Never let it be said that Stobblehouse won't brave the winter of Ole Blighty for the sake of art. :-)
Get the full gallery here.
Nikon D90 with Nikkor 85mm F:1.8
You wouldn't guess that all of these are of a small hedge next to a boring playground where nobody ever comes. You had to go very close to see all these details and colors. And the short depth-of-field and a slight contrast enhancement turns it into fairyland.
Get the full gallery here.
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Alex who knows this area well, said:
I would have thought, even if old corporation green, the steel structures in the playground would have caught the frost well too.
Not as much as you'd think. The cobwebs did though, here are some in the corporation-green fence around it.
BTW, it was very hard to keep the focus squatting on my toes for the hedge pictures (it was low), and with that super-shallow DoF.
It was also a very dull day, so I was grateful for the D90's high ISO. Even with ISO 1000 and F:1.8, I only got about 1/250 sec, which I needed with the longish lens and precarious poses.
Of course internal image stabilization would have helped a lot (since that lens doesn't have any), but Nikon has not seen fit to provide this. Dang their bollocks, I hope they change their mind soon.
Update: here is the place, photographed later. See what I mean?
29 comments:
You poor baby. Hope you didn't freeze your balls off going out into that frozen wasteland. ;-)
Beautiful Eolake thank you!
And a Happy New Year to you :)
It may be just a "small hedge next to a boring playground where nobody ever comes" but that's the blessing of your eye and heart. You see beauty where others see scrub.
I saw the title of this and thought that David Frost was interviewing another U.S. President, as in Frost/Nixon.
I've got politics on the brain.
Joe - I agree, there was me feeling really cold on Monday. I was on the beach, and the sun had just melted over The Penisula. It got so cold I had to put a pull over on over my T shirt, must have dropped to about 60F in a 5 minute period.
EO - I like how you keep the thorns in focus and soften the leaves of pink in 0288
I would have thought, even if old corporation green, the steel structures in the playground would have caught the frost well too.
Gregory - It helps that he lives in a forgotten backwater of the NW within shadow of t'mill. Bolton can be grim this time of year, and it invites you to seek out it's hidden beauty.
EO - Can you get out onto the moors for an hour or so? You may find some good shooting locations, or are you truly an urban photographer?
nicely done. I have to wait for it to actually stop snowing to get out there to photograph the effects...
"I like how you keep the thorns in focus and soften the leaves of pink in 0288"
Ah, thanks, dude. I was a bit concerned somebody might see that as a mistake, but I kept the pic in because I quite like it. It's more subtle that the rest is all.
Thank you all.
"or are you truly an urban photographer?"
I'm not sure, but I sure have leanings that way. I tend not to get too dang excited about nature photography.
Um...
I tend not to get too dang excited about nature photography.
See, that's where you're choice of words are wrong. A lot of the photos you share are the interface between man made and natural. Often you isolate one way or another, but you are choosing to find the nature in the city.
Getting up on the moors is not about getting pictures of skylarks and grouse, it's the patches of snow and frost delineated by dark lines of brook or drystone wall, it's about finding tangled gorse, wind weathered grit-stone and tight knots of heather. It's about cattle grids and barbed wire, and mostly about width, space as you can only feel (in Britain) on the convex curve of a fell or moor.
I digress.
Did you already have that fence, or did you run out and shoot some more? A stiffer frost would have coated the metal evenly, then melted off the sunward side.
I was thinking cobwebs when looking at the hedges, but then realized the rains would have smashed them in. We've got/had a web in the bottom of a rosemary bush, it caught the fog and dew wonderfully for many weeks. I even saw it after a few days of competent rain.
"A lot of the photos you share are the interface between man made and natural."
Yes!
I love interfaces, edges, inbetween-things. Tension there.
"Getting up on the moors is not about getting pictures of skylarks and grouse, it's the patches of snow and frost delineated by dark lines of brook or drystone wall"
Sounds good. Where are these "moors"?
"Did you already have that fence"
Yes, I photographed it 90 seconds before I found the hedge.
BTW, it was very hard to keep the focus squatting on my toes for the hedge pictures (it was low), and with that super-shallow DoF.
It was also a very dull day, so I was grateful for the D90's high ISO. Even with ISO 1000 and F:1.8, I only got about 1/250 sec, which I needed with the longish lens and precarious poses.
Of course internal image stabilization would have helped a lot (since that lens doesn't have any), but Nikon has not seen fit to provide this. Dang their bollocks, I hope they change their mind soon.
Hmm, from your end of the world, I would first think "Black Rod" area, towards the TV transmission tower, Winter Hill, that's the one. Looks more like fell land.
