.

I know it is nearly three weeks early. I’ll be sick of Christmas by the time it arrives but I am looking forward to the supermarkets drinks offers.

If it is anything but dull grey and misty I’ll get out  for some new pictures. The font is Celtic Garamon from Dafont. A great free font source. Easy to load as well.

Have fun.

FINGERS CROSSED. (24/11/13)

I am slowly on the mend. Still sore but mobile best describes my condition.

It has been a dank, dark day but having decided to go out for lunch I spotted just a bit of a picture as the cloud cleared.   Topley Pike Quarry, almost in sunshine.

I’ll be away from the internet for a few days as the van is going in for some work and it’s annual test. Fingers crossed the bill is not too horrific.

I’ll catch up later but meanwhile have an excellent week.

SICK NOTE. (22/11/13)

A couple of days ago I skidded on the ice and down I went onto it. I’m suffering from a good shaking up. I’m struggling to walk the dogs never mind carry a camera. I felt a bit more myself this morning so took a couple of pictures.

   I even felt like playing around. Sycamore Leaf and Guelder Rose Berries.

     Waning Moon and Horse.

I must get a grip as my wife is on her way round to administer some therapy and her version of tender loving care. If I appear at all lethargic or even a little weakened I’ll get a good kick in the ribs for my trouble.

Have a really good weakened……Sorry weekend.

WONDERFUL MORNING. (19/11/13)

I’m still sitting in Blackwell. It’s near my old home and I can understand what the people here are saying. There is a subtle difference between understanding words and knowing instinctively what people mean. The van is due for a service and test next Monday. It is a stressful time. I’ve ordered winter tyres for the front driving axle as I will be spending the winter in Scotland. I have a monster tow rope but it is a bit presumptive to get stuck and then beg a tow….Bloody sight cheaper than winter tyres, though I thought I ought to show willing.

I was in Scotland over the summer and all I saw were incomers like me driving crap Honda, BMW, Volvo, SUVs. They couldn’t rip the skin from a blancmange. The three hundred pounds for winter rubber was not a totally altruistic investment. 

I like being with folk I grew up with and like their issue. There is a world of difference in age but they understand me and I them. It seems daft but it is a fact.

I know Dithery, Thatcher, Moribund all take elocution lessons. I know they are all lying bastards. You’ll notice I left duplicitous Clegg out. On purpose. He is a real pain. He want’s tipping upside down in a barrel of shite. How could any true born Yorkshire-person vote for such a two twister, turncoat, smarmy twat? He must have got the immigrant vote….He got someone's….my wife voted for the lying little bleeder. I bet her mates did too. All thick as shit and posh trousers they are.

I was rudely woken by the dogs at just before three this morning. I cursed them but it made little difference. They were too excited, it was snowing. They love snow but don’t realise it takes time for to get to serious rolling, snuffling and ploughing through depth. It never did, it didn’t even cover the short grass. Half an hour before dawn I gave in and let them out for a look. No snow worth speaking of but they rushed from bit to bit and rolled and sniffed and snuffled. Come March they won’t bother with an excuse for a snow fall. The lazy devils won’t get up till daylight.

Back we came. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I packed the film camera loaded with Velvia reversal 100 ASA. I also packed the 5DII with a posh 24mm lens on it. I don’t have a camera bag but just a rucksack so I wrap the cameras in those camping towels that dry straight away but still leave ones skin feeling a bit claggy. I do have a little camera bag for filters and cable releases, spare batteries and Marlboro…… important things. It  fits….anywhere, anywhere it ends up. Off we toddled for the circuitous route to Millers Dale. The road is faster but it is twisty and has no pavement. It’s less stressful to take the old bridle way.

   I don’t know what this farm is called but thirty years ago we’d been climbing on Chee Tor and my friends collie had a stroke or seizure or something, bit my dog on it’s arse and ran off, awful it was, it just set off running all slanted up to one side and ended up at this farm. It wouldn’t let anyone near it and had bitten folk, geese and lord knows what else on it’s way. The farmer lent us a shotgun. We’d had a great day but it turned into one of the saddest. A beauty of a dog she was.

