View From The Roadside

Burnt, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

This shot is of the charred remains of the burnt out “Lunways Inn”, on the A33 near Winchester. It was also called the “Roman Post” in light of the various bits of Roman history nearby.
It was burnt out in an arson attack a few years ago, and it was the remains of that fire that I took pictures of. I drove past the site on Monday, partly to check if it was still there, still fenced off, to discover it was gone, razed to the ground. I see on the web that there are plans to build a Gospel Hall on the site.

Dunstanburgh Castle from the Beach
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Time pressures mean I havn’t had a chance to update this in a while, so this will be a little condensed. We spent the week visiting Hadrian’s Wall, Durham, some days up in Northumberland, including Holy Island and finally some waterfalls in Durham. I won’t go through pictures from everywhere, just a select few.

First up is Dunstanburgh Castle on the Northumberland coast. It was designed as a challenge to the Royal palace at Bamburgh Castle by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who had aspirations at becoming king himself. Today all that remains are the curtain wall and Gatehouse on the south side, and the tower in the other corner. Having joined English Heritage a few days earlier at Hadrian’s Wall, we took advantage to spend some time inside the castle before it closed. It was getting late enough that we were not going to be going anywhere else before sunset, leaving us with the castle

The “classic” shot of Dunstanburgh Castle is actually of the other side, showing the impressive Gatehouse and the long wall on that side. It wasn’t an option for us as the sun was already past the castle, leaving it all in the shade. We ventured off to the side, up a hill, but that left the castle lost in any picture, too spread out and completely disconnected from the sea that is so much a part of it. We had no choice but to head back along the golf course to where we had parked the car, leaving us with only the lone tower visible of the castle.

This shot was taken on the little beach as we decided where to go as the sun started setting. It was taken using a new technique I’ve adopted. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s new to me. Normally, I just use the center auto focus point. With this technique, I put the lens in manual mode, but turn on all the AF points. They will still light up if they detect a focus, but won’t be able to change the lens. This lets me make sure the foreground and background are in some sort of focus, or as much as possible anyway.

Lindisfarne Priory Arch
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Next up is the arch at Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island. I do seem to have a thing about towers or columns, and this is another of those “looking up” shots. The clouds make this one for me. We took a good few shots around the Priory, and met some English Heritage people there who were photographers themselves, which made for an interesting chat and a picture we’d not have seen, this one. However, the sun was still high and bright in the clear sky, so we decided we’d make time to come back after visiting the Castle when the sun was maybe more favourable. This wasn’t quite as easy as it might be, Holy Island is only connected by a causeway that’s only usable at low tide. We did get back, the sun was a little better, and I took this shot, which wasn’t really there earlier.

Low Force Waterfall (Upper)
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Last up for now is a picture from the waterfalls we visited on the last day. While I have photographed falling water before, I’d not done it with ones with any real amount of water in them. The pictures that resulted were funny and interesting. It was a good day for it, overcast and a little dull. That slight lack of light would help for any long exposure shots that work well with moving water, though I made sure to take shots with very short shutter speeds too, to freeze the water in motion.

The bigger waterfalls, like High Force didn’t really work for me. The things that make them so good in real life, the size the sound, wasn’t really there in the pictures. It was still great just seeing them, but still a touch disappointing not to get some great pictures too. However, we also visited the Low Force series of much smaller waterfalls downstream. The pictures from there do a much better job of capturing the effect of the flowing water falling over the rocks, even if they aren’t anywhere near as spectacular. This one is of the first real fall, which is only of a few feet or more. I’ve cropped the picture into this more panoramic shape to highlight the waterfall and remove some sky and water that were just distracting from the subject and adding nothing.

Penshaw Monument Corner
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Our first day of photography was around the Newcastle/Sunderland area. We started off with the Penshaw Monument outside Sunderland. The weather was great for this sort of photography, though the wind was never far away. The Monument seemed a reasonably popular place for people to come and climb the hill and admire the view. It was here we met the first of a number of people who were happy to just stop and chat, not the sort of thing that happens that often down South, but seemingly perfectly normal up North.

After we’d finished with the Monument, we took a scenic route through Sunderland and on to Marsden. Marsden Rock was, at one time, an arch much like Durdle Door. The current Rock, the remains after the arch fell in ‘97 is still an impressive sight, and covered in sea birds at this time of year. The midday sun, combined with an incoming tide, limited the photographs I wanted to take here. I did experiment with a new focusing technique here though, more of which later.

Millennium Bridge Curve
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

After the beach, and a detour for petrol, we headed into Newcastle proper. We had some lunch at the Life Center, where the strange architecture was just made for James to photograph, before heading down to the riverside. I have no idea of the why’s or how’s, but within a small stretch of the Tyne where Newcastle meets Gateshead, there are three road bridges, three rail bridges and a footbridge. There is also a fairly new walkway along the river which makes for a lovely walk. We naturally photographed the bridges and the river, though shots of the famous green bridge (you know the one) were hard to properly come by, what with a great big ship being parked underneath.

We took a little diversion there to go see the caste that gives the place it’s name (no great pictures thanks to a very strong sun in just the wrong place) and Earl Gray’s statue, he of the tea fame, before continuing along the river to the “new” Gateshead Millennium Bridge, or the “blinking eye” bridge as it’s also known. It’s certainly an interesting looking sight, it’s futuristic appearance matching the nearby Sage theatre as much as it contrasts with the old Baltic Flour Mills. It’s all curves and arches and bends, and this shot just seemed to capture all that so well.

Angel Of The North
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

On our way home, we did make one final stop at the iconic Angel Of The North. The sheer size of it is what grabs your attention, with those huge wings. Thats when the wind catches you, and you begin to image what that wind must mean for those wings. On a nice evening as the sun was setting, there were still a handful of people milling about, not ideal for a photographer who likes to take shots without people in them when at all possible. I did get a little caught out with the other shot, thinking I had the tip of the wing hard against the right hand side, when the picture later showed I hadn’t. Putting more space in front of the angel, on the left, would have been better. This shot, taken from further back, was more of a “just-in-case” shot in the rapidly failing light, in case I didn’t get one with nobody in it. As it happens, I did, but like a lot of big things on a photograph, the lack of scale let it down. The people in this shot actually help add that scale and help give some impression of the size of the thing.

I spent last week on a bit of a photographic holiday in the Durham/Newcastle/Northumberland area. I’d never ventured quite that far north before, though I got close at my last race, at Croft. I went up with James Hodgson whos parents live near Durham and so could guide me around the interesting places.
We had wonderfull weather for the trip, lovely sunny days most of the time. We packed quite a lot into our week, from Newcastle city center to Hadrians Wall to Holy Island and almost everything in between. Over the next few days I’ll be going through the many photographs I took and adding posts here about them as I do. I was lucky I had a Bank Holiday to recover from it all!