Category: Outdoors

Cold stones cut..

At the very top of Greenhow Hill sits the highest art installation. Designed by Andrew Sabin in 2010, it offers a commanding view of the quarry and the surrounding countryside.

Despite Andrew Sabin saying otherwise, it kinda looks like female reproductive organs

As much as I hate the quarry, watching the diggers and dump trucks running around, moving rock to the crushers and the regular flow of trucks in and out. But go round the installation up one of the flowing circular paths, you get views back toward Pateley Bridge, menwith hill and Harrogate.

But that’s not all that’s here. There’s also the ruined lime kiln Toft Gate.

Toft Gate Lime Kiln is a largely intact piece of Nidderdale’s industrial heritage, and the first bit you see is the chimney, with its horizontal flue to the burner. Coal loaded in the base and limestone in the top. Designed like this to keep the fumes away from the workers. But young children still would have to go through the flue regularly to clean and retrieve valuable minerals from the walls.

I would of liked to try more drone work, but being a Sunday, too many people about at this local spot. Maybe when I’m on holiday it’ll be quieter during the week.

Rain & Reservoirs

Looks like the biblical rain we’ve recently had has gone someway to refilling the reservoirs..

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I’m surprised they’ve refilled this quick. Unfortunately, I could not see Grimwith, as I was up there, everything was choking on a layer of fog that was so thick, visibility was easily down to less than 10 meters.

You can see in these photos, the bottom image was taken at Thruscross, the top at Grimwith.

The Thruscross image, you can see the immense fog bank on the horizon.

It was like driving into a alien world, like an invisible border had been crossed. I’ll spare you the rants about drivers not having lights on.

But anyway, a few good shots had of Thruscross dam, some piloting experiences amoung the trees.

I do however want to get shots when this dam, and others are overflowing. Might need to wait a few more months for that though..

Panoramic shots

Trying out the panoramic feature of the DJI spark. Impressed, but not blown away by it.

I found it really easy Todo, with the drone doing all the hard work taking the images, a great mode for capturing the vista. However, I find myself unable to position the drone where I want, always seeming to stop short. Not a limit on the drone, but for some reason my brain always stops in that same position!

Wind.

The spark has continued to impress with its ability in windy conditions. I’ve flown it in some questionable wind speeds, bit being careful not to take it too far. So far, there’s only been one occasion where I’ve noticed it not being able to cope and that was on blubber houses crag. And by god, it was seriously windy.

Up til now, I have had no way of actually knowing the wind speed conditions, apart from looking on apps and the weather reports, so I’ve invested little more than a tenner for an anemometer from Amazon to measure the wind speed.

This will let me know exactly what the wind speed is, and honestly, for £12, it’s a good buy.

Thruscross

Spend the afternoon going round one of my favourite walks, thruscross.

This is by no means an easy walk round here, the first part if done in a clockwise direction is easy enough, but you soon get to a section that’s not easy to navigate and a difficult, almost scrambling section. There’s no path to speak of, just be careful where you put your feet, and look out for the directional markers.

The reservoir it’s self is incredibly low, I can’t ever remember seeing it this low. The bridge is now well above water in the previously submerged village of westend. The river washburn down to nothing more than a stream now. The last time the village was visible, was 1995, and now much of the visible bridge and houses have broken down, or covered by sludge. (Here’s a YouTube video showing the 1995 drought)

I shot a few clips on the way around, some of which I didn’t use in the above video, but these two I really did like and couldn’t just leave them.

And this one, I just loved the way the dam reflected in the still water.

Thruscross, with its mix of moorland exposed walks, thick dark woods, and muddy scrambles is always worth a walk.

A day on the river.

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Today was the one day a year Yorkshire water open the outfall of thruscoss dam, and allow the Washburn to flood down to fewston reservoir. The canoe club is not one to allow this opportunity to go to waste. And I’m not one to allow a photo op go either.

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the day was grey with a lot of cloud it really was dull and this meant there where a few issues with photography. Most of the river is under tree cover, which meant the lack of light was further limited. I had to really bump up the ISO to get the shutter speed I needed, and the fastest lens I had brought was a 2.8 17-50.

I switched to full manual and constantly tweaked the exposures. It was hard work. But well worth it as I feel I got some good shots, and I worked for them. I would of used a flash but felt it would be off putting to the canoeists.

The Long walk back.

More images of course available on my ipernity site: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/mikethompson/album/505491

Knaresborough

MooredI decided I would go to Knaresborough on Sunday, as I had nothing better to do.

So I hopped on the bus, paid my £3 return journey. I hadn’t been to Knaresborough for some time.

It was wonderfully quiet in the castle gardens. A few people out walking their dogs, a jogger or two, but generally it was eerily quiet.

I started shooting the already cliché views of Knaresborough, the ones you see time and time again, the viaduct, the view from the grounds. It was boring obvious stuff, and the only reason I had done it was for the sake of using the Sigma 10-20mm that often sits unloved in my bag.

I like the lens, but I forget how to use it, each lens has its quirks, and the 10 is no different. It tends to get high contrast wrong, and over exposes. I had forgotten this and a few shots the blowout was way to much and the image had to be rejected.

But I pressed on.

Blind Jack

Blind Jack was still sat on his bench, and I broke out the flash to photograph him. It isn’t often I use flash, but because of the strong back light that time in the morning, I had little choice. I think I may of frightened those people sat in Cafe Nero with the bright flash 🙂

I went down the long steps toward the waterfront, and walked along both ways, trying to inspire or motivate myself.

I found little there that did that.

18082013-DSC_9774So it was back up the long really steep steps to the castle. I was knackerd when I reached the top. I really must work on my levels of fitness..

At the top I saw a young couple, he had obviously done something to really annoy her, as she was blocking him at every move. So of course I took a picture 🙂
Not talking to you..From there it was a short walk around the really small market Knaresborough has on a sunday, there was a Magian putting on a show for the kids as part of Knaresborough Feva, and I took a few images of the crowd and Magian. Nothing spectacular or worthy though.

Back on the bus and away home. I suppose it was good to get out the house for a while.

More Knaresborough images at: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/mikethompson/album/492931