  We arrived at Millers Dale Station. The village has a dozen houses but this place used to really hum. It was the last station in England to have a post office. It had express trains from both Liverpool and Manchester into London St Pancreas and coped with a branch line to Buxton. It was a busy place; until 1968 it dealt with mineral traffic, animal cargo…sheep and cows for Hassop. Hassop is only a station it doesn’t have a hamlet even. It had pens for farmers animals.  Hence a wee market.  the line had people going to work. People visiting to look at the scenery, my brother going to school of course it should never have been shut. Then as now it’s the same old story. Plough our national wealth into London and the environs there of, then fail to develop the Cotswolds and Hampshire then come along with high speed rail to reconnect us. It’s a vanity project. They should be looking at a new Thames Barrier or moving north. Nasty self serving people are politicians.   Off we wandered down a bit of old rail bed. Just a sprinkle of snow.

An old water tank for topping up the Locomotives we are at about eight hundred feet here, the engines would lose a fair bit of water climbing up from Rowsley. The river Wye is about a hundred feet below this tank but if you walk the Wye and see a cast iron dome shaped thingy that is the pump that pushed water up here. It worked by taking a feed pipe from up river and then feeding that water onto a large diameter piston then that coupled to a small diameter one could push water up hill.  Steam engineers knew such stuff. The locomotives were fed oil on a similar but more refined system.

My destination. This is a nineteenth century limekiln. It must have started falling down as early in the twentieth century they shored it up with concrete.

       They were not doing things by halves. Shored up it was. Eight Times Shored. I love and always have loved this concrete monstrosity. The railings are a new Elf and Safty nonsense. It’s a long way down. Don’t lean over too far would be more than a normal person should need. They worked this kiln on a twin tub system for over a hundred years. One man fell in. They got him out okay, he fell on top of the charge before it had started burning at full chat.

The dogs had a great three hour wander. Lots of other dogs to play with. Some owners had the foresight to bring a ball and throw it. I just wish our government in London had had the foresight to keep the line open. It survived a bit longer than most but I’m sure would pay again today.

The light was a challenge. I’ve duplicated some of these images on film. I dread to think what the Velvia will look like. I took incident readings. The Canon takes reflective. I dropped my readings for film half a stop.

When I get these back whatever the result, I’ll just take film out for a while. It does my head in trying to work both and look after the dogs.

These are obviously all digital and gently seen to. Damned harsh was the light today I cogged the the camera down two thirds of a stop.

It is a brilliant day today. Rain and cold rain tomorrow.

Have fun.

IT’S A GOOD JOB. (17/11/13)

It’s a good job I met Keith and Trevor last week because I’ve got precious few images since.

Yesterday I was playing with film, I also used the the DSLR as a sort of modern version of the Polaroid back. I was trying to get a girl as a perfect silhouette against the sky on the Bronica then shoot the same frame again with some dense autumnal leaves. Yes it’s been done a hundred times before but not by me. There is more to this double exposure, arty farty malarkey than I thought. I do have an incident light meter and it seems to help.

Unfortunately the model got fed up after an hour. I told her she would never make the next Kate Moss. She came back, far too quickly, saying she wasn’t working with a David Bailey or Lord Snowden. She wasn’t in the first flush of youth but did look lovely as a silhouette. I used a strobe and soft box to the left of her at bugger all. Just to break the black bits… You know soften them a bit through her hair. It worked fine but She had a nose like Concorde and it took a while to stop it casting shadows. Kate Moss hardly has a nose.

Here are a few more from last Wednesday. The last I promise you. Golden Plover. This is a stitched image and still I couldn’t fit them all in.

Mute Swans…..My sort of bird….Plenty to focus on. They like the lagoon at Freiston as they can stand up if they want.

