Rievaulx Terrace & Abbey

Another trip out. The morning found us exploring the moors.  We then headed to Rievaulx Terrace which as well as some interesting architecture, has some dramatic views down the hill and through the trees to the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey.

We took some shots of the temples built as items of interest by Thomas Duncombe the landowner.  The sun climbed and illuminated Abbey below, so both Caroline and myself took some shots of the Abbey using our medium format gear.

We then popped down to the Abbey itself to visit their tea room for lunch and photograph the dramatic ruins from close up.

The sun had gone in but the dark clouds with some glimpse of blue had potential, so we carried on carrying the medium format gear, tripod and Nikon SLR with the 12-24mm f/4 DX (APS-C) around the Abbey ruins in hope.

At the end of our visit we walked slowly back to the car, when I saw the hills in the distance slowly becoming illuminated in light.

Looking at the clouds I guessed that in about 5 minutes the break in clouds would illuminate the Abbey.  Quickly finding a good position I had spotted early, I set the tripod and Medium format camera up.

As the golden light reached the Abbey I quickly metered the scene with my spot meter and two shots, one with Fuji Velva 50 and one Ilford FP4.

I quickly repositioned and shot two more frames before the sun when in again.

With that we packed in and headed home.

 

Whitby Goth Week

A day out at Whitby.
It’s the start of Whitby Goth Week and I am not sure but the Photographers may just out number the Goths.

As always the outfits are fantastic and whole family’s get involved.

With so many Photographers, Goths, Steam Punks & Emo’s not to mention lots of bikers clad in black leather (not us this time thou), I am not quite sure what the ‘Normal’ holiday makers made of it all!

If you are going to Goth week during March or later on this year in the autumn, remember to treat everyone with respect.

Ryedale Folk Museum

Today we had a trip across the North Yorkshire Moors and spent several hours at the Ryedale Folk Museum.

William Hayes’s (1871-1940) Photographic Studio has been moved there. It’s the oldest daylight lit studio surviving. His studio still has his large format camera with 7.5 inch portrait lens and his dark room is also there.

The studio was set up in 1902 in Monkgate, York, and moved to Hutton-le-Hole in 1911.

In many ways its not much different todays studios, a selection of cloth backgrounds, props, but instead of flash, a side wall of glass and a glass ceiling.

The Museum opened in 1964, and the original exhibits comprised of the private collections of Wilfred Crossland, Raymond Hayes and Bertram Frank.

 

Evening Meal

If you are ever near Lastingham, try the Blacksmiths Arms, good beer and fine food.

 

Game terrine starter, belly pork, black pudding and a bottle of fine red wine. Glad I was not having to drive.

 

If you are ever in the area do pop in to the church.  St Mary’s has a wonderful crypt well worth a visit.

a long weekend of photography

We have decided to have a long weekend of photography.

We will be spending Friday to Monday in North Yorkshire and we will be visiting as many local National Trust and English Heritage properties as we can.

For you gear heads we will be packing just two Digital SLR’s with a Nikkor 12-24mm f/4 DX on one and a 24-70mm f/2.8 on the other.  We will also be packing our Medium Format Kit (Hassleblad) and a good heavy tripod.

I’ll be blogging when I can using WordPress for iOS using the iPhone, but due to the very rural nature of the area’s we will be stopping in, Wi-Fi and even a mobile phone signal for voice, never mind data, will be extremely limited, so i’ll be updating these posts during the following week and uploading more photographs.

Friday consisted of a trip to Nunnington Hall, a rather fine country house, with lots of willing Peacocks all trying to impress.

I had a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 on the camera but a long lens was fortunately not necessary as the birds were extremely tame. In fact one Peahen walked up so close I thought she was going to peck the lens.

This weekend will also be the time I’ll be testing GPS4Cam. A piece of iOS software for the iPhone which Chris Bennett uses and has reviewed on his site.

I’ll possibly not get round to posting many photographs until Monday so I’ll update these posts then.

Posted using WordPress for iOS

Updated

Happy Birthday Mac OS X

OS X - Ten Years Ols

I just found out that its the Mac OS X Operating System’s 10th Birthday today.

Its certainly come a long way.  While at work I use Windows, Solaris, Redhat and AIX, at home I stopped using Windows as my primary operating system not long after Windows XP was released.

Working my way through various versions of Linux before finally settling happily on Fedora Linux.

Well that changed when I decided to buy Caroline a Wedding Present of an Apple Powerbook.  OS X was just so easy to use, never getting in the way and just letting you get on with the work at hand.

While Apple users may like to claim Mac’s never crash this is not true but they certainly do not crash often, certainly an improvement on Windows, NT4, 2000, XP and 2003.

Through what little I have used Windows 7 it to looks very good now but I think i’ll stick with OS X for a few more years.

On the road again

Well, really starting to feel much better now.

Last Saturday we took the big GS out for a spin, just a quick hour long trip to get some quilting fabric for Caroline.

It really exhausted me but there was no problems.

Wednesday I was feeling really good, nearly normal in fact so we commuted into work on the bike.

Boy did that feel good. A lovely day, passing all the cage (car) drivers stuck in traffic.

Today was back in the car. Very tired and not up to riding the bike.

Still the doctor did say 6-12 weeks to get over this, we are half way now and I am so much better.

Might just have to plan a weekend motorcycle trip for the summer, that will be something to look forward to.

To all you motorcyclists out there:

Keep it sticky side down.

 

Posted using iOS WordPress from my Apple iPhone

HDR – Love & Hate

Many photographers have a Love & Hate relationship with HDR, I like it when its used with a degree of subtlety but even I have sometimes gone over the top when I feel the image suits it.

Interestingly the general public tend to like HDR more then photographers.

This is about as over the top as I go, but felt the image suited it.

If your interested in HDR check out the website stuckincustoms.com, some very dramatic examples and tutorials.

English Heritage – iOS app

We are members of both the National Trust and of English Heritage.

Now the National Trust have for some time had an excellent free iOS app for finding places to visit nearby and getting information about them.

Finally English Heritage are also joining the 21st Century (that’s nearly funny) and are releasing their own app, due in April.

Hope it’s free like the National Trust App.

WordPress for iOS

Just a quick note to let you know an update for WordPress for iOS has been released

Using it now to post this. Interface is improved and I look forward to trying it out in anger.  The previous version did crash fairly often and once even lost me a post that I had previously posted.