Sights and Sounds One Hundred One

Day 5. Photo Ops!

The forecast for today was the best so far and i knew getting up early would give me the best chance to shoot some decent pictures of the castle. I decided i would get up early and walk into town by myself. It was a cool morning with an abundance of blue sky and wispy white clouds in the upper atmosphere. My mission for this holiday in a photography perspective is to get at least 5 photographs that i feel really happy with and i felt today i would need to get one of those shots. I walked up the high street and passed all the market vendors setting up for market day. I saw one guy unloading a palette of freshly baked pies, scones and sausage rolls. I walked up to the castle remains and began to think about my desired shot. The clouds weren't really doing what i wanted but i went ahead and set up for a long exposure. I got a couple of different compositions from various angles which i had scoped out the day before with Dusti.

 I also to this one from lower down without the ND filter. The distortion from the wide angle on the lens was pretty horrific but nothing a little Photoshop could straighten out.

I walked down the steps at the back of the castle and headed down to the river again. I know i have photographed this area a thousand times but the light was a little different so i thought i would just check it out. Plus i had my ND filters with me this time. I got this pretty decent shot of the viaduct. 

I also shot the row boats again from another angle. I liked the repeating patterns. After about two hours i decided to walk back to mum and dad's house so we could decide what to do with the day. The original plan was to go to Whitby on the caost which would have been pretty cool but i wasn't sure the about the weather and it's also a decent length drive. Instead we decided to go up in to the Yorkshire Dales and visit The Coldstones Cut. 

There is a really large quarry up near Pateley Bridge which recently had an art installation placed above it. Basically it's a stone viewing platform which lets you look over the Quarry in one direction or over Yorkshire in the other. We drove through the country roads and the sun was shinning and the clouds had great contrast and form. It was going to be good for pics. As we pulled up to park the car however mother nature put the brakes on and the heavens opened. Dust and i sat for about ten minutes before just going for it in the cold hard rain. Dad stayed in the car hoping for it to let up some.

The trail up was rocky and steep in parts but offered great views. The purple thistles poked their heads up from the pastures in every direction.

Dusti and i actually got to the top really quick and took a quick look and headed back down as the weather the got worse and we were getting soaked but as quickly as the rain came on as we reach near the bottom it stopped and we were greeted by my dad who was heading up. After a brief discussion we decided to go back up (thanks in part to my dad's knowledge of the weather patterns up there as he predicted the sun would be out for a while). I really glad we did as it really turned out pretty spectacular.  Here are a few images from the trail including some pretty cool panoramas (make sure to click on the images to see larger versions).

All in all the little hike was well worth it. Some lovely views of Yorkshire and some pretty trippy weather. We head to back to Buxton tomorrow and begin our Scottish adventure on Friday. So it's farewell to Yorkshire. It's always so nice to visit the place i was born.