  Little Egrets, there were at least eleven but I couldn’t fit them all in. I see the odd one on my travels but never even two. Eleven in the same area was a memorable sight. They were a bit spread out so I couldn’t get them all in the same frame. Sorry about that. I should have kept a zoom lens. No I shouldn’t I like prime lenses even if it means missing six Egrets; they are all much the same. All said and done.

  Wigeon. A handsome duck. Hundreds of them here. There were similar numbers of Shell Duck but I must have been lighting up or disciplining the dogs when they flew past. More likely the former. The dogs are quite happy to accommodate a daft old man and a camera or daft old men and cameras.

Today is warmish misty and dampish. My head is exploding. For the past week I’ve been heavily into the Christmas e-card. There are a lot of letters in Merry Christmas. A fortnights worth. In Blender 3D or Photoshop you can’t shatter text without converting it to wire frame. Wire frame gives far too many uncontrollable bits. I trace round the letter using a cube and extruding it. I delete vertices near edges but not the ones on the edge , then just click about selecting random bits away from edges then select random. I’m just working on the ‘M’. Selecting a collapsing ‘M’ means manually key framing 212 shards. I decided to write a couple of lines of script to do it for me. I’m almost there but my head is ready to burst. If any Python users know how. Please post the script. I select one shard  then select all shards, I can do that bit. What I need is the script to apply key frames to them all and then un-apply them at a key frame of my choosing. I can,t  do that bit. It’s the script I can’t write.

I suspect I may have got far too ambitious for both myself and the laptop. I have found that I can add blur to backgrounds and curve the ground plane or world bit. That saves hours of render time…… I’ve always held ambitions way beyond my ability.

I couldn’t even finish the cryptic cross word.

One clue missing. A lots of letters word too. It’s usually a four or five letter word I fail to get

12 Across ‘In a trauma I will skip the country’. 10 letters.

I have _a_r_f_n_a.

Have a great week.

OH MY GODWITS. (15/11/13)

Today I have driven back from the flatlands of Linconshire to the peaks of Derbyshire.

Yet again a twenty mile detour was in order to collect my first lot of processed film in fifteen years. I walked into the shop and nobody rolled around on the floor so I took this as a good sign. Last weekend I ran twelve frames through the Bronica. The first was a bit iffy as I took a picture of a seat in the van…..I pressed the button by mistake. I can still see it’s a camper seat though. I was only looking for high contrast images to test myself and the camera. I wasn’t interested in subject matter or composition.

Home.

The View from Home. I was so impressed with these two I forgot to pop a border on them. Like a dog with two tails I was.

  A Dead Leaf not so good but it is in focus. I was getting used to two inches of mirror clattering up with a noise fit to wake the dead. At least this mirror and shutter have to be cocked manually, it’s quiet on the way back down. The shutter is flat out at 1/500s so set it to that. This leaf was wafting about so I just guessed aperture at f4. Not the worlds best picture of a leaf but a leaf it undoubtedly is. I was delighted to get anything recognisable.

I popped the Bronica on a tripod and took a picture of the waxing moon. I took ten minutes pondering settings and displayed my Muppetry. Nothing wrong with the camera; I suspect Ilford got this frame a bit overdosed before I bought it. I’m only kidding, film is very forgiving and can be worked on for prints. Non of these are keepers especially not this one, the moon is blown right out. Nothing to be done with blow out.

I was dreading walking into Harrison Cameras to whoops of derision. They aren’t that bad. If I get a good day I’ll take her down to Millers Dale Station and take pictures in the gloom of wonderful bridges and tunnel mouths. I’ve loaded the camera with Velvia 100 ASA reversal film so that will be a real test. Not for the machine but for me.

   There has been much debate over Godwits. I’m going for Mr and Mrs Black Tailed. Mr is the one with the runny nose.

I’m not sure though……The legs look a centimetre too short.

It’s got a stripey back so it’s a Black Tailed. They are just Godwits. Blurry Godwits because I took their pictures. I’ll never make a birder.

Brent Geese.

