A few days ago we went up onto the moors not far from Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire to enjoy the heather as the sun started to sink over Dallow Moor. As you can see the heathers were in full bloom and they seemed to go on forever into the distance. Click the image for a larger version.
Heather on Dallow Moor
We recently spent a weekend on the Northumberland coast. This was shot an a walk along the beach near Dunstanburgh Castle in the late afternoon to get the appetite up for our evening meal. There are so many beautiful places along this coast from here up to Lindisfarne and beyond you get spoiled for choice as to where to go next.
A beach near Dunstanburgh Castle
Well I have been away for a couple of weeks, well six weeks in all broken into two trips. During this time I have acquired another camera, a Sony a7r with a Carl Zeiss FE 24-70 f4 lens. It has been great to be out walking with just this camera and lens instead of the full gear bag for a change. It is always difficult (for me at least) getting to grips with all the different functionality and menu system when I use a new camera. I’m just starting to feel comfortable using it and couldn’t believe how heavy my other “day out” one body one lens combo of a Nikon D300 with battery grip attached and a Nikon 18-300 lens was in comparison!
I took this shot of the River Skell as it passes through the Fountains Abbey estate near Ripon in North Yorkshire.
River Skell at Fountains Abbey.
A warm, lazy day in Ryedale in the North York Moors National Park. People were picnicking on the village green, lots, like us, were sitting outside tearooms under the shade of brollies. Sheep were wandering all over the village and claiming right of way on the road. These five decided it was time for a break and found a cool shady spot and did what everyone else was doing and chilled out.
Time for a break.
Another view (there are so many) of part of Byland Abbey through what I assume was either a door or window.
Byland Abbey through a wall!
A favourite place for a walk is Ripley Castle. There is a really peaceful lakeside walk as well as more formal walled gardens. The place is steeped in history and http://www.ripleycastle.co.uk/visitor_information/history as well as http://www.ingilbyhistory.ripleycastle.co.uk/700years.html are worth looking at for lots of information.
Lakeside at Ripley Castle
We were up in North Yorkshire at the weekend but didn’t get out and about as the Tour de France was in the area. We were effectively right in the middle of it as they came up from Leeds, into and right the way up Wharfedale to Wensleydale and up to Swaledale, eastwards then all the way down to Ripon and eventually Harrogate. There were reported to be 2.5 million people lining the route. Watching it on the TV I can well believe that figure. I am not a fan of crowds so stayed away, I don’t think I would have seen much and I certainly wasn’t willing to get up really early to walk miles to find a vantage point to see the tour flash by in a matter of seconds. It was a fantastic couple of days for Yorkshire and I enjoyed the race, well until Mark Cavendish crashed out on the finishing straight!
Anyway, really, I enjoy the peace and tranquility of the Dales such as can be experienced where I shot this view of Swaledale with it’s field barns where I could see the weather changing up at the head of the Dale.
Swaledale field barns
Not sure I would like to be on the wrong end of this owl’s bad mood. I think it is an Asian Eagle Owl, and he doesn’t look too amused.
Who you lookin’ at!
. . . . Sorry, I meant to say – Impressionist tulips! 🙂 More play time, last week I played around with HDR, and this week I played around with motion blur and paper textures to create a piece of digital art. I took a shot of a vase of tulips and by intentionally holding my camera at arm’s length and setting a three-second exposure I ensured plenty motion blur. I used LR5 to process the RAW file, increasing the highlights to blow the background and adjustment brushes with a negative Clarity value to further soften the image. I then used Photoshop CC to finish off and my layer stack is shown below the picture.
Water colour, tulips
Layer stack
The “tulips” layer blend mode is set to ‘Overlay’, the Curves adjustment layer blend mode is set to ‘Luminosity’ to prevent colour shift when adding an ‘S’ curve and the top two adjustment layers are set to ‘Norma’l blend mode.
We recently paid another visit to Byland Abbey in the North York Moors National Park. We had been to Helmsley earlier and called in on the way back to indulge ourselves at the tea room next to the Abbey . . . . and we did . . . . yummm!
See a little bit about what brought this huge Abbey to this state.
Byland Abbey ruins
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