Places and travel

Winter in Dalby Forest

landscape, Nature, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Last year I was able to get some beautiful photos of the snowfall in Dalby forest, and somehow managed to not post them, so in time for this Christmas here are a few of the beautiful scenes that greeted us as the snow fell.

  • Dalby Forest snowfall 1, ©Helen Jones 2024, All rights reserved
  • Dalby Forest snowfall 2, ©Helen Jones 2024, All rights reserved
  • Dalby Forest snowfall 3, ©Helen Jones 2024, All rights reserved
  • Dalby Forest snowfall 4, ©Helen Jones 2024, All rights reserved
  • Dalby Forest snowfall 5, ©Helen Jones 2024, All rights reserved
  • Dalby Forest snowfall 6, ©Helen Jones 2024, All rights reserved
  • Dalby Forest snowfall 7, ©Helen Jones 2024, All rights reserved

Within a stone’s throw… – A ‘Scenes within a scene’ project

Durham, landscape, Nature, plants, Projects, Scenes within a scene, wildlife, Yorkshire

This is a sub-project of my ‘Scenes within a scene’ project. ‘Within a stone’s throw’ effectively started itself because sometimes, thanks to my arthritis, I can’t walk very far at all. Thus these photos are all made within a few steps (a stone’s throw) of my landscape view. If anything, it even more effectively shows why it’s worth slowing down and observing every detail of these beautiful places.

I’m always surprised at how much more you observe when slowing down and trying to look for photographic subjects, especially the smaller flowers and plants. It also tends to be the best way to see wildlife, as many animals, birds and insects hide away and slowly come out when we stay quiet and they decide I’m probably harmless! I also photograph using the car as a hide, and this can be very effective for photographing birds and animals that have grown used to ignoring parked cars. The moorland birds were all photographed using the parked car as a hide.

I created the composite images in Lightroom’s Print module, using a variety of user templates.

  • Within a stone’s throw – Upper Teesdale, near Cow Green Reservoir
  • Within a stone’s throw – Upper Teesdale stream
  • Within a stone’s throw – North Yorkshire Moors

Autumn in the Yorkshire Dales – ‘Through the year’ project

landscape, Nature, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

These are some photos from a morning visit to the Yorkshire Dales.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

  • Birches catching the early morning light in Coverdale
  • Langstrothdale
  • Stone barn
  • Coverdale
  • Yorkshire stone barn
Light on the rowan tree

Autumn crocuses at the Yorkshire arboretum – ‘Through the year project’

plants, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some beautiful autumn crocuses at the Yorkshire arboretum

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Summer on the North Yorkshire moors – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some early morning photos of the grouse on the North Yorks moors.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Summer at Bempton cliffs – ‘Through the year project’

Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some early morning visits to Bempton cliffs produced some beautiful lighting on the seabirds that nest there. The gannets particularly are wonderful photographic subjects and the amazing light allowed me to add to my series of chiaroscuro and bokeh images.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Summer in the meadows – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, Uncategorised, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some photos from some East Yorkshire meadowland in June.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

There were some beautiful Banded demoiselle damselflies in the riverside meadows of the Derwent, catching the mayflies.

I also had some fun with multiple exposures of the meadow flowers.

Spring on the Moorland – ‘Through the year’ project

Creative, Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

I’ve been working on various projects over the last few months, including themed photographs, and more creative photography ideas.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

These are a few of the photos I’ve taken from moorland days out:

I also love working with backlighting and have been experimenting with taking multiple exposure photos:

Lark ascending

I loved silhouetting this skylark against the sunlit sky as it rose up above me, but also tried combining several photos in a multiple exposure shot against the light, which shows the beautiful feathers, and the movement of the bird:

lark ascending sequence
cottongrass multiple exposure

This is a multiple exposure of the cottongrass, blowing in the wind, and again backlit by the low sun. Below is a backlit photo of a snipe, taken early morning on the North Yorkshire Moors.