I’ll keep dropping the odd bird into my posts. It seems a shame not to make the most of a brilliant day out.

Have a great weekend.

NO CROP. (13/11/13)

It’s nice down south. I woke at four thirty this morning and looking out at a clear sky was surprised how warm it was. I did think about setting the camera up for some star trails but had more pressing business.

Today was a special day. I was to meet Keith and Trevor for a spot of birding at Freiston Shore. I took the dogs a quick walk while my porridge was cooking, came back to the van, had breakfast, polished Bertha up and set off to the nature reserve.

   It was dark when I arrived but slowly the sun rose. I couldn’t decide what to take. I wish I’d taken a 50mm lens it is a brilliant place. I settled on the 400mm Canon, the 5D II and a 2x extender. I also took a gimballed head and tripod.

K&T arrived just at the back of seven and after a quick brew and chinwag off we set. Birds everywhere……. Everywhere but where we were. We walked for miles but everywhere we walked the birds flew somewhere else.

Golden Plover, thousands of them. Flying somewhere else.

A Goldfinch. Unusual to see a solitary one at this time of year.

  At last something I could focus on. Lawyers Wig, Coprinus comatus. I hope I know what it is; there was some debate between us. I have eaten these but they are a bit bland and soon turn black and horrid.

A Brent Goose. There were hundreds of them, all flying here but mostly flying there. I have lots of shots of them going away.

  Eventually after hours of plodding along and a full circumnavigation of the reserve we arrived back at the car park. I put the kettle on and packed my stuff away only to be hailed by Keith who informed me that all the birds that had evaded us were sitting outside the van. This is called getting all your Godwits in a row. Black Tailed Godwits they are.

  A Redshank.

It was a great day I took one hundred and nineteen images I’ve ditched twenty nine. I will probably ditch another thirty. None are cropped but most could do with a crop. I enjoy going out with knowledgeable folk; it saves me pouring over books to tell you what I’ve snapped. It is even better going out with bright people who have the foresight to make sandwiches, soup and coffee. Thanks Keith.  I even switched my camera to burst shoot mode at one stage but switched it back to single shot when I heard Keith remark.

“Was that Adrian in burst mode?”

I know I’m carrying an extra stone or two but bursting? I don’t think so. I have yet to see a shithouse with a bay window.

Folk should put us on the television. It is like an updated version of ‘Last of the Summer Wine.’ Me staggering along bent double under the weight of Bertha, Keith with his shopping trolley on wheels and Trevor trying to look sensible with a rucksack.

It was a great day out in perfect weather. Thank you both. The dogs enjoyed the birding as well so perfect it was.

 

ADDICTION. (12/11/13)

Sunday I stopped in it was rainy and Armistice Day for the great and good and the evil. The paper Monday morning was full of pictures of the great and the good acknowledging the death of individuals who died to protect their wealth. The bastards can’t even celebrate a photo call on the right day. The buggers pose a day early.

I bought two poppies at a couple of quid a piece, the first one fell apart, probably made in China and not by a Hague Fund crippled soldier.

The bloody Queen was wearing three. I just hope she coughed up for them. Chinese are poor your majesty.

The pictures from the Cenotaph just showed fatty dithery dave and calamity clegg plus a dozen or so invited guests all standing in civvies sporting Poppies trying to look solemn but just looking smug…. Horrible people. That is Thatcher’s doing. They are just thick hoodies in ermine, born with a silver spoon is what they are. The rusting lady gave them this arrogance.

I have a problem, an addiction even. I left Derbyshire this morning and took a twenty mile detour through Sheffield to drop a roll of film off for processing. It cost £9.50p to have the film processed and scanned to CD. £9.75p to get it processed and a contact print made. I was gobsmacked. I thought in a naive moment I was back to the old days when I succumbed to the delights Bronica has to offer. Whilst there; this is where my addiction gets out of hand, I purchased a Gitzo tripod to support a lens I rarely use. It is like new, is eye level, will take the weight of a truck and weighs less than the 190 Manfrotto  tripod I have had for years. Just shy of £500.00p to get a film processed. Bloody ridiculous!