I would also head towards Huddersfield and that district, indeed you can't go wrong with Holmefirth, the location where they filmed "Last of the Summer Wine".
Heading South, into Derbyshire there is The Cat aka "The Cat and Fiddle". That's the main arterial from S Manchester to Notts/Derby area. You can get easy access around the Glossup area too.
Mam Tor, just above Castleton has a reasonable moorland feel. It's just beyond Chapel-en-le-Frith (pronounced "Chapel").
Holmfirth you can do by train, most of the others would require a car to get to. Actually Edale station is alongside Mam Tor, but looks a bit of a climb up a steep slope.
My moor land more proper was "The Horseshoe Pass" above/beyond Llangollen and the Denbighshire Moors towards Llyn Alwyn.
Thanks, guv!
I'm amazed at the English place names. They are so old none of them sound remotely like English.
Mam Tor, Glossup and Holmfirth sound the most English to me. Chapel-en-le-Frith definitely has a French sound, and probably dates to either Norman or Saxon.
Llangollen and Llyn Alwyn are obviously not English names, they aren't even in England so that is why. It's your actual Welsh that is.
According to Wikipedia:-
Mam Tor has remains of forts dating back to 1200BC.
Chapel was settled by Normans in C12th.
Llangollen (place of Collen) was C7th.
Llyn Alwen was built in the 60's or 70's I forget now, but Wikipedia is lacking there.
Holmefirth has it's origins in the C13th.
I really enjoyed the pictures! They are amazing, thank you for sharing them with me. I hope this new year brings you joy. Take care.
Love, Brooke
Dine billeder er ufatteligt smukke.
Mange hilsner
Dorthe og Thomas
I saw the whole gallery, they are magical...
You have that special talent to observe, when the most of us will not pay attention to all of those details.
I guess some fairies flew past here, and Eolake caught their traces.
Happy New Year!
Thanks for *braving* the cold to take these and sharing them w/us, Eo! Kind of addicting, I know!
:-)
I love how the frost enhances the detail of the leaves and...the color sure adds to the drab of this season. One would never know that you're not the most excited about nature photography, by these.
Looking forward to seeing more! :-)
Eolake said...
"I'm amazed at the English place names. They are so old none of them sound remotely like English."
I was thinking similar re: the names! lol! I *got* the French one. I was thinking Llangollen and Llyn Alwyn were Scottish...
Thanks for the info. on the names, Alex! Interesting...
It's like from an enchanted place,both full of mystery and magic beauty,they are so magnificent,The Light really loves you for guiding you and exposing for you such enchanting views.Thanks so much dear Eolake for sharing them to us in a such full of hopes year moment. With endless sympathy and admiration,always yours Paul Alexandru Cazacliu artmanro@yahoo.com P.S. I also really appreciate having you all around.Thanks so much again.
... I have photographed the hedge and the playground today and added the photo.
Dine billeder er ufatteligt smukke.
How come everybody else here is speaking English?
Anonymous said...
Dine billeder er ufatteligt smukke.
"How come everybody else here is speaking English?"
Probably because Eo is choosing to speak English...for your sake(?)...rather than his *mother tongue*...which can be nice to do, once in awhile, too. As with other people of the world, it's a nice form of *connection* with someone of the same country/culture to address them in same. I understand that.
If you have never been away from, nor born out of, an English-speaking culture, you might not appreciate this. And, yet, I can also understand your [seemingly?] being *put off*(?) by seeing a language that you do not know/understand(?) written where you are used to reading English.
"Dine billeder er ufatteligt smukke." simply says: "Your pictures are incredibly beautiful."
(close enough, Eo?) :-)
Yes, perfect translation.
Except "ufatteligt", while it does mean "incredibly" literally, is more rarely used in Danish, so it's stronger, is my feeling. "unbelievably" might be an alternative translation.
"eolake said...
Yes, perfect translation.
Except "ufatteligt", while it does mean "incredibly" literally, is more rarely used in Danish, so it's stronger, is my feeling. "unbelievably" might be an alternative translation."
Right. That was the part of the translation that I wasn't too sure about...as I don't use the lingo ever, anymore, and never much pondered the exact meaning, before, in relation to how it would be directly translated into English. :-)
Thanks, Eo. :-)
Well, translation is a bit of a black art at the best of times.
lovely! thanks for sharing...
reminds me of when we braved el nino in montreal! brrrr!
warmly,
dayu
Dayu,
I remember braving El Niño myself, but I did it a few hundred miles further South. That was the wettest winter I've seen, freeway closures, high tides flooding the main roads around the island.
I can only imagine how harsh it was with the cold as well.
For the Europeans amongst us, El Niño is a weather system that moves in from the Pacific bringing lots of wet.
Alex
Lovely photos as always!
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