Category: Photography

Rain & Reservoirs

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

2018-12-27_03-17-36

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!

Power of the edits..

While I always like to process images as little as possible, if at all, some times it’s a requirement of every shot.

Here, for instance this shot taken from my Spark. It lacks depth and colour. Visually, it just didn’t stand out.

However, a little time spent in the Google Photos editor tweaking exposure, clarity, saturation and blacks improve things.

Shadows have a bit more depth, the colours are less muted but still hold the autumn setting.

You don’t take a photograph, you make it

Ansel Adams

So, don’t be afraid to play with the sliders, just don’t overdo it, and keep it realistic and you’ll do just fine.

Toft Gate Lime Kiln

So it was a trip to the top of Greenhow hill today. Lord was it cold and windy. But the little Spark did a sterling effort of dealing with the wind.

Up at the top of Greenhow hill is the old Lime kiln at Toft Gate.

The kiln was loaded with limestone through the top and with coal through the rectangular openings in the end and side walls. A stone lined flue runs from the kiln up a gentle slope to the chimney base in the distance. Life must have been hard up here. I’m suffering just with the cold wind, I hate to think what it was like being up here, mining the ore and loading it, moving the spoil, let alone the children that would have had to clean out the long flue leading to the chimney.

Theres plenty of grassy hillocks and curious dimples in the landscape between Toft Gate and Grassington – many of these are remnants of the limestone industry. People would mine the area, and transport it out to the lime-kiln where it would be burnt and heated to release the quicklime, which was then used in the local farms for fertiliser.

I decided to try the editor built into the DJI Go app, and it’s not bad really. Its most useful if your away from the main editing system you use, and just need a quick and dirty instagram upload or something, it wont really replace a dedicated editing software, but its intended use its not too bad. Once you play around with it and learn what it can, and can’t do as the information on using it is a little thin, it can yeild some good results. The auto create function can be a little odd, but that’s what you get for a random selection..