Places and travel

The Kelpies, Falkirk

Places and travel, Scotland

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I visited the Kelpies some time ago and took some daytime photos, but have wanted for a long time to return to see the Kelpies floodlit. I finally got the chance this weekend. These beautiful sculptures, by Andy Scott, are named after a mythical water horse, but are based on the heavy horses used to pull the canal barges on the Forth and Clyde canal. They are floodlit from dusk, with internal lighting that changes through a range of colours from turquoise to gold, to green and red.  I captured the photos from a short while after sunset through until dark, catching the sky as it it changed through varying shades of blue to violet.

 

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Places I visit for photography

Nature, Places and travel, wildlife, Yorkshire

I’ve added some new pages to my website giving a bit of information about some of the places I visit for my photography. So far I’ve written about Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, Bempton Cliffs, the Farne islands, Donna Nook, Forge Valley and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, but I’ll be adding more about both local sites in Yorkshire, and some of the longer journeys we make to Northumberland or Scotland, and some of the sites we visit there.

Forge Valley

Forge Valley woods, North Yorkshire

Studley Royal, North Yorkshire

Farne islands, Northumberland

Bempton cliffs, East Yorkshire

Donna Nook, Lincolnshire

North Yorkshire Moors Railway

Whitby ‘Illuminated Abbey’ and ‘Fountains by Floodlight’

People, Yorkshire

Some photos from the ‘Illuminated Abbey’ event at Whitby Abbey and ‘Fountains by Floodlight’ event at Fountains Abbey. I’ve been to Fountains by Floodlight before and they had their wandering ‘monk’ back again, posing inscrutably in the ruins (whilst always giving a friendly smile to the odd worried child!) – it did bring back memories of last year’s favourite moment when a small boy asked him which Jedi knight he was! Whitby had wandering bodysnatchers and Dracula characters (believe me, it was too cold to be wandering round in a habit!), and projected bats and cobwebs on the ruins, which I would have happily lived without, as the ruins are imposing and mysterious enough in their clifftop position with the clouds drifting over the moon.  The ruins were floodlit in ever-changing shades of crimson, gold, violet, aqua, midnight blue, emerald and magenta, though the ducks on the tarn near the abbey seemed a little less than impressed by the colour display!

 

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Railway in Wartime

People, Places and travel, Yorkshire

Every year the North Yorks Moors Railway hosts a ‘Railway in Wartime’ event at its stations. Grosmont had a Battle of Britain Mk2 Spitfire in the carpark and dancing on the platform; Goathland was protected by the Home Guard; Levisham became ‘Le Visham’ a French railway station occupied by German Wehrmacht and Feldgendarmarie, with radar and anti-aircraft battery next to the station, and Pickering hosted visits by Churchill, wartime vehicles etc, and had a number of dodgy characters selling stockings (and some rather dubious silk garments!) from suitcases on the main street. An amazing number of people dress up and join in, and the challenge for photographers is that there is just too much to photograph!

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Autumn flowers and insects

plants, Yorkshire

In September I visited a couple of the beautiful gardens we have in Yorkshire – Newby Hall Gardens and Parceval Hall Gardens. There were so many beautiful subjects to photograph – some incredibly colourful autumn flowers and lots of insects – Peacock, Comma and Red admiral butterflies and dragonflies. Hard to know where to point my camera, but these are my efforts to capture the colour.

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The Howardian Hills AONB photo competition and the Yorkshire Arboretum

Nature, plants, wildlife, Yorkshire

I was delighted to win the ‘Best image taken at the Yorkshire Arboretum’ in the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Photo competition with the above image of a backlit Acer, taken at the Yorkshire Arboretum last October. I received a year’s membership of the arboretum, which is a wonderful prize. The Arboretum is an area of parkland, lakes and ponds covering 120 acres, situated next to Castle Howard. There are so many photo opportunities around the calendar with spring and summer wildflower meadows, spring blossom, rhododendrons and azaleas, and trees from around the world, possibly at their most beautiful in Autumn. There’s also a fair amount of wildlife to be found in the arboretum, so I’ve been very much enjoying my membership, and some of my many recent photos are displayed below.

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