My work has led to me visiting Cumbria almost weekly, a long drive but with stunning scenery, especially if doing the A66 through the mountain ranges, going by Lake Bassenthwaite and Skiddaw mountain over to Cockermouth, Workington & Whitehaven. I’ve taken a fair few photographs along the way over the past 2 years. Today was my last journey over there, and because I ended the day in Penrith had 3 choices of routes to come home. The A66, the less scenic A69, or the A686 across the pennines, a road I’ve only done the once, way back. I remembered a couple of scenic parts of that road, and the mad hairpin turns you have to do going up the moor, which at it’s zenith is over 1000m above sea level. It was a lovely sunny day so I decided to do it one more time. I took a few shots on my way home of course 🙂
Langwathby Bridge, over The River Eden
View over to the west
Close up on the treeGoing down the other side, looking East.
No pieces of reflective water, was hoping for a still day on Lake Bassenthwaite as Skiddaw reflected in it is awesome but I’ve done one in the past so that’s OK.
Had to work in Cumbria again today, 7 hours driving in total, so a tiring day. I didn’t have time really to stop and do good photo’s but I pulled off on the A66 to get a shot of the bit of sunlight that was shining on the snowy mountain.
That was it as far as sunshine went! Loved the sky today though, interesting clouds for most of the day.
I got home really late from work yesterday, as I had my last appointment at 4pm in Seascale, which is on the west coast of Cumbria, and a 3 hour drive home for me. Then had dinner, did more work bits, and was too knackered to do a post. But I did take a couple of pictures on my travels westward. Hard to choose between the house and the horse for the daily shot, think the house is slightly better composition so I’ll go with that one.
This first shot was taken in the morning on my way over to Brampton, and the sun was still low in the sky, I pulled over when I saw the horse in the field with the houses behind all sunlit and shady. Ideally I’d like the horse to the right a bit, but the interesting houses wouldn’t have been in the shot.
I had 3 clients to visit in Workington, also on the coast further up from Seascale, and when I went to the last lady, I saw some interesting tower tops behind a row of houses, so after I finished I drove up the road to find out what it was.
I googled it and it’s an old mine pit called the Jane Pit, which according to visitcumbria.com
” is a 19th century coal mine built by Henry Curwen, lord of the manor in Workington. It contains the best surviving example of the ornate castellated style of colliery architecture that was a feature of the large landowner involvement in the Cumbrian coal industry during the nineteenth century. The site is a scheduled ancient monument. Jane Pit operated until the mid-1870s. The mine closed in 1875 when pumping was discontinued after the sea broke into the mine entombing 100 miners”. Poor sods.
Lastly, and my picture of the day. I couldn’t find the clients house when I got to Seascape, so parked up and tried to phone him for directions, of course it was engaged, so ended up having my appointment manager in Manchester getting on google earth to find it and direct me to it! The wonders of modern technology. While I was waiting I noticed the sun lighting up this little cottage in the trees under a moody sky, so took a shot. Now to start on todays pictures 🙂
Well I missed last Sunday as I only had 4 pictures, and as a result have now got too many, so lots to look at this week 🙂
The weather has not been kind, but I have had some long journeys to see clients, so have come across some quite lovely views, and my little Nikon S1 has been doing a cracking job. Last week I went to North Yorkshire again, and the sun was arguing with the clouds to see who would win out.
North Yorkshire~Nikon S1North Yorkshire~Nikon S1
On my way back I went through a village called Ravensworth and came across this ruined castle.The remains here date from the 14th Century, although it’s thought there has been a castle there since Norman times. The chap who built this one was Henry Baron FitzHugh. n 1391 he enclosed 200 acres (81 ha) around the castle, creating a park.The castle started to be pulled down in the 16th century, and the stone was used for other buildings in the area.
hmm blew the sky out a bit in t hat 2nd shot but I like the composition so all is not lost.
Last weekend Phil worked on Sunday and I spent a little while trying to get some decent shots of the birds in my garden, through the front window as it was too cold out.
I tried to get a decent shot of the Lady Robin too, but she’s a bit more bashful and quicker to jump back into the bushes out of sight as soon as she’s got something from the feeder.
This week I had a 3 hour drive over to the west go the country, visiting clients in Whitehaven on the West coast, Penrith,Dalston,and Kewick. Lots of long driving times, I set off at 7.15am and eventually got home at 6.30pm, but was hugely compensated by seeing the mountains and Lake Bassenthwaite on my travels. It’s been quite a while since I had to go there, and it was lovely to visit old photo haunts and take new ones with snow in place.
duvet cover :)~Nikkon S1Cloud cover~Nikkon S1light and shade~Nikkon S1black sheep & white~Nikkon S1Blue sky Mountain~Nikon S1Skiddaw & Lake Bassenthwaite~Nikon S1Lake Bassenthwaite~Nikkon S1View from my clients front driveway~Skiddaw~Nikkon S1
That was the photo highlight of the week really. I am very impressed with what the tiny Nikkon S1 can do, especially with the 11-27mm lens that it comes with which I used for the landscape shots, and I also used the little 300mm zoom I got for it, for taking the bird shots, to the point where I no longer take the big D700 out for work journeys and everyday use. It captures a fair amount of detail, granted that that has to be brought out in Lightroom, but at least it’s in there to begin with.
There are some jobs though that only the D700 can do, and one of those jobs was for me to take some decent photo’s of Phil’s bass guitars. (A commission no less!!) I decided I would shoot each one separately and use a light painting technique. This was a bit of a faff as of course the room has to be completely dark and the room I use is quite small so lots of bumping elbows and knees. I had a black backdrop specially bought on Amazon, it came all the way from china,worked really well and a was a bargain. The photo’s have come out really well, and I am going to do some close ups and arty farty shots to go with, here are a couple of the ones I took.
Fender Jazz ( mexican special edition)~Nikon D700Rickenbacker
and finally my shot for The Sunday challenge~ theme Gadgets….
🙂
I can’t claim originality, I saw a similar picture way back when, and always fancied doing my own version.
And now it’s Sunday night, I’ve burned my fingers cooking Sunday dinner, spilled boiling milk on myself, sigh, but had a lush roast ham dinner. Shelley and Cal came for a visit and Cal fell over and bumped his head in 2 places at once for heaven’s sakes. I don’t think he will be someone who does things by halves, or even singles! Now Phil’s practicing bass lines over a C maj 7th chord 🙂 and I am saying goodnight WordPressiverse,
The reason I don’t nourish my blog so much these days is because of the long hours I work, and the zooming around I do all over the North of England. The past 2 days have been spent in the North West, in the beautiful Lake District, where the autumnal colours are really vibrant and the Lake District is a sight for sore eyes, even if I am zooming past them at 70 MPH! I got chance today to stop and take a couple of pics, and appropriately using my 28-300mm zoom lens to get a shot of the little church by the lake at both ends of the lens.
A long drive for work today, and some lush scenery along the way. And yay that’s my last day of work for a week! Tomorrow I’m going down south to pick up Ben and Lewis and have a few days holiday with my little family, can’t wait! 🙂
A 200 mile round trip today from the east coast to the west, across the top of the Lake District to Whitehaven. Would love to get a client in the middle of the Lakes and mountains, but only ever skirt past them, here they are in the distance, on my way home.
fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe 
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