Where was I on my way to?…Boston. To look at birds. I enjoy birds but they keep flying off or hiding in twigs. Tomorrow Keith and Trevor are wandering across so they will put me straightish. It’s very flat round here.

The view from the van, in the second snap you can see Bennington church. I am birding tomorrow, the  forecast is good so dawn over the reserve should be great, I’ll try to snap a Marsh Harrier catching a Redshank but a pound to a shilling I’ll have the wrong camera on the tripod.

You only live once.

TUNSTEAD. (10/11!3)

It’s a beautiful cloudless day. I went out for a wander along the edge of Chee Dale.

Just the two images today and fifteen in B&W which are still in the Bronica. Hopefully they are if I worked it right. It took me ages to load the film. Not to get it in the film back, I'm not quite that stupid but I couldn’t get the film to wind on. After fifteen minutes it was time to read the instructions. There is a little lever which when pushed down allows for multiple exposures. It was down not up so that explained that little problem. Whilst reading the book I found there are several other buttons which do interesting things. There is no bulb exposure but if I remove a little grub screw on the lens I can open and shut the shutter by hand. I suspect a box full of spare grub screws wouldn’t be a bad investment.

That’s all for today, have a good week.

HERE IT IS. (09/11/13)

It has been a cool day, winter is on it’s way. It was very slippery on our first walk. Then my son came round and ran me into Harrison Cameras to collect my first medium format camera. I used to use Kodaks and a Rollei but the former weren’t proper cameras and the latter I didn’t have any great success with.

  Here it is with the eye level view finder which has a TTL metering system in it. I fully expect that the meter will be defunct. If it’s nice tomorrow I’ll give it a whirl. I have five rolls of Velvia reversal or slide film 100 ISO. I also got three rolls of Ilford HP5 ISO 400.

The camera body appears light proof and the lens shutters seem fine, difficult for me to tell but I popped a new battery in and it does know the difference between 1 second and 1/250th of a second. What the difference is time will tell. The focus ring is silky smooth on both this lens, the standard view 75mm and also on the portrait 150mm. It has a speed grip fitted but the winding and cocking handle is in the Speedgrip box. It is all boxed down to the focus screen and dioptre lens boxes for the waist level finder. I’ll use one of the canons as a light meter. This is going to be fun. I can’t guess exposure anymore. To be honest I never could on the Olympus OM1, I got used to guessing. Guessing badly for the most part.

   This is the 150mm lens and a selection of screw in dioptre magnifiers for macro and one blue one for something else.

   Two strobes and a monster Metz off camera flash. It must eat AA batteries and front lenses as there are five spare battery cartridges and one new lens in the ………

  camera coffin…Box I meant. There are dozens and dozens of filters, flash sinc cords and a cable release. This camera doesn’t appear to have mirror lock up and only supports shutter speeds from 8 seconds to 1/500th. There must be a lock open facility. I’ll read the book. the original instructions are in this chest of a box as well.

I couldn’t wait to get back and investigate what I’d purchased. I had agreed to meet my wife for lunch. She is an awfully slow eater and as usual was late. Not Late enough. I should have invited the mother-in-law. I’d have been back in half the time or not at all. If she was in a particularly peckish mood I could have been eaten. In all probability it was worth the delay.

There were two of these in the box. In jewellers boxes. I suspect they are just light triggers. Even if I find out what they are they are probably obsolete. They appear to have a light sensing gizmo at the end , a transistor and a monster resistor all wired up to the standard female phone sinc socket.

 Alf was so impressed with all this stuff he fell asleep as soon as it was out of his way. Yes he has got a poorly paw. I’ve given it a wash in Bicarbonate of soda.

I hope I can make this camera sing and dance. It is a bit plasticky but I'm thrilled to bits with it and hope I can give it a good home and do it justice.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

fatal. (07/11/13)

I have written the title in little letters because I know I want a pre-electric Hasselblad. They are just mega bucks. Any posh 120 camera would have been nice but I wandered into Harrison Cameras and left with a light stand and a monster polarising filter, I got a Dorr one not the really posh B&W one at serious money.

