The rest of that week
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.