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A Long Winter
Landscapes to help me through the long winter.
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Dovestone October 2021
The Dovestone reservoir and valley are favourite haunts in Autumn and, when I visited earlier this week, I realised it has been almost a year to the day since I was here before. As I live in the area, that seems to be quite surprising until you realise just how popular the place has become in the last year and a half, with congested roads, gridlock on the approach to the limited parking area, let alone people lighting BBQs in an already endangered area that was much damaged in the fires of 2018. Even the nearby village of Greenfield has been clogged up with visitors, so I kept to the…
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Somerford Park Farm International Horse Trials August 2021
I’d like to photograph sports more often. It presents different challenges from my usual landscape, nature and people photography. Within an hour’s drive are the International Horse Trials, held at Somerford Park Farm each August, though they were cancelled in 2020. I’ve been there twice before and each time I learn something new, hopefully improving my skills with technique and timing. I was happy to be able to go there again in August 2021 and am still sorting out and processing some of the images. Below are some of my favourites so far. The first two are of Olympic Champion, Oliver Townend, riding Tregilder and (I think) Cooley Masterclass…how those…
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Media City and Salford Quays
Salford Quays has been a favourite urban subject of mine for many years but, to my surprise this week, I discovered it’s five years since I visited the Quays for an evening of photography. This time, like the last, it was a trip out with friends and colleagues from the Oldham Photographic Society. About fifteen members turned out and we had a lovely social occasion, seeing each other “in the flesh” for the first time in sixteen months. The weather was warm and balmy and the light was pleasant, though not as dramatic as we had hoped. Nevertheless, it was a super evening and the area is always worth another…
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Banded Demoiselle
It’s a few years since I was able to get near enough to photograph a banded demoiselle, in good enough light and with little enough wind. Yesterday, for once, my planned photo shoot bore fruit. I’d arranged to meet a fellow photographer “early” at Reddish Vale Country Park. Early for him meant arrival at 5:30am. Early for me meant I struggled to get there by 6:15am! However, the temperature was still low enough for the insects to be quite docile and we spent a good half hour with a couple of male demoiselles before they decided they’d had enough of our company and flew away. We moved on to dung…