At the time they were unpacking two boxes of Bronica medium format camera gear. Loads of it all in it’s original boxes. I’m not worried about original boxes but am a sucker for twenty year old technology. Any Technology come to that. It comes with a couple of 120 film backs. a monster of camera flash and lots of bits including two lenses and a posh aluminium case to hold all the gubbins. I pick it up first thing Tuesday and a pound to a shilling the little devils will charge me for four rolls of film.

This is not what I’ve purchased this is a special edition model. Mine is all in black and grey but I have found what I was looking for a year ago. Almost, it is electric and the exposure meter is bound to be buggered, The 5DII Canon exposure metering has a mind of it’s own so I will live with that. I tend to shoot manual and guess. I guess you regular visitors have already sussed that. I just set stuff and pray to the camera gods.If summat is going fast it’s shutter as high as it will go less a half less on exposure. You can over freeze motion.

I just know there is another challenge here. I also know it isn’t a Hasselblad but I bet a pound to a shilling when I get up to speed with it’s habits it will be a Minolta. There are lots of very delicate bits in there and WD40 isn't  the answer. It’s more about precision like rebuilding Honda’s posh motorbike engines but with softer fingers. I pick it up on Tuesday. I’ll post scanned images from it a week on Tuesday.

I’m daft as a brush but these cameras are not collectable and are cheap. I still don’t know exactly what I’ve bought….Two big boxes full of second hand from a bloke that keeps the boxes they came in. There is more than the camper has room for. One has to laugh at ones own stupidity.

Have fun.

FIVE STAND WOOD. (06/11/13)

We are parked up at Chatsworth, we have been for a day and a half. I was hoping that the sculpture exhibition would be on as I love the occasion. Fortunately I saw one crated up outside so was spared the cost of entering the grounds for little reward in damp and gloomy weather. I was also spared the Shearing’s tours… bus loads of incontinent OAPs blocking my view and bemoaning the fact that Southerby’s price estimates are ridiculous this always qualified by.

“ I wouldn’t give it house room if they paid me”.

They are a Dukes ransom but I like to see artists rewarded. I like looking at sculpture I could not dream of ever owning or having an environment to display it in. Some works appeal more than others, that’s art. I don’t know why I’m blathering on about something that isn’t there.

We went a walk into the woods behind the house. I didn’t take a tripod as the weather is dull and spitting rain. It was fine for a walk but not worth carrying more than a camera and a second lens for.

Most pictures today are in portrait orientation. That’s because trees live in woods that’s where we walked and trees are tall. They will enlarge with a click.  Still plenty of colour. I hope the Beech doesn’t get a disease. They may not give a good show but are a reliable standby. The Acers have been lacking this year. No worries red isn’t my favourite colour.

On our early walk the Fallow Deer are strolling here. The rut isn’t over yet as I’m woken by a couple of stags still collecting does’. They appear to have almost agreed to differ as they are wandering as a single herd. A hell of a racket they make whilst agreeing.

This is the aqueduct. I’m afraid I blew it as I don’t have any usable images of the structure. I have in the archives but my filing system is proving more secure than GCHQ.

        I don’t know the Duke of Devonshire but I do commend him for opening up the vistas that were created by his forbears. It’s not a cheap job managing nature in a sympathetic manner.  

     If this is his he deservers it. He is a busy man. A busy man that lets me and thousands of others enjoy what is his by birth. I like his new chopper. His old one was an awful blue job.

        Here is the aqueduct of course it didn’t need a tripod. Daft Adrian still had the polariser on from the beach walk. My Muppetry is truly is boundless.

Tomorrow I’m away home to Blackwell, I have to call at Harrison Cameras on the way…..just to check I’m not missing a bargain like a 580 or 600 strobe at half price.

Have fun.