backlit snipe

Bluebell woods – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some photos from a recent visit to some beautiful bluebell woods here in Yorkshire.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Spring at Moorlands nature reserve – ‘Through the year project’

plants, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some rhododendron photos from moorlands, a nearby Yorkshire wildlife trust reserve

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Spring in the woodland – ‘Through the year’ project

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some photos from Forge valley and the nearby woodland.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Yorkshire Arboretum in Autumn – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some autumn photos from the Yorkshire Arboretum. The colours have been spectacular over the last few weeks, and it’s also always lovely to see the birds here too.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Pinks
Leaves

Forge Valley in autumn – ‘Through the year’ project

Nature, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

These are some of the images from a recent visit to Forge Valley. The trees were alive with small woodland birds, and a wren was creeping along the fence searching for insects in the moss and rotting wood. A lot of the birds search for food and insects in dead trees, and a nuthatch was zinging backwards and forwards for food that had been put out on the bird tables. The nuthatches tend to appear very fast, and the main sign they have arrived is the other birds scattering away from that very sharp beak! The wren also investigated the fungus growing on a dead tree for insects, which made for a nice picture as it was silhouetted against the soft light filtering though the trees. On the ground a bank vole was hoovering up any food that had been dropped, and a few grey squirrels were checking out the bird feeders. We heard a few jays in the deeper woodland, but they didn’t put in an appearance whilst we were there. A very relaxing way to spend a couple of hours!

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Blue-tit – autumn in the woodland
autumn in the woodland
Wren – autumn in the woodland

Beamish

Durham, People

I took a number of photos at Beamish museum on the day of their Reliability run (a 150 mile drive through Durham and North Yorkshire for vintage cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles). Some of the photos looked best in Monochrome (usually to simplify the photo where the background had distracting bright colours), and I used a sepia tone on these to work with the vintage theme. With some of the photos I wanted to keep the colour, but I processed them to look like old coloured photos (a similar technique to one I used for my NYMR wartime event photos). There was a huge amount to see, and with the Beamish ticket allowing you to revisit for free during the same year, I think we’ll be back to take more photos at some of their other events.

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Spring flowers at the Yorkshire Arboretum – ‘Through the year’ project

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

I spent some time last week photographing the spring flowers appearing at the Yorkshire Arboretum.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Some beautiful backlit snowdrops
A beautiful carpet of crocuses
Snowdrop photographed through the foreground flowers
Backlit crocus

Autumn woodland – ‘ Through the year’ project

Creative, landscape, Nature, Places and travel, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

A weekend of wildlife

Nature, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some photos from a weekend watching wildlife. We went to Studley Royal for dawn to watch the deer there. This fallow stag silhouetted against the dawn sky was my favourite deer shot.

Fallow stag at dawn, Studley Royal

Early mornings in autumn often bring mists over the lake here and the swans are also beautiful to capture reflected in the lake, as well as the reflections of the autumn colours in the water.

Canada Goose in autumn reflections, Studley Royal

Swan reflections, Studley Royal

Swan reflections, Studley Royal

Another interesting place to visit at this time of year is Spurn point and the surrounding area for autumn migrants, and other birds. Late afternoon I spotted this barn owl hunting in the low sun, with the light shining through its feathers.

Barn owl hunting at dusk, East Yorkshire

This little egret flying across the low sun was my last photo of the day.

Little egret flying

York Balloon Fiesta 2018

Yorkshire

We had great weather for the weekend of the 2018 York Balloon Fiesta, although it was a little too windy for the afternoon mass balloon launches on the Saturday and Sunday. The weather was clear and bright for the morning launches though, with a light mist rising off the Knavesmire at the start and bright blue skies to photograph the balloons against later on. 

 

The hot air balloons landed out near Holtby, to the east of York.

Saturday afternoon was too windy for most of the balloons to take off, but one intrepid pilot did take off and landed on the Yorkshire Wolds, near Fridaythorpe.

In the evenings the Night-glow event was as popular as ever, with tethered balloons on the Knavesmire lighting their burners in time to the music.

All in all it was a treat for photographers, and seemed to be enjoyed by all, although the people in this balloon might have wished for a slightly less drunken angle on